High Rise by David J. McCann (mojomccann) - Short, Horror - Harry's got a collection to make, one he'll never forget. 10 pages - pdf, format 8)

Hi David,

I just came across this one and decided to give it a read.  Ultimately, I thought it was a decent, if uneven effort.  

First, I thought the setup was very good and that's what kept me reading.  I thought you started out very nicely by painting a pretty bleak picture of this decaying, decrept setting.

That said, you kind of lost me a bit in the middle rounds, though I'll admit that I thought that the first flshback where Billy is attacked was nicely done and kind of creepy.

I think the biggest problem you are going to have with this one as currently constructed is that the ending is a bit abrupt.  I think most readers are going to have a lot of questions and are ultimately going to be left wanting more.  ***SPOILERS***  Who/what are the zombies?  Where did they come from?  Are they confined only to this building?  What's he deal with the Bob, is he one of them?

Again, I thought you started out strongly, but ultimately, I was left wanting more.  If you don't want to add more pages to this, I think you might want to consider re-structuring it so that we get more answers as to what is really going on here.

Below are a couple of notes I took while reading.  Nothing major, I just figured I would point them out.

P.3
HARRY
Shit, forgot to charge it last night.

I think you could do without this line.  If you feel that you need it, then maybe just �shit�.  Otherwise I think it comes off as somewhat unrealistic and smacks of too much exposition.  

P. 4

INT. FLAT 17/5 - HALLWAY

It is pitch black, besides a small amount of light passing through the letterbox.

HARRY
Mr. Neilston? Hello are you there?

I�m fairly terrible with slugs, so bear that in mind, but I think you might want to check this one here.  I get what you are after.  Harry is in the hallway and he is peering through the letterbox.  The inside of the apartment is pitch black.  But then you have Harry speaking in the next line, but no new slug.  I think I would just keep this slugline in the hallway and have Harry look through the letterbox.

P. 5

�Harry closes his eyes, drifting out off consciousness�

S/B �drifting out OF�� � also dropped a period at the end.

P. 6

�Billy looks toward the frying pan on the settee�

Ha � nice tough.  Missing a period.

P. 6

�BILLY
Maybe I�m no sorry I hit you then,
hold on how did you get up here?�

Think it s/b ��I�m NOT so sorry��

P. 8

�The man has pinned him down biting and snapping inches from
his face, Billy holds him back by the throat, saliva drips
from the man�s blood stained and scarred mouth, his eyes are
a dead white.�

I think I would break this block up into two sentences.

Anyway, I hope this helps.  As I said, I enjoyed the beginning and think you might have something here, but I think it could use some tweaking to bring it around.  Best of luck.

Craig

Thanks for the read Craig, your comments are very much appreciated, currently working on a full feature version which I should hopefully have up soon.

David,

Congrats on finishing a short, a fine accomplishment, indeed.
i was pretty intrigued at the start, not every day you see a twenty story rundown shack.
The opening dialogue was teasing me just enough to want to continue.
I thought the story sagged after Harry made it into the room.
Billy was not all that interesting in comparison to the rest of your assets.
His presence does not add much to the story for me.
Just when your script should be taking off, it slows down into exposition.
Then having a flashback of something already explained, ground things to a halt.
Some interesting items here and your dialogue is pretty sound.
I'll be interested to see where you take this.

Thanks for posting and good luck with your writing.

Regards,
E.D.

Hey David, just came across this.

Not too bad...not too good.  I think there is some potential here, but you didn't quite pull it off, and the ending is very anti climatic, IMO.

Lots of issues with typos, misspellings, grammar, and the like.  Numerous issues with "its" and "it's".  I can tell you're not American, but the issues I'm referring to are not of that origin.

You seemed to be going for some POV shots, but didn't label them, so they're incorrect.

I don't think your Flashbacks are effective (and I don't personally like how you formatted them).  Going back and forth with present and past doesn't really work for me here either.

Story-wise, well, there really isn't much of one, is there?  It doesn't make much sense as written, as there's just not enough info given for us to care or understand what's going on, what went on, and why/how. Needs some fleshing out...but I wouldn't increase the page count, I'd just tighten up the actual writing, as not much really happens in 10 pages.

But, at the end of the day, I have to give you HUGE props for including Maiden, one of the best bands of all times...easily.

Best of luck with this.

Thanks for the comments guys, will take on board and improve on future scripts