Midnight by Topher Rhives - Short -  Dante is a unbalanced mortician whose life is turned upside down when he must embalm the corpse of an old high school bully. - html, format 8)

I originally wrote this for Phils writing prompt, but ended up missing the deadline. Reviews are greatly appreciated. thanks

Hey, pretty good read, but why'd you wait so long to submit it?

Anyway, SPOILERS WITHIN
-Good structure, made it easy on the eyes for one
-The dialogue flowed relatively well, nothing too stiff or corny
-Kyle being the 4.0 sports jock that everyone loves who's the bully to Dante, nice description, we all hate those types.
-Now Kyle and Dante were both dead, so how was the employee at Wendy's able to serve them?  Is this one of those things where the world is just as it is so Dante doesn't know he's dead yet?
-Nice conversation between Dante and Kyle about their high school days.  Not too much tension but there's still that feeling of anger there.
-Lastly, the ending could have been interpreted better.  The flasback to the picture in the basement was good, but then Kyle just blabs about the rest of it.  I would have chizzled some of the dialogue or tried to explain it better.

Overall this was an intelligent piece and easy to read.  It kind of had that feeling of confusion, then the regret of Dante losing Linda, then the happy ending.  Pretty good job!

I think I've read this somewhere before... god it sounds familiar. The whole bully thing and just... Hmmmmmmmmm?

Have you posted this before? Is this a re-write?

Let me know.

It was from the first of Dogglebe's writing exercises but was never submitted.  There are 10 other scripts just like this on the site, so that's probably what you're thinking of.

Yeah, oh the computer I wrote this on didn't have internet at the time, and the computer that did doesn't have a floppy drive, lol.

Umm, let's see.

SPOILERS most likely.

I liked this pretty well.  The idea was nice, the characters were nice, and the dialogue was pretty good.  I thought, however, that the story lacked a certain cohesiveness.

They spend too much time just driving around and talking about...well, stuff, before bringing up Linda at all.  I think that in order for the Linda plot to reach its maximum potential in the climax, after you establish the relationship between Kyle and Dante, they need to move right into Linda.  Bring her up at the start, make it more of a point of conflict all the way through.  I agree that the ending was just sort of "blabbed" out by the way, I'm sure you could write some of that a little less on the nose.  

I really like the discussion of their highschool relationship, I like that Kyle has a reason to dislike Dante rather than just pushing around the weak kid, and also that Dante didn't know that.  I think that you slowly move power from one character to the other in a lot of respects, and it works well.  I think you should mention Linda before this, then establish their "rivalry" in terms of other stuff, and then come back to Linda at the end.

But I thought it was pretty well written, good dialogue.  Some of the lines are a little tiny bit clunky, but mostly it read quickly and easily.

I thought that you probably could have played the scene where Kyle first talks a little better.  There was too much dialogue of the top.  For that style of humor, I think conservation of dialogue is important.  I also don't think Dante should just straight out ask why he can talk to Kyle.  Maybe if he just said something like "Wait..." and then Kyle explained.  Personal opinion.

Why'd you use the name Dante?  Is it simply because you're reading/have read Inferno, Purgatorio, or Paradiso?  I'd change it, personally...I didn't see that it had any meaning for the character.  

Good work!

Yeahs, I'm working on a newer, more intense draft.

Just finished reading this.

I thought it was a decent read. More of drama than horror but it's still essentially a ghost story. For the most part, it was pretty well written and flowed nicely too. The twist created a few plot holes however. The basics. Who's driving the car? What happened to Dante's body? How do they get food from Wendy's if both of them are dead? Why do they even stop if neither of them are hungry? Stuff like that. Fix all that and I think you'll be in good shape. Good job with this one.

Just finished this one, Topher. Overall I liked the idea, it read pretty fast and I enjoyed it. There were a couple of things I didn´t like as well, so here are some suggestions.

*SPOILERS*

-Dante's first dialogue lines were too long. Is not advisable to rely on dialogue to move your story forward, specially when the character talks for so long and to nobody in particular (nobody alive at least). If you want to give this information right away, you could write a flashback scene to show Dante's memories rather than have him spit them to the audience.

Or you can conceal this information for a while, and reveal it gradually later. The audience will wonder why Dante burns the papers, takes the body, etc; you build a little bit of mistery in the first pages. Later Kyle asks Dante what the heck is he doing, and Dante explains him (an the audience) why he's doing what he's doing.

-I liked when Kyle talked to Dante for the first time. Unexpected and the story became much more interesting. But Dante's reaction didn't seem real. I would expect him to freak out right away instead of taking a drag and keep talking (that could work on a comedy maybe, which this isn't). Dante gets used pretty quickly to talk with a corpse, I think. I would expect a longer "What the heck is happening" attitude from him.

-If both of them are dead try to loose the bits where they interact with people alive; the twist will make more sense this way.

-Some minor details about format: loose the CUT TO's and CONT'Ds; these are not needed nowadays and add nothing to the story.

I strongly suggest changing "We open to a darkened room" to "A darkened room". You paint the same picture in the readers mind without using "we" which drags the reader away from the story and is very frowned upon.

Despite these I think you´ve got a decent short here. Good job.

Topher,

This is a nice little story that needs some work, but has potential.

SPOILERS:

Now that you've written this out, work backwards.
Perhaps make Dante and Kyle boyhood friends, along with Linda. Maybe a threesome?  Symbolically you imply the threesome angle, On page 12, the guys sit on two of three swings.

Heretic hit it on the nose when he said that LINDA has to be brought up earlier in the story.
Wouldn't Dante want to know about her?

I like Kyle being reanimated.
I liked the fact that he was a H.S. rival, a bully who tormented Dante.

Comments about Dante and Kyle NOT INTERACTING with the living is valid.
Try the "Sixth Sense" thing, where we assume the dead and living are interacting. Be clever.

Because Kyle is a ghost that is trying to ease Dante into this after-world, every bit of his dialogue should reflect his mission.  That in a subtle way, he is working to help Dante realize that they are talking about Dante's life.
There are scenes where Kyle is too evasive.
                        
                                      DANTE
                         Why?  Why?  You blew your fucking
                         brains out.

                                     KYLE
                         Oh, right.

                                     DANTE
                         Can I ask why?

                                     KYLE
                         No, let's just go.

                                     DANTE
                         Come on, it's not going to hurt you.

                                     KYLE
                         I'd rather not.

                                     DANTE
                         Why not?

                                     KYLE
                         It's really none of your business,
                         let's just go.

This bit of dialogue offers nothing.
An example of what you could do that would work better:  

                                    DANTE
                        You blew your brains out.

                                    KYLE
                        Duh.  Why do you think?

This open-ended question gives Dante an opportunity to say why he thinks a person would commit suicide.

I like Kyle asking to have a smoke. That's reflective of Dante's habits.

What doesn't work is when Kyle passes the football to Dante.
Dante makes a nice catch.  But he's no jock.
It should be that Dante passes the ball to Kyle and he drops it.
This would be consistent in revealing  that Kyle is Dante.=

Question.    Under what conditions did Linda discover Dante's body?
She had been widowed for years, but I'm under the impression that she was not with Dante when he committed suicide.

SPIN everything back to Dante.  In the stadium, Kyle reflects back on the cheers, etc.  Dante adds nothing. He should reflect on what high school meant to him.  Maybe he was part of the band.  Maybe Linda was the head cheerleader. Both guys had their eyes on Linda.

This would give you an OPP to bring Linda into their conversation.

Oh, before I forget.
In the opening scene.  I think Dante's discovery of Kyle's body could be done with more drama.
Dante should be clothed.    Make Kyle's body familiar to Dante in a visual sense.
Maybe he's wearing a letterman's jacket.  Something that says high school Maybe the class ring.     This helps us to know that Dante and Kyle were high school classmates.

Also, agreed that there is too much dialogue early on. Some flashbacks might help at key points.

Just personal opinion, but I don't want to hear Linda speak.  We know how she feels.
I kind of like the idea of her being more spectral.
That radiant spirit with a hand extended.  Waiting for Dante to join her.  So they can walk hand in hand into that brilliant light.

Fix these things and your script will work better.   Good luck.