The Option by Stephen Adams - Short, Horror - After refusing to help a Vagrant, a Jogger fears for her safety. 5 pages - pdf format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

No real problems with the formatting here, but there doesn't seem much of a story I'm afraid.

I went back and read it a second time, and when I saw the vagrant was wearing an ex-army jacket, I suddenly saw the potential for a real story to glue the elements of this script together. For instance, what if Julie was the government official in charge of awarding benefits to injured war veterans?.... You can see where it would go from there.

Besides that, much of your description and imagery was fine. Like I say, it just felt a bit like a writing exercise as there was no real point to it. Maybe you were banking on Julie's refusal to give him a shower being a strong enough emotional factor to move the story? I must say, Julie seemed perfectly reasonable to me. I didn't get the feeling she required any kind of comeuppance for refusing to give a crazy person a shower.

Not much else to say. The sad truth is that scripts like this have been made before, and will continue to be made by overeager directors who don't have either the patience or the inclination to wait and find a solid story to film. (I include my own scripts in that)

Hello Stephen,

This was extremely well written. The action sequence, the dialog. Near perfect. Story was just okay for me but I did like the pacing. Not much of a fan of the horror scripts I read on here but this one wasn't bad. Mainly I just want to say how much I admire your writing style.

~Arundel

Breezy writing style keeps it moving.  Julie’s interaction with the homeless vet was enough of a hook to see how this would play out.

Unfortunately, the payoff seems more an act of wanton cruelty than a clever twist or irony.  She offers him money - he refuses.  He asks for a shower - she refuses.  Her concerns are then proved entirely founded when he stalks her before attacking Todd.  Maybe there’s a subtle intent here that I’m not getting?

There’s a lot to be said for the writing but the payoff missed the mark for me.

How does a one armed man subdue and tie another man to a bed?  …Or maybe I don’t want to know…