Business Trip by Joseph Cahill - Short - Two men, one young one old, in a motel room... - doc, format

This was disturbing and creepy and you should've let us in on a "little" bit more of the 5 pager "if that" I myself didn't want to read something like this and the worst part... or best in your part cause you are a clever writer in the fact that you masked it pretty well.

I give you credit for your writing. It's very sharp and very inspired. I don't agree with you not sharing a bit more about this script... This site is chalk full of under 18 writers and this disturbs me to a degree cause they don't need to read stuff like this just walking into it... I don't believe so, anyways.

Maybe you should give us all a bit more to bite on... you're a good writer, that means you should be able to craft a sentence or two without giving away your centeral hub story and plot.

Just my two cents.

Again, you are a good writer... I'm not taking anything away from your skill or craft as a writer you just... I dunno... I didn't agree with the script. I suppose you did your job... Shock and disturb. G'job!

Balt,
Wow. It must of been pretty dark to have "disturbed" the likes of you. It is only five pages due to a contest I'm submitting it in. They required a setting in a hote/motel room and between 1 and 5 minutes. That was the reason for the restriction on length. Thanks for taking a look at it, though. Maybe I'll follow your suggestion and give a little more info in the logline. I want people to read it but I don't want anyone to read it thinking it may be something it's not...

CTF,
Thanks for the read. I appreciate the comments.

J

You have nothing here that should offend an average reader too terribly, and I would encourage you not to give too much away in the log line.  The subject is disturbing, sure, but there is nothing grossly inappropriate here.  And at five pages, how much description do you really need?

(Spoiler space)

*  Some technical things:  Your dialogue goes way too far off to the right, and page numbers are in the upper-right.
*  I guess "Middle Age Man" is enough for the older one, but I really think you should give us the age of the younger guy, whom you sometimes call a "man", but at other times refer to as a "boy".  A 25-year-old will give us one type of story, and a 15-year-old will give us something else, you know?  This detail is too important to omit, I think, so give him a definite age.
*  At the end, you have "...freshly scrawled words on the mirror", but no indication of how these words are written.  Soap?  Lipstick?  Something else?  This is a detail that you need to fill in for us.

Good luck with your contest.  Be sure to keep us posted.

If you don't mind my asking, what's the contest?

And that is true... Reading it and thinking it's something that it's clearly not. I feel I've over stepped myself on this one a bit and I do appologize for that.

The content is very um... very... uncomfortable and it would be very hard to convey something like this on paper, or it would for me anyways. I do, again, wanna praise your writing style, it's simply fantastic and very clear.

I would listen to Bert on the SCRAWLING thing, though... and the age of the boy/man is very important. I took him for a boy... I did. Maybe that's why I was so disjointed from it, though.

G'luck with all of your writing ventures, though.

Joseph

I enjoy reading shorts best. Those are the ones that could make it into a film festival somewhere. Your short was routine in my opinion. What I mean is the ending was ho-hum. Heard that story about "welcome to the world of AIDS" a hundred times in other stories. I agree with others that you are a good story teller. With a solid ending that has more imagination might be fantastic. Also, if you actually give your characters names the impact of the story would also be much better. Keep up the writing. I keep the reading up.

Spencer McDonald

Coming Soon: Reckless

Bert,
Yeah, you are exactly right. I was too ambiguous on the age of the younger man and I'll  indicate how the words were written. Thanks for the read.

Heretic,
The contests I found actually on this website. Go to "Contests" section and look for an old post by "Businessfilm" looking for short scripts. They have an ongoing contest for feature length and different short scripts...and it's FREE!!! I sent a short last year for their short contest. Was sent an Email stating I wasn't selected...anyways, glad I posted here before mailing it(had to actually open the envelope!). I know what I should fix before sending.

Spencer,
Thanks for the comments. You know I thought the ending was a little cliched...I may consider changing it somehow. I want somthing similar but not so....ho-hum...I guess. I will also give a name to the older man, at least. Thanks, again.

J

Like Spencer, I heard this story a hundred times.  You could probably find it in snopes.com or urbanlegend.com.

spoiler space!

I don't understand why the young man was crying in the beginning.  I'm thinking that maybe he works with the older guy and could get fired by him.  He was forced into it.  Then I see that it's just a sexual encounter.  A male prostitute perhaps.  So why does the younger guy cry?


Phil

Dogglebe,
I'm realizing that I will, in fact, need to make some adjustments to the ending. About the boy crying, I wanted to give the impression that he was only somewhat willing. Though , we're not sure why he's crying...when I wrote the character I had the idea of a male prostitute in mind hence the initial description. I think making the younger man cry tells alot about the situation without "telling"...

I think making him cry puts him over the top.  Assuming that this isn't his first trick, he should be numb to what's going on.


Phil

I've rewritten the script taking the considerations given to me...you know, it looks and reads better. I gave the main character a name, included a specific age for the young man and changed the ending. Thanks everyone. I took that last line out and replaced it. It didn't change the essence of the story...just made it better(I hope!)The revisions should be up soon.

Dogglebe,
About the 'crying'...did this take away the essence of the story? Do you think it would be more realistic without it? Again, I wanted to show something about the character regarding his partial willingness to do what he is doing. What else could be done to show this?

J

I was under the impression that this kid was forced into the situation.  Hence, the tears.  How about having the two talk a little more before going at it.  Maybe show this way that the kid isn't happy with what he's doing.  Suggest the dangers of what he's doing (without revealing anything).


Phil

Good writing. The topic wasn't really all to creative. But I do like the way you describe your setup scenes. That is very unique and it helps the reader paint a picture (or atleast for me that is).

Good job!

-Andrew

Well you're a very talented writer but the subject is kind of trite.  I'll just say for what it is, it was well done.  It wasn't anything too disturbing unless you're sensitive to that kind of thing(which I'm not poking at, just stating).  

Descriptions of the action were pretty good except maybe the sentence structure could have gone smoother.  And you use "cheap" like 3 times on the first page...check the thesarus or something.  Overall, it was a good read and I wish you luck in the contest!