The Companion Shop by John Hunter - Short, Comedy - A lonely elderly woman buys an artificially intelligent companion at a 20% Off Clearance Sale. 8 pages - pdf, format 8)

This is cute, and well-written for the most part.  There are a few formatting problems here and there that a good proofing would correct.  I believe dialogue from Anthony is attributed to Mildred at one point.

The ending underwhelms me, however.  All of the discussion setting up the restocking fee early in the script kind of robs it of its punch later.

When Mildred returns to the shop -- and mentions her problem -- I was hoping for something far darker.  

The triangle between Mildred, Henry, and the new man she has met?  Now there is your real story.

Bert, You are correct. As bold as brass on page one, Mildred is stealing Anthony's lines. In my defense, a certain hasty pudding and lack of professionalism is the hallmark of ALL my work. Of course, the autofill feature in FD is very useful to assist me in this single flaw in my otherwise perfect work ethic. John

John,

I liked the premise, and I was a pretty good read. There were some annoying issues such as your use of caps in some inappropriate instances, but other than that pretty clean.

As Bert, I was underwhelmed with the ending. I liked your set up, it had
me hooked. A good thing. But the ending just fell flat. The payoff wasn't quite there.  

But good luck on this, John. You got a decent story here.

Steve

Steve, Sorry about the CAPS and odd formatting of same -- I'm blaming that on a translation issue of FD to PDF. This has been corrected. As for the ending, I was trying for something, soft and cuddly, or as Bert called it, "cute." I can assure you, you'll find more blood and guts in my current mini-series of horror shorts; THE OTHER WHITE MEAT, DEEP SPACE TRUCKERS and soon to be uploaded, THE NANORG. Thanks for your feed back. John

John,

Don't take these comments to bed.  They're not that good.

Nice little story and good idea.  I think you would get more bang for your buck if you show Henry being jealous.  Anthony has to make a house call because Henry has flipped out.  The way it is, it's only Anthony's word since Henry isn't shown as having fallen in love.  Push that element, and you have a good tale.

Best
Richard