The Letter by Robin Johnston - Short, Drama - A hunted soldier navigates dangerous terrain and enemy soldiers to deliver an important message to a secluded VIP. 10 pages - pdf format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

Great hook.  Interested to see how it plays out.

Hi Robin,

Some quick thoughts on this.  The story worked enough to keep me invested. Low page count and fairly straightforward concept. There’s a sense of urgency and the mystery of what the soldier is running from and what he’s trying to achieve and later the question of what is contained in the letter.  All good elements.

Ending wise, my gut reaction was to feel cheated out of a proper reveal or twist.  This might work for some who appreciate a level of ambiguity, but it’s hard to pull off.  The other side of the coin could argue it’s a cop-out.  But then I don’t know where else you could take it?  What could be contained in that letter to prompt such a reaction?

Or maybe I’m missing a clue as to what it was all about?

Writing wise, you could stand to trim the fat for tighter, more concise action lines. There may be times you want to draw attention to some detail or the way in which an action unfolds but generally, a good habit to get into is parsing out unnecessary words and redundant phrasings.

By way of example -

The old man goes on his way, staggering back down the
hillside on his own.

The old man goes on his way, staggering down the hillside.

The soldier watches him, then continues on his journey
uphill.

The Soldier watches after him, then continues uphill.

The Soldier DUCKS DOWN out of sight instinctively and takes
out a small pair of binoculars out his backpack.

The Soldier ducks out of sight. He takes a pair of binoculars
from his pack.

He actually hears the muffled sound of GUN COCKING inside.

He hears the sound of a GUN COCKING from inside.

Up to you, but it’ll save a line here and there and make for a faster read.

Think about the logic of what you’re asking us to picture:

There is a pause. The air is unnaturally silent, no birds,
no wind, just that constant distant BOOMING noise.

Can the air be unnaturally silent and have a constant (albeit distant) booming noise?

Lose the exclamation marks in the action!  It doesn’t do anything to heighten the read!

I’d turn off the (cont’d) in the dialogue prompts, rarely needed.

I like these kind of setups and this worked enough to pull me along but that ending wasn’t quite for me.

Or maybe it was? Damn that ambiguity...

Hope this helps. Good luck with it.

Steve