An Excellent Judge of Character by James O Williams (jwent6688 ) Writing as Rez Trentnor - Short, Erotic Thriller - A desperate woman trying to escape her violent past brings a stranger back to her hotel room.  - pdf format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

While the end of this piece feels a slight bit prosy to me to the point of an un-filmmable ("The façade is over. Her life is over.  She can hear the waves...she can see the palm trees..."") I kind of felt Cassie's plans to set up her estranged husband may have been too elaborate - and I wondered when Gary set up the video equipment. After all, it was Cassie's room, not his.

For this OWC, it isn't a bad effort.
The rest of this is fairly good.

(I'm using the following assessment criteria, and will apply the same to all... is it erotic, is it a thriller, is it low budget and the usual is it any good)

There's a fair few typos that no doubt will be tidied up in the re-draft, but otherwise a well written script.

Erotic, some attempt but not really hot. Thriller, yes nicely twisty, though a little cliche at times (which is hard to avoid in a well trodden genre), and low budget ish too.

Good effort.

I liked the the basic setup and play out of this. The writing was pretty good --

I'm guessing, and it's just a guess -- Gary leaving his phone in the curtains was mere coincidence because I can see no clear experience of his motivations for doing this. If this is the case, then it just felt a bit too convenient. I'm guessing to wrap things up nicely.

Good stuff overall.

Ghost

Hi writer,

Rez Trentnor… Trent Reznor… I take it you’re a NIN fan?

Anyway, yeah, great story, great execution of events, somewhat pushing the envelope, but I’ll go with it – the video that is, in this script it’s like a scalpel, so… boom, Cassie’s fucked; good to know she’ll be bunking with some 250lb ex female wrestler soon enough, googly eyes and all that.

Derek may get his comeuppance as well, probably as an accessory to murder, even though the vid shows him leaving, the DA will probably shoot for manslaughter, maybe, seeing that poor lonely trucker was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Very well done, ticks all the boxes for this challenge.

Whew! The changes in tone really threw me for a loop here.

Some very nice dialogue throughout:

CASSIE
Real cowboys? Yes. Married car
salesmen in Stetson hats? Not so
much.


The two of them lay in
bed naked,
Oh, why don't people get the lie v lay thing?
Yep, broken-record alert, me.

Great line here:
GARY
I hope this isn’t the part where
you ask me to kill your husband.

At this point, I thought, clever girl:
CASSIE
Baby? Baby, I need your help. He
won’t let me go. He hurt me real
bad. I’m so sorry.

Another gem here:

GARY
Well, I hope I can remember it.
Because right now it feels like a
dream and I never remember my
dreams.

Nicely in keeping with Erotic Thriller dialogue.

Wow,  Gary takes a beating... But then, that's not all, folks...

Not at all where I thought this was heading. Was Gary a bad guy? Okay, so he was filming it.

I don't know, I'm on the fence with where this story ended up.
Cassie is classic Femme Fatale. The only flaw for me is that they usually get away with it, and so that was where I wasn't totally onboard.

Also, COWBOY (rotten apple that he is) would have been the better fall guy/stooge imho.

You handled (wrote) the Erotic scenes nicely. And the Thriller aspect was there I think.

Despite my plot quibbles, great job!

The dialogue here was probably its strong point. The whole incident with the phone was a bit hazy the way it was written but I got where it was going.

A little light on erotica, but the thriller part was there. Decent entry.

James

Best dialogue, so far. Very real banter between all the characters. Loved the entire bar scene; could totally picture this in my head. Cassie was a real conniving little B, hey? I'm glad she won't get away with it. You know a story works when you feel bad for the poor schmuck Gary.

Good job, writer.

Loved the twist at the end, never saw it coming. Tight story, great dialogue and rounded characters, a lot to fit into ten pages but I think you managed it well.
Well done.

Okay, outside of a few typos, this was very well written. The dialogue was great, top notch. And I liked the way the characters were written, the dynamic between Cassie and Gary, especially when they meet at the bar.

I had to think twice about the ending to make sure that the logic behind her plan made sense, but I think it did, though slightly convoluted. And I like that she got her comeuppance -- I guess Gary was being a dirty boy and recording it so he can watch it again? At first, I thought he had some other plan, the way he was peeking out the curtains and shutting them. Still not really clear on why exactly he was acting suspicious and then decided to record it. But the dialogue was great and it was easy to look past that.

Nice work! One of the better ones I've read so far!

-- Michael

Writer,

Damn good job here. From the first two pages I knew I was in good hands -- saw everything, felt everything. Descriptive, but not too descriptive. Enjoyed it pretty much all the way through, and a satisfying end. Excellent work.

Steve

Bravo writer - my favourite so far.

Brilliantly written, interesting characters, great plot and satisfying ending.

Not much more to add really other than I would cut down on the Sherrif at the end, his comments about them seeing it no other way and her not picking the right men are no needed and the other dialogue shortened - But I'm being picky now.

Nice work

Great layered dialogue, interesting story, and a really well done ending.
This entry nails the “Erotic Thriller” genre, for me.

This is my favorite. Awesome stuff~

Quoted from DarrenJamesSeeley and I wondered when Gary set up the video equipment. After all, it was Cassie's room, not his.

I may have glazed over this a little too much but he did carefully arrange the curtains as he put his phone down. I’m trying to trick the reader here. It’s really just important to trick the audience on film.

Quoted from LC The two of them lay in bed naked, Oh, why don't people get the lie v lay thing? Yep, broken-record alert, me.

Totally meant to double check that while I was writing it and forgot. I always mix them up. As for your femme fatale? That’s just not what I envisioned. She was desperate and not a trained killer. She made mistakes doing bad things for the right reasons.

Thanks for the reads everyone. It was a fun challenge.

James

Nice. The only gripe I have is why she selected a good one to kill over a cowboy. But I understand u needed that.

At any rate it’s a very good everything, dialog etc. there were a few typos but who cares

Quoted from khamanna Nice. The only gripe I have is why she selected a good one to kill over a cowboy. But I understand u needed that.

Hi Khamanna, I think Libby brought this up as well. I thought about this while writing it and because the Cowboy was married (maybe even has family) she didn’t choose him. She chose the poor guy who didn’t have anyone depending on him at home. That’s why she asks him if he’s got a lady back at home. I agree the cowboy would’ve been more satisfying in a lot of scenarios though. Thanks for the read.

James.

Quoted from jwent6688 Hi Khamanna, I think Libby brought this up as well. I thought about this while writing it and because the Cowboy was married (maybe even has family) she didn’t choose him. She chose the poor guy who didn’t have anyone depending on him at home. That’s why she asks him if he’s got a lady back at home. I agree the cowboy would’ve been more satisfying in a lot of scenarios though. Thanks for the read. James.

Yes, I did.
And James, that makes perfect sense. Unless of course he's a liar. If we see he's lied - perhaps his wife texts him while Cassie's in the bathroom that could add another layer of pathos. Hmm, maybe in the feature length version?  :D

Jay sold this.

- Don

Congrats!

Yay, James!

Congratulations Jay!  8)

Noice! Congrats

Whoop whoop!!!

Congrats

Thanks everyone! I’m excited to see what someone else can do with something I’ve written. I’ll keep everyone posted.

James.

Nice one, James.

Congrats!