Single Malt by Steve Meredith - Short, Drama - In the closing days of President Sam Mansfield's administration, Adam Sullivan, the Special Assistant to the President, finds himself at a crossroads, uncertain as to what career move he wants to make next.  In one night however, his friend Lily Barnes, a local bartender helps him make the decision.  Along the way, she teaches him the difference between living and existing, while they share a rare bottle of single malt scotch. 13 pages - pdf, format 8)

Quoted Text Lilly Barnes, the Owner and Executive Bartender at "Eighteen Acres," a Washington, D.C. bar a few blocks down from the White House, can be seen wiping down tables.....

Quoted Text Lilly goes over to the door to open it to find Adam Sullivan, the Special Assistant to the President of the United States standing at her door. Adam is an old friend.

Hey Steve: you can' really do the above (i.e., just tell us who these people are). You need to establish these facts either through action or dialogue.

Steve,

Comments sometimes age elegantly.  Or not.

This one is a talking heads script where the dialogue isn't all that interesting.  How many times can she point out he's not living?  How many times can he say he's burnt out by the pace of his success?  The audience bores easily.

The opening announcer doesn't rally matter to the story.  If Adam had come in during the last six months of the incumbent, it would have been the same.  You don't give us an age for Lilly or even a particularly engaging character.  Is she 30 or 50?  I thought she was young, but that wouldn't jibe with Adam's long career in DC.  

And the scotch?  As old as it is, didn't Adam taste the best of the best in his travels with the president?  I'm guessing he sampled food and drink never found in DC.  I'm guessing he sat at special dinners and national parades and all manner of moments Lilly could never countenance.  So, I'm not particularly sympathetic to the essence of this story.  

The dialogue is all right, but it does not sparkle.  There are a couple mistakes, but a good proofreading will fix that.  What can't be fixed is the cliche element of the dialogue.  He suffers from too much work.  She tries to show him that real life exists some place other than where they are.  It doesn't really work for me.

I think you can make this better by inserting some conflict, perhaps a failed love affair between these two.  It simply works too neatly, which is generally boring.  In any case, good luck.

Best
Richard

Hi Steve,

Lots of good feedback already given. I'm gonna be honest and admit that, after realising this script was just one long conversation, I started skimming. Not saying it's that bad or anything, politics just really isn't my thing. The fact that Adam is such a bland and narcissistic character didn't make things easier.

Quoted Text ADAM: Yeah. Lowest offer I've had was 3.5 million a year.

Things like that don't exactly make me sympathise with a character. All through the script he keeps bragging and nagging. "An Embarrassment of Riches" might be a better title.

Quoted Text LILLY: Really? I have to admit Adam, I never thought I'd hear you say that.

They're the only two people in the bar, seems kind of odd for her to say his name.
If you decide to keep it as is then there should be a comma between "admit" and "Adam".

Biggest formatting error is the colon after the characters' names as witnessed in the above two examples. Never seen this in a script. This made it even worse:

Quoted Text LILLY: (CONT'D) Situation Room to share?

Thanks to the colon it now seems like (CONT'D) is part of her dialogue.

Quoted Text ADAM: You know, I remember when I turned 25. I was a young Staff Assistant in Senator David Samson's office. I remember thinking to myself that twenty years from that moment, we were going to be twenty times as productive as we were back then.

I'd try to be more consistent by either choosing to to write numbers out or not.

To make it more of a movie and less of a play, you might want to try compressing this very long conversation to a few pages and add more scenes before and/or after. Or if you don't want to make such drastic changes then perhaps you could add flashbacks. Show more, tell less.

Whatever you do, keep at it.


Sandro

I disagree with Sandro, I love a good narcissist. I don't think narcissistic characters can't be likeable. For example Cartman, Stewie from Family Guy, etc. I don't consider the characters narcissists, anyway. I didn't find the script too interesting, but I didn't dislike it, either. I think there were a couple of small errors, I think you said 'my' instead of 'me', or something like that. I couldn't find them again, as there are better things to do with my time. I did skim it for a while and couldn't find anything, but you might want to proof read it.

Quoted from Simon I disagree with Sandro, I love a good narcissist. I don't think narcissistic characters can't be likeable.

Indeed, but my problem with Adam isn't that he's a narcissist, it's that he's a bland narcissist.
Granted, the characters' depth may have alluded me due to skimming, but somehow I doubt it.