Kidnapped by Billy Bob - A man finds himself blindfolded and tied up for reasons unknown.  Short, Thriller

The writing itself was pretty good. But I wasn't a fan of the twist. I feel like the writer could've used the rest of that 2nd page to give us a better setup. Or at least a visual setup. Both the setup and twist/punchline are delivered through dialogue. And because the setup wasn't strong, the twist ends up falling a little flat, at least IMO.

-- Michael

Another where a backstory would be better, but alas… at 2 pages we work with what we have. There is a twisty shock value here when you realize his friend is part of his demise, or maybe he has always been, as in his unknown nemesis that befriended him just to get close to someone untouchable. Lots of theories but out of scope for the challenge. It works on the themed level. Best of luck.

Not a bad entry.

Maybe could have fleshed it out a bit more... I'm guessing Josh is possibly his son???

The writing was pretty good.

Writer,

Written well, but the reveal doesn't pack much of a punch. So, his friend is one of the hooded guys? Okay. Who, what, why? Answer those questions, then you have a good reveal. If not, not much.

Steve

It's a solid twist. You had the space to show a lot of the things that he ends up saying through dialogue. To the point where I think you could have set up some bigger reveal if you had filled in the events leading up to his point a bit more. Solid script overall though.

Well there's definitely a twist but it doesn't have much of an impact because there's not enough set up. We only know Josh has betrayed him, but we have no idea who Josh is to him. For me it just feels like an important part of the story is missing.

Your writing could use some work. You don't need any of those parentheticals, they're redundant because your dialog and exclamation points set the tone. You did a good job on your own showing escalation in anger.

"The men stand there silently and do not answer him" -- redundant. Say one or the other.

Use your words wisely.  

Hi writer,

Some awkward writing in places.

There really isn't anything to sink your teeth into here. Stuff happens because and we have no idea what any of it means to anyone. It definitely has a twist but with no context at all it's not really a great payoff.

Congrats on getting an entry it.

All the best.

Terrific vibe with your opening page. You had me right there, but then it kinda petered out.
And, you had a bit more space to fill in the gaps too.

Just needs more with regard to Josh, and the motivation behind it all. Your audience need to know more of what and why, not just Ryan appearing to know with the reveal.
.
Of course a twist would have been if Ryan had a concealed weapon and shot the three unsuspecting hooded guys - after appearing the innocent victim.

Great setup, just incomplete for me.

Nice setup but with no sense of who the hell Josh is or why he is doing this (or in fact who the hell Ryan is), the ending falls flat.

Also, why are they bothering with the hoods if he is blindfolded?

Best of luck

Okay - nice start - twisty end - BUT - motivation/reason is lacking - just something somewhere to give me a sense of why this happened

The 2 page rule didn't help this one. There definitely needed to be some backstory because the reader has no idea why any of this is happening. Even if Josh said something like, "You thought I wouldn't find out about you and her?" before shooting him or even have one of his hooded partners say, "It needed to be done. He was a....."  afterwards would've given the reader some type of idea to why any of this occurred.

Good set up, poor finish. Use the second page to flesh the story out more.
Well done.

The adage 'less is more' doesn't quite work here. I needed more backstory or reference for this to make sense or have impact. Another half a page of information and buildup would've done wonders. Good work, writer.

It's a decent setup, and works well until we get 3 hooded men arriving.

Then I don't think it makes enough sense, i.e. who are the other two men, why is Josh killing him etc

What? It’s a quick story with a twist, but not sure I understand why the guy he was camping with decided to kidnap and shoot him.  Why not just kill Ryan while they’re camping together? I’m overthinking it I know. Writing is solid though.

Well, there was a twist alright, just no story to go with it.

The reveal at the end qualifies as a twist, but we have no idea what the conflict was or how it got to this point. The only slightly sympathetic character ends up as a stain on the wall. I'm not sure the backstory could fit into the remaining space, but the remaining space is just sitting there unused.

The script is missing the FADE IN: and FADE OUT., but unlike most cases it doesn't appear to be a cheat for space. The writing was clear in that I could easily picture what was happening with no re-reading. I just don't know why any of it happened. It'd make an excellent cold opening for a thriller, but in it's current for it's not a story.

Good effort!

A twist for sure but lacks the who, what, where or why to engage an audience.

Good concept. It would pack more punch if we knew something beforehand about Josh.

Not nearly enough info to care.

What's there is good, but, we need so much more for there to be any impact -- something to help us understand the depth of the betrayal. Basically, the why. You had space remaining, I wish you would have used it.

Not enough of a story to take anything from or really a setup to payoff.  There’s a shock of sorts but not much by way of surprise or reasoning to events.  I guess Josh had his reasons, what they are we’ll never know.