Off the Record by Deep Throat - Short, Horror - A ambitious reporter makes a shot-in-the-dark call to a suspected murderer. - pdf format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

I liked this one.

Sometimes things are just better left alone.

Suspenseful for only a few short pages and a nice ending(which i won't give away)

The writing was solid as well.

Good job on entering

Hmmm...another entry that stretches the parameters of the challenge. It's going to be difficult to score this entry since it may not work as well, or at all, without the visuals. Tough indeed.

For instance, the crunching on the phone. It's easily remedied by the person saying "Do you like peppermints? I adore them. Can't get enough of them. Sometimes my work...smells. It helps with the smells." Makes it creepier too.

Kudos for entering - Good luck.

Apart from having a phone call in it I don't think this fits the parameters.

But I liked the story, you managed to make Key menacing in a very short page count. Well done.

I liked it. Good creep factor. Could definitely be told with fewer visuals to better meet the challenge. But, still, it's got a nice, consistent dark tone.

Consider tying the first call to the ending a bit more strongly. For example, if Key gives up a bit of information in the first call, then the second call/visit has more purpose: he's got to tie up a loose end he created.

Well done. Thanks for sharing.

Well written story and a nice twist. Too many visuals though.
Well done.

It was a good story, but obviously skirted the challenge by having action blocks that you could only visualize, not hear. I feel like you could do this short very easily without visuals at all and make it very effective.  Good idea and best of luck with it.

Gary

I really liked the build up for this, it was getting super spooky.

The associate thing felt random, and it got a little too visual towards the end.

Good stuff~

Interesting.  

I think after a rewrite this will turn out to be a great little script.

I liked the shadow aspect.

Overall, not bad.

Okay – we are opening with a bunch of visuals……….

And……… more visuals as we continue …. Not a good sign parameter-wise.

And – some more.

Okay – the story and the writing were fine – even solid, IMO. But this reads like a regular visual script with one of the parties on the phone – unseen – and the primary party – seen.

I dunno…..

Another that's strong on the visuals. Doesn't meet the challenge for me, sorry to say. That said, I still enjoyed this one quite a bit. Really interesting and creepy story here. :)

Writer,

Off the record, I gotta admit I liked this one a lot. There were some visuals thrown in, but not enough to make me roll my eyes. But the one thing that kept going through my mind was that this is creepy. Just... Creepy. Very good job.

Steve

Hi writer,

Quoted Text FADE IN: INT. KITCHEN - NIGHT On the table: a fresh notepad and day-old takeout. Chinese.

You fade straight into a visual :/

Quoted Text is delicate Mr. Key

is delicate, Mr. Key

Comma needed when addressing someone directly in dialogue.

Quoted Text But you caught me at a vulnerable moment: Mid-shitface.

Great line, gave me a chuckle :)

Pretty decent writing on display, but this is another that is too visual heavy IMO, especially considering there shouldn't be any.

I liked the idea of this but think the execution could have been better.

All the best.

The story is mainly told via two people talking via a device so this meets those parameters. There are some visuals you couldn't get across as they are with sound, but with some tweaking to the dialogue and SFX and you could.

A straightforward Hitchcock style thriller, but it works well.

Hi Writer

Well, I am going to buck the trend of the previous comments and say that I wasn't that much of a fan of this.
Sure you got across the creepy and the intro of the assassin was good. But you really missed the "why" for me.
A wife and 4 children go missing, this would be a big story that countless journalists would have tried to get the scoop on over the years, does this guy just kill any journalist who asks a question?
Why would he risk another murder for a two-bit journalist?
It was easily solved, the journalist has uncovered information others haven't or Key accidentally said something whilst shit-faced in the first call... but neither of those things happened so the whole sly-way of killing him was just weird.

A lot of the atmosphere was put across with visuals, so I think the boundaries of the parameters are pushed a little too far for me.

Best of luck

KEY (V.O.)
Well, I'm shitfaced.

Lol. I like this guy already.


Okay, that was pretty good. A little too obvious what was gonna happen when he said to meet him out back. But then you added a decent twist. Overall not bad at all.

His molars pulvarize hard peppermints or raw walnuts or the
knucklebones of his long-lost kin.

Some nice lines. But, you know...

Why come after him? Lucas knows nothing... Unless I missed something? If Key had slipped up while shitfaced I'd get it. He's got away with the crime all these years so a confession of sorts out of nowhere doesn't gel for me.

Great tone. I enjoyed it, but it's not adding up narrative wise for me.
Could definitely utilise lots of creepier audio for this.

Hi writer,

Had all the elements of a taught, psychological thriller in just a few pages. Always that damn investigative journalist that just can’t seem to keep their pen in their pants and wants dig up the sordid memories of everyone’s past. Well, he got his final scoop… the dumbass.

Could make for something intriguing if you build a backstory on the murders and flesh it out, but psychological thrillers are a dime a dozen, and if a character isn’t as 3D as Hannibal Lecter nowadays, it goes right into the bargain bin. Good job, Best of luck.

This story is jumped and juked for me (even wise) too many times loosing me from time to time.
As a result I wan never invested, it's would just loose my attention. It confused me on the first read btw. Then I got who the killer was. I wonder what he did it for though

But it's atmospheric and there's a great flow to dialog. In fact, the dialog is near perfect.
At the same time it's too many visuals.

Disliking reporters is really not enough motivation to kill them, so I think Key needs more reason to kill him. Unless Key is a serial killer, then no more reason than an annoying call is necessary. As for the Associate, he’s just a complication you probably don’t need in an audio drama.

On the record, read it, but I'm not weighing in on the pages - I think our esteemed colleagues did a great job of that. Seconded.

Best of luck,

Ghost

Well written, good tension, great dialogue, and great...visuals. Yeah.

I think this could be even more suspenseful without the visuals. It's all in the dialogue, the visuals add a lot of flavour but it's just that, flavour. So I think it still fits with the spirit of the challenge. The non-dialogue action can all be done with sound, and that's where the ending would really shine with no visuals I think.

It's really solid, well done.