Drop Dead by Kenney Ponsaert - Short, Drama - A man, Michael, is tired of the family barbecue so he hides in the bathroom together with his cigarettes. Few family members visit him and then they chat about how much of an asshole that the head of the family, also the bbq handler, really is.     A July, 2006 One Week Writing Challenge Entry - pdf, format 8)

The story was there, but the grammar made it kind of hard to follow at times.

*The grammar is all over the place in this one.  The synopsis is a little screwy too.  I'm guessing another one of our foreign friends wrote this one.  Not that there's anything wrong with that!
*"What's up?" "The sky." hahaha.  I used to use that one when I was alot younger.
*Amy: Chicken always makes me shit.  Nice line!
*Ok, I'm almost certain the writer is from another country because this must be a uni-sex bathroom(is that what they're called?)  There's men and women going in there...and they do their business while talking to Michael.  That's kind of fishy to me, but whatever.

As I said, you got a story here but the grammar kind of takes away from the authenticity of it.  Everybody going into the bathroom and talking reminds me of "The Sims."  You ever play that?  Great game!  So, overall I enjoyed it.  Nice work!

Yeah I like this one too, but I miss more atcion on it...maybe as Michael are chatting in VO with the others inside the bathroom we see what happening in the barbecue party...

Good story!

Very nice. I like it though a few parts could have been better and there was a little problem with grammar. The person who wrote this must be foreign like Greg said.

The story was good. Never really seen a whole film where it takes place in a bathroom the entire time and yes, I thought it was weird that both men and women went into the same toilets, where exactly where they? Hmm...

The writer, whoever you are, also kept saying this in their actions: "A couple of minutes later..." I think it should be seconds later... I wouldn't want to be watching a guy standing smoking for a couple of minutes between each person who comes in and out. :) Still, I liked the feel of this. The ending came too quick for me. I don't think she would have walked into the toilets and say what she said so quickly.

Anyhoo, nice script. I enjoyed it. I'm not sure I've read a single One Week Challenge script that hasn't a person die in it. These darn barbeques are lethal I tells ya!

GBM :D

Maybe the author of this is a foreigner because I didn't notice any grammatical errors and I am a foreigner, haha.

The idea here, wasn't bad. I just think it could've been made a little better. Maybe like Helio suggested, have some scenes from the actual BBQ.

I absolutely hated the "chicken makes me s***" line. I can see a guy saying something like that, but a woman?

FADE IN: should be on the left side of the page.

You used some words I've never heard of "embonpoint", "micturating". My suggestion would be to use normal words so the reader doesn't have to go look it up.

You managed to tell a fairly good story in one location and using only dialogue. I guess that's how it's supposed to be done. Seems like I remember George saying something like that a while back about drama. I did the opposite and it didn't turn out that well.

Good effort!  :)

Micturating? Seriously, use a common word. This is screenwriting, not the next version of War and Peace.

So we have some guy sitting in a bathroom waiting for his girl to show up. While there, he has some discussions with the people who pass by. I'm not sure what this is supposed to be building to though. The end is a bit of a shocker, but it didn't mean much.

In the end, I'm kind of left flat. What could have helped? More involvement. If the conversations remained focused on one single topic and progressively built that topic to the conclusion (perhaps, with Michael deciding to finally go down and talk to the old man), then it would be more poignant, but instead, it felt like a lot of randomness leading to nothing. Sure, Michael's plan was to wait until Sara shows up and then go down. She shows up and it's too late. Ok...so? Then what?

It just ends kind of flat for me. I understood all the talk about dear old dad, but it didn't lead anywhere.

this one was a little wierd, no barbecue in it really, they just talk about it so it kinda just skimmed the theme.

                                       AMY (O.S.)
                         Chicken always make me shit.

That line did not work for me, seemed, I dunno, just put there for a cheap laugh.

You did have a twist at the end which was kinda cool so I'll give you that.

anyways, this is not my favorite, but good luck on future writing :)

This one was okay. Like Jordan said, that one line didn't really fit for me. There were some spelling/grammar errors, but all was okay. I liked it, but it wasn't the best I've read.

But I've come to the conculusion that Jim has special killing powers. :D

Sean

The bar-be-que is there (we don't see it but someone mentions it) and the drama is there since this family has problems. But somehow I think this still needs a lot of work.

By having Michael hiding in the bathroom, you're hiding him from the conflict as well. We just get pieces of information from secondary characters. The dialogue only delivers exposition, there isn't any conflict in Michael's exchanges with the others.

You should get Michael out from the bathroom and make him interact with the character he wants to avoid. There you'll have a stronger conflict involving your protagonist, which the audience will be able to experience first hand rather than hearing it from secondary characters.

And the heart attack seems to come out of nowhere. A little bit of foreshadowing will surely help.

I didn't much care for this one. There was barely any story here. Just a couple of people bitching about how they hate Jim's girfriend's dad is (he needs a name I think, BTW). I thought the dialogue was poor as well. I don't think grammer was the problem. It just sounded kind of childish to me. There was seemingly no direction to where the conversation went and before anyone could make a point about anything, the subject would change. The only thing that remained borderline consistent was bringing up the guy everyone hates. I'd change one character's name as well. You got Jim then you got Jimmy. Confusing if you ask me.

Anyway, I think this one needs more than just a little tweaking. I wouldn't exactly call it a mess but it has problems nevertheless. So as not to be completely negative, I'll say good try but I still think this needs a lot of work.

It was good. The ending made my chuckle. There were a few parts that could have been different. Like you didn't have to write certain things. It didn't do much for me. Seemed as if you put no effort into it. All and all. 3 out of 10 stars. Keep trying.