Prom by Nick Miranda (nick_horror) - Short, Comedy - A quick look at one of the worst Prom dates ever.  It all starts when Sandy's date sends his Grandma to pick her up. 11 pages - pdf, format 8)

mmm ,,. I dont think there are a lot of funny thing is the story. And perhaps the scan is not that funy. I dont know what motivates Sandy to "cheat" Greg. But when I see the loglines, ... perhaps I miss something. Perhaps bacause she angry because greg doesnt pick her himself. But I dont see that she is.

I'm not really a fan of generic titles like this, but I thought I'd give your script a read anyway.

There was an instance where you mixed up "Your" with "You're".  Easiest way to fix this is when you're editing your script, press "Ctrl" and "F" and type in "You", then you just check every single one and see if it matches with what you're trying to say.  Also you have "Looses" instead of "Loses"(page eight) and there might of been a couple more, but I lost track of them.  

Is there more than one prom?  I thought I'd ask because at my school we only had the one in grade 12.  

I think the grandma on the porch reveal would of gotten a laugh out of me if I hadn't read it in the logline.  I know I probably would of laughed if I saw it on-screen for the first time, but this is just a reminder not to give too much away in your logline.  You want to give the reader just enough to want to see what happens and I think you did that with just, "A quick look at one of the worst Prom dates ever."

I think it'd be funnier if Mr. Grapple tried to subtly -- but since he's drunk it won't look that subtle -- tell Greg that his date is hot.

The Olive Garden bit was pretty funny.

Grandma calls her "Cindy" a couple times.  Not sure if it's intentional or not because she never tries to correct her; however, if it is intentional, I think she should try correcting her a couple times, but have her just keeps calling her that.

The whole time I felt sorry for Sandy and then she ditches him at the end and I was like, "Wow, what a bitch."  The ending didn't do it for me.

So, long story short: Your formatting was top notch for the most part and the story had its  moments; however, there were some instances where you might of tried too hard for a laugh and others where you missed out on an easy one.  Score-wise, I'd say it's about a 3.5/5.

Hope this helps!  I'd love to write more, but the window for my online poker tournament keeps popping up and being distracted with this review is making me go on tilt.

Hey Nick,

Very good job of describing the setting, like with Sandy's room, the Grapple hatchback and the Grapple house.  You certainly conveyed the idea well that the Grapple's were slobs.

There were quite a bit of typo's, though.  Especially for something that's only ten pages or so, there should hardly be any mistakes.

EXAMPLES:  You say Motley Cure instead of Motley Crue.  (And not so sure anybody would have the heart to hang a Motley Crue poster next to a New Kids poster.)

You say 'You're ride will be here...' and it should be 'Your ride will be here...'

I'm not too sure if you meant for Grandma Grapple to call Sandy Cindy on more than one occasion.

On page eight, you have Sandy say "I'm a hurry".  Should be 'I'm in a hurry.'


All in all, this wasn't too bad for a simple story.  I think you missed out on a chance for a lot of funny things to happen, though.  In my opinion, there weren't very many funny things at all and even the way it ended was kind of like a drama, with Sandy ditching him.  She seemed likable the whole way through, and that really seemed out of character for her to do that.

- Mark

I sent in the wrong draft...I saved an earlier draft as a PDF and the final draft as a different title.  I forgot about the new title and sent in the earlier one.

I suppose I should have listed this as a dark comedy, since I told it in a serious manner, but when I heard these stories and amalgamated them, I thought they were funny.  Maybe it was different styles of prose used to convey the narrative.  The whole point was to force the sympathy for Sandy.

I thought it was revealed through Sandy's actions that she was too polite to correct Grandma Grapple for getting her name wrong.

I'm glad you felt sorry for Sandy at the end.  That was the point.  As for her final actions being out of character: again, that was the point.  We saw her go through these embarrassing situations and hold it in and finally blow like a bottle of soda that has been shaken too much.

Okay, enough of me explaining.  What do I do to fix the narrative issues?

Since the grandmother uses the wrong name so often, I'll address that first.  Maybe if I have Sandy's mom remind her to be polite, "no matter what?"  Would that allow for her silence when the grandmother uses the wrong name?

Also, there seems to be a consensus that the ending needs work.  So what, besides her actions being out of character, needs work?

Quoted Text I thought it was revealed through Sandy's actions that she was too polite to correct Grandma Grapple for getting her name wrong.

Actually, I think my problem was that it seems like she doesn't even notice that the grandmother is calling her Cindy(there's nothing in the action explaining this, she just immediately steps forward and says, "Hi.").  That's why I thought it was originally a typo.

My problem with the ending is that it's not so much funny as it is cruel and, like you said, out of character.  We feel sorry for her the entire time and when she does that at the end, we're all like, "Well, I guess that bitch kinda deserved all that earlier crap."

If you need me to, I'll try and go a little more in-depth.  

The reason I chose this ending is because that's what really happend--or so I was told.  Like I said: this girl put up with a lot of crap and did it all with a smile, so when she was out of the car it was like a bird from a cage--a chance to escape--and she took it.  I see it as just deserts for the date, but I'm the writer so I'm biased.  

How can I maintain the feeling and have it make sense to the reader/auidence?