Errands by Hank of W - Short - Tim has a job interview and his mom has some errands to run, I think. 7 pages - pdf, format 8)

Hi Hank,

I enjoyed this. Good crisp writing, compelling storyline and a nice payoff.

A couple of format issues, missing the odd full stop (period).  

One part where you write, ' they have been smoking weed as well', past tense and not really film able.. Perhaps a have a bong next to them or red eyed munching on snacks or suchlike, to show and not tell

But a good job.

Cheers

Chris

Chris, thank you for the read and your comment, it's very valuable for me to improve. I will work them into my rewrites.

Hank,

Some notes.

Nice job.  Good use of misdirection.  I'm not sure there's a hero here to root for, but that's me.  All in all, it does what it's supposed to do.  

Best
Richard

Good read.

The twist was really good. Thought it was Tim and Daquan, the twist was legit. The characters were clear and had individual personas, made for a slick read. Def keep it up, this one was entertaining.

Thanks all for the read.

Richard - you are right, as there's absolutely no development of my characters, one might say this is purely plot driven.

13thChamber - Since "Daquan" is pretty much a troll name, I was worried someone might suspect the twists on page two. I actually deleted a page about Daquan's hustle to cut down on the length.

I enjoyed the read. Really hope it gets optioned. Very good use of misdirection.

Hey Hank,

Loved it, really good read. The relationship between Mom and Tim is perfect, and Mom is brilliant in my opinion.

Spotted a few typo's/formatting things:

Page 1 - On the walls hung Tim's Ivy League diploma among playboys and movie posters - probably re-word, maybe "Tim's Ivy League diploma hangs on the wall, surrounded by Playboy and movie posters".

Page 2 - You still have “ that” ? - Some extra spaces, maybe scrap the inverted commas and go for italics "You still have that?"

Page 2 - Mother I like to... - I could be wrong, but I think it's "I'd" rather than "I", sounds like a confession right now. I'll let you check that one on google, if I type it in I might struggle to explain it to the missus if she checks the internet history.

Page 2 - Tim is in a crispy white shirt - think it's "crisp" rather than "crispy"

Page 3 - Mom pushing a cart - change "pushing" to "pushes", I've been well informed it's a good idea to avoid 'ings, and therefore past tense issues.

Page 3 - The teenager Grocer - change "teenager" to "teenage"

Page 5 -  party kit with - change "kit" to "kits"

Page 5 - So how did you interview - change "you" to "your"

Page 6 - finna fly off - change to "gonna fly off"?

Page 6 - He got an interview - change "got" to "had"

Just some little things I spotted. The main thing is the piece, and I really liked it.

Great work

Cam

Waleed, hi, thanks for your encouraging words, makes writing more fun for me.

Cam, it only showed how much I don't know about this craft, thanks for all the time you took to point out, those are very glaring mistakes that I made, except maybe one, the word "finna" is just an urban way to say "going to, fixed to", I just thought it was cool to say that.


Thanks again.

Haha probably showing my age with "finna", obviously ain't gangster enough.

Also don't worry about the mistakes, I've well and truly still got my L plates on so I'm definitely no expert. Just listen to and talk to these beautiful people round here and they'll help you as much as they've helped me I guess.

LOL, interesting logline, I think.
I liked your writing a lot, especially the dialogues are fun.

One technical thing on page 1: A flush upstairs and Tim walks down the stairs - I would separate these two actions, otherwise there will be 10 seconds or so pause. You can have the flush upstairs, then Tim's mum checks the papers on the fridge, and then have Tim enter.

The revelation is very clever! I loved the contrasts such as Tim's mum doing the errands while her husband is a bank robber.

Marcela, the way you do it is definitely better and makes more sense, thanks.

Mom and dad are both on the heist, part of mom's "errands" is being a get-away driver (in her family wagon nontheless). The map on the fridge was a marked escape route. The logline was an afterthought, it just happened to echo some of the dialogue, which is neat, i think.

Thanks again.

Quoted from SKN Mom and dad are both on the heist, part of mom's "errands" is being a get-away driver (in her family wagon nontheless).

I may have to read this now... the bank robbers/robbers I've met, and it's a lot, use stolen cars to do their jobs. The really smart ones buy a used car in a fake name especially for the job. It'd be a dumb robber that uses their own car. The reason for that is that it can be easily recognised by witnesses. Then police search out CCTV along the route the robbers took (again derived from witness accounts). Not just CCTV used by stores, but also domestic CCTV cameras. It only takes one to get a decent shot of the suspect(s) inside the vehicle.

OK, after reading it, it isn't clear that the parents did the bank robbery at all, let alone using their own car in the getaway.

On the news, the bank was surrounded by armed police. How did the dad get out of there?

There're are a few issues with the writing along with some bad grammar and punctuation. I can point out a few things if you want to know.

Thanks for the read Dustin, and yes, you are right, it's not clear that the parents did the heist, I will try and put more hints in it in the future. All legit reasons you raised, the private car and surveillance. I will try and figure out. Thanks again.

Hank of W, this was an interesting read.  I liked the misdirection with Tim and he definitely came across as a typical young bum (waster).  I'm not sure how his dad got away though? If of course it was his dad?

I think you missed a trick though, Tim could have been at his interview with the bank that got robbed ;)

Alffy, thanks so much for the read, and I did like your trick of father and son in the same building, when I wrote it I thought about it but that'd imply the son had something to do with it (which was never my intention), but since now you brought it up, I could use it as to show how ruthless Dad is by doing a heist at his son's future employer even though his son didn't know about it, ha, that'd be brilliant, thanks.  But again, maybe they were in the same bank, who knows? Time, floor, etc.

To answer your first question, at the beginning I put a map on the fridge as part of Mom's "errands" (being a getaway driver, not the chase kind), and at the end of the day she waved it to dad's face saying it's not marked clear enough so she missed one of her other errands (dry clean pickup), and at the end of the script, they talked about their haul (which is the take from the heist), I hope that answers your question. I will have to make some change to it. But the thing is I wanted to write it short and sly.

Thanks again alffy.