Perspectives by EMB - The embers of despair prompt a desperate woman to action.  Short, Drama

I had to read this a couple of times but then it clicked. I initially didn't know what the significance was of Jessie torching the warehouse but that's where he's dumped the body, yes?

The problem here is we don't know who Jessie is or why he's doing this for Beth. A client I presume, that's fell for her? I think this would need a page or two more to flesh out their relationship.

As for the hammer at the end, did she grab it because she's going to kill Jessie? Weird if so, if she can kill someone why didn't she kill Ryan? What might be a great little Basic Instinct moment is if we see Beth reach for the hammer at the beginning when she's straggling Jessie, then we see the story and at the end she grabs the same hammer from the basement so we know what's going to happen.

Well, that was dark....

I got lost timewise several times - had to re-read to get my bearings.

Meets the parameters for sure, but I am still searching for a point to the story.

I had re-read this not coz I didn't understand what was happening but to find out what is the point of the story. I failed to find it. After finishing this I felt it was incomplete. I mean, Jessie just decides to murder someone out of the blue? And that too for someone he probably doesn't even know. And what was the purpose of the opening scene? Jessie just lets Beth to inflict pain on him. Maybe coz she went through it and he wants to redeem it in place of Ryan. But, why?

I suppose this one is out of my league. Others will understand it better. And sorry for my rant there.

Good luck.

That’s one bizarre, twisted love triangle, with lots of tobacco products. So, we have a parasite that abuses a woman, whores her out for what must be copious amounts of cash (being that S&M fetish Johns usually pay well for that kind of shit, and the ‘most likely’ unscripted gag-order that comes with the territory), but is unaware that one of her customers is really into the pain and murder aspect of it… guess if you go banging on Satan’s door long enough, someone will eventually answer.

The time frames are spliced together well, each layer fully weaved with its own flavour of debauchery, and the burning of Ryan via a cigar and accelerant was a great way to sew things up, I like it because it’s dark and disturbing and someone made a bloody mess of an expensive bedsheet, or it wasn’t, it doesn’t matter, this works well for the challenge. Best of luck.

The format both helps and hinders here, I think. On the one hand, it's a straight-forward damsel in distress story with her knight in black leather slaying the dragon keeping her a prisoner in her tower of kink, and the time jumps help keep it interesting. On the other hand, the back and forth jumps were confusing at first since they had almost no context to inform where they land in the chronology of events. I had to go back and re-check headings to figure it out. That last time jump is the most confusing, it's out of place as an ending, jumping to the exact middle for no reason, except perhaps simply as a statement: because you can, thanks to the format.

I don't get the title, it doesn't seem to have anything to do with perspectives, but maybe I'm missing the obvious. The ending made this lukewarm for me, it should have been a button of some sort, some reason why that scene came at the end. Maybe that's what I'm missing as well.

Bravo for writing something different with a bit of kink.

I'm not sure the non-linear narrative did you any favours in terms of it being easy to follow, but then maybe that's it's charm.

Question mark needed below:
BETH
Is it over.

Does killing him solve her problem, or just create a new one?  They're in that cycle I presume of not being qualified for any other work apart from call centres - but at this stage at least that doesn't involve murder.

...the coal­red wink of a cigarette
illuminates two naked figures,

I'm not convinced that would provide enough illumination.

I felt you skirted around a lot of the story here which meant my main problem was feeling any real empathy for the characters. It really needs some fleshing out. I'm aware of the pun there.

So, the client ends up saving her?

I liked this a lot because it was a different kind of slice of life story, but you left me wanting more in regards to clarity and getting behind these characters. I need to feel for their plight.

Again, thank you for bringing something new to the table, so to speak.

Well, no surprise what was gonna happen here once we saw what a dick Ryan was and we knew Jesse torched a place and tossed a hammer.

Maybe shift some scenes around so it's not so obvious what's going to happen. And show some kind of connection between Jessie and Beth I think. Even though Beth was an abused woman, I didn't feel the sympathy for her that I should have. You definitely need to flesh her out some more.

First slug..."soft lit" belongs as a description in narrative block. There are some question marks missing.

That was different. I had to go back to be sure who was who (Ryan v. Jessie) as they were (to me) somewhat similar. If it didn't mostly take place in the dark, I might've been able to keep it all a little more clear. Nice work.

These people need ashtrays.

I wish there were one more element to make the events a little more surprising. As it stands, it's a simple story of knocking someone off and hiding the evidence. There's barely conflict.

Still, kept me interested the whole time. Nice job.

Hmm... the writing was a little awkward at parts. And why is Jessie doing this for Beth? All we know about him as that he likes getting burned by cigars. It's missing character depth.

This was a decent effort, though I'm not sure if the timeline jumping around really benefits the story in anyway. Yes, I know that was the challenge for Round 3, but it doesn't seem to serve a purpose in this particular story.

-- Michael

Huh. That was weird. Not sure I fully understand it, but I appreciate the writing and the attempt to do something different. Just kinda hard to connect with any of these characters.

Good effort.

Hi Writer

Quoted Text INT. DARK BEDROOM ­- NIGHT Dark.

That second dark might be unneeded

I think this is one that would probably benefit from being told in a linear way after the challenge, I don't think nonlinear benefits it at all.
For this to work better I think you need to build the characters up better, To get behind Jessie and his actions saving Beth from an abusive pimp I need to know more about him, and Beth for that matter, at the moment I don't feel anything for them.

Best of luck

So, Jessie kills Ryan, Beth lifts the hammer and gives it back to Jessie so he can throw it in the corner of a warehouse beside the burning remains of a murder victim. Hope they wore gloves. Pretty straightforward premise, no problem with the story but the writing needs tightening up in places.
Well done.

This is a nice, tidy revenge story as someone escapes a really bad situation. I'm sure this could be shot in a way that avoids SimplyScript's ban on pornography, but it's not spelled out in the script itself.

Jumping back and forth through time doesn't seem to add much to the story, but doesn't detract from it either. I also don't see the relevance of the title, but I suck at OWC titles, too.

One quibble: The scenes on page 4 definitely are not CONTINUOUS, but they may deserve some special kind of transition.

Good effort!