Striking Out by Gary Howell - Series - When his grandfather passes away, a struggling actor is forced to choose between his dream of acting, or taking over his grandfather's business. 30 pages - pdf, format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

Thanks Don as always for posting!  But I think I screwed up when checking the proper category for this, as I meant to post it under the "Series" category.  Would you mind moving it there?

Thanks!
Gary

[bert's edit: fixed]

Gary _ I read Act 1

Quoted Text INSERT PHONE SCREEN as Duncan types. DUNCAN (as he types) "Why doesn't Wile E. Coyote take all that money he spends on crappy Acme products and just buy himself a Whopper?" He hits send. Turns off the TV and night stand light. INT. KATE'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM - NIGHT Kate is in bed. Watches the same cartoon as Duncan. Her phone BUZZES. Smiles as she reads Duncan's text. Does a quick reply: "Wile E. Coyote must also be a vampire."

- Either way you do it is fine, but think you should be consistent in  how you handle Duncan's text and Kate's text.

- You don't need "as he types" twice (i.e, not needed after Insert Screen)

- You should have a BACK TO SCENE" before Duncan hits send

Quoted Text Duncan's landlord, Mrs. Delgado, 50s, walks quickly towards him, but he races down the stairs.

Mrs. Delgado should be in CAPS

A bit too many !s for me.

The dialogue between Duncan and Kate goes on a little too long with the same theme and in several places. I think it could be trimmed a bit - it bordered on too much. Same with the late rent issue.

Overall - nice start here. Can see something developing. I liked the job scene and also liked the quirky fact that they were both into old cartoons.  You have created interesting characters.

Hey Dave!  Thanks for taking a look at this!  I appreciate the read and the notes -- I'm still polishing, so the input is very helpful.

On the screen texts, yeah, it's a bit of a head scratcher on how to handle that - the reason I went with two different directions is because in the first instance, Duncan is reading aloud his text, whereas in the second one, we're just reading what she writes.  You're right, though, it probably should be consistent and I do need a "BACK TO SCENE" there.

I like !'s!!!!!!! Yeah, it's probably a bit much.  I'll take a look at that.

You're definitely on point about the dialogue -- should be cut back in certain places, making sure I'm not repeating dialogue and references to certain things.

Thanks again, Dave!
Gary

You're more than welcome - best of luck with it