Breaking Eggs by Darren J Seeley - Short, Thriller - About to be released from a psych ward, a young woman finds that someone doesn't want her to leave so soon. 26 pages - pdf, format 8)

DJS,

Good job on the thriller.  I like this better than your Forced Donation, primarily because the characters are more real.  I think the extra page count helped.

Things I Liked

Jill’s confusion.

Jill’s struggle at the end was very well done.

Interesting twist with the psycho patient pretending to be a nurse. Seems familiar but worked out okay.

Things I Didn’t Like

(Most of these comments are style oriented)

Use of periods in your slug lines.  Use the a dash after sanitarium.

The use of one line action fragments, I felt it was a little over done and mildly annoying.

The use of colons in your writing is unusual.  Most writers for some reason don’t use them. Most use dashes. Not quite a full stop.

Henley’s indignation at the end read a little choppy and self-righteous.

Title didn't mean a thing to me.

Gary

Quoted from grademan DJS, Title didn't mean a thing to me.

Thanks for reading Gary. I actually couldn't think of a title six months ago. The best I could up with at the time was a metaphor for the mind.

Hey Darren,

Seems you have a trend of medical type thrillers going on here.
I like Jill, she works, the dialog with Sandra is too on the nose for my tastes.
I like what you're trying to get across there, just not how it was said.
Perhaps some suggestion of past delusional states for Jill would help there?
I'd like to see the Nurse Elides identity question amped up more, that might help.
Nurse versus patient is kinda yawn for me, I feel more Sandra would be better.
Sandra representing the reality question and both are confronted by Elides.
While your conflict is well written, it doesn't deliver dramatic punch for me.
Trepidation by Jill about leaving coupled with reality questions is very compelling.
To put her delusional demons to bed she must save Sandra from Elides.
Nurse Werra and Lance don't contribute much to your story.
Henley sounds like a douche, Jill deserves a better ending.
The mood you create here is effective and I want more of that creep factor.

Fine work, look forward to more medical mayhem!

Regards,
E.D.

Hey Darren,

I think you did a very good job of creating a very tension filled story with a limited number of pages.  I immediately liked Jill and thought she was developed in a way that made me to get a good sense of who she was and make me to care about her.

I like the way you set up the atmosphere and constantly moved the story forward at a steady pace.. It reminded me of certain scenes from Shutter Island. Nice unexpected twist and a satisfying ending too.

The one thing that bothered me was how you broke up every little action element and put them on a separate line. I felt like it broke up the rhythm somehow.  I think it's maybe because I had to shift my eyes downward too fast. It was too succinct. It almost felt like each action was a thing in itself, instead of something that the character was doing.

I hope that makes sense. It was my only major complaint. Overall, I enjoyed your script. Good job.

Darren,

This one took several different turns and, admittedly, I didn't see a couple of them coming.  I very much liked the way this started with Jill's impending release and then her initial confrontation with Nurse Elides.  It was around the part where Elides starts with her hate speech that I felt this lost some steam.  The question we're left wondering while reading is who's the psycho here?  Is it Jill or is it the nurse?  Initially it seemed Jill had this fantasy going on in her head of her release, but when Elides started going psycho-bitch it became pretty obvious that maybe she's not a real nurse.  I think actually right from when she started threatening Jill it was obvious, since no nurse would ever do that.  The problem with that is it was still early in the story and for the next several pages we're just coasting along.  

Fast forward to the ending and the revelation of Elides' identity as an escaped patient - that's really cool.  I mean, it's creepy and it's a good idea, but I think the execution on it could be better.  For example, keep her character subtle rather than sending her into psycho-bitch immediately.  It builds more suspense and keeps us guessing as to who's who.  And the nurse-nurse fight dragged.  We knew Werra for about a page but her fight lasted about double that.  The blood imagery was good and although I still think Elides' insanity was obvious early on, you really got down the psycho-bitch well.

Overall I liked what I read.  I think going back to the middle action and retooling those areas will do wonders.  Nice work.

Greg

Thanks for your comments, Greg.