Shaun by Humpetty Dumpetty - A man lying in the sand faces the biggest challenge of his life.  Short, Drama

Quoted Text A figure steps forward, towering over him and reaching down. A deep male VOICE resonates over the noise causing the murmuring to cease. VOICE (O.S.) Don’t touch him. The figure steps back.

I got confused in the above passage – wasn’t sure if the deep male voice was different from the VOICE or whether it belonged to “the figure.”

I do think you could have benefitted from some SUPERS telling us where we were time-wise. I had to make some assumptions that I think could have been laid out more clearly. For example, the Humvee attack – it could have happened before the bar scene with Polly or afterwards – so bearing wise, I had t make an assumption.

This

JOE
Almost there, a year of rehab has lead to this, make your wife proud, make your son proud and make me proud.

Is WAY too on the nose/expositional.

As was this:

Quoted Text SHAUN I kept my promise, a marathon, the biggest challenge of my life

And it keeps going that way – your characters are exchanging information for our benefit – which makes the dialogue unnatural – people don’t tell each other things they already know.

Okay – done. Challenge met for sure.

The story – I thought it was brilliant. What a great premise! The dialogue though is really, really expositional in some places just taking me right out of the read. Perhaps that was due to the limited page count. Take another swipe at the dialogue and I think you will have something special.

Enjoyed this, especially the Shaun and Polly bits. Makes the payoff really nice. Nice writing.

I enjoyed this. Nicely done.

Consider ending it one scene earlier. I feel like you accomplished everything you needed to story-wise without it.

That was really good. Thought the order of the scenes was perfect. Got no suggestions. Great work!

Yeah, pretty much good to go re the story, there's a few scripted bits of dialog that are dripping with OTN fromage, but I have a box of crackers here, so… nom nom. Released just in time for Memorial Day, it seems to hit all the right bugle notes.

I’m just wondering if the marathon itself needs to be held in a desert, seems like a really crappy place to have a picnic. With the right camera angles, close-ups ect, the family gathering/race event could easily be set in a large field (I'd like to think it's a family picnic and not the Burning Man), just thinking out loud. Good set up, and a heartwarming payoff. Best of luck.

Overall reaction is this hits home and makes a lasting impression story-wise.

I think you could cut back on some of the over-protesting lines from Shaun to Polly at the start. Edit out a couple of those lines in the Club scene, cause really he's just saying the same thing but in another way. And when it comes down to it he is going into a war-zone. Ditto the superstitious lines.

Trust your audience a bit more with regard to spelling things out too much in dialogue. We can piece the bits together - rehab etc.

JOE
You owe her this, keep your
promise or I’ll kick your ragged
half ass all the way to the
finish line.

Why not go with:
I'll kick your ragged half ass
over the finish line myself, if I have to.

Likewise here:

SHAUN
I kept my promise, a marathon,
the biggest challenge of my life.

Some great imagery evoked and some nice sentiment, just a bit - less is more, imho.
Great job.

I like this, excellent work.  

I think you can end it with Shaun racing to Polly behind the finish line. It's a great unexpected twist and tells you everything you need to know. The expositional dialogue and extra flashback to the war is not needed at all in my opinion.

Very good. Juxtaposition of the desert marathon with the desert firefight and was nice work. Minor point: the Army has medics, the Marines have Corpsmen. Marines don't even like being called soldiers.

This one had some heart to it, which I appreciated. The writing was a breeze to get through and overall well done, but description was awkward at parts.

Quoted Text Shaun sits surrounded by friends in a club thumping out beats and shrieking with laughter.

You make it sound like Shaun and his friends are beatboxing or something. And we know we're in a club already. Just say:

BEATS THUMPING. CLUB-GOERS dancing, having a blast.

Shaun sits with his friends, shrieking with laughter.

Or something like that.

The dialogue was the biggest issue for me. Felt very stiff and wooden on the most part. Especially "the biggest challenge of my life" stuff. And the "I'm a marine". There's better, more natural ways to get this information across.

Not sure why you ended it with that reveal when we already know he lost his leg. It's not shocking or anything. Think you could've done without that ending, probably just ended it with him crossing the finish line.

All issues aside, this had some real heart to it and I enjoyed it on the most part.

-- Michael

Hi Writer

Not sure a thumping club is the best location for that scene.

Quoted Text SHAUN I had a friend who told impossible stories, this tale was for him, the one legged man and the desert marathon. No-one would believe it.

A one-legged man running a marathon in a desert doesn't seem like that much of a far-fetched story to me, but ok.

The dialogue here can be cut a lot, it is there to really hammer home what you have already given us through action and description - trust the reader/viewer to get it without spoon feeding. Joe can be removed completely.

Really like this story though, the cutting back between the two deserts was nice, the story had some emotional pull. Odd choices were made but overall this was a really good effort.

nice work

Who were the people on page one who were saying not to touch him? I thought maybe he was captured. So the first page confused me when I got to the end of the story.

What makes this story stand out is the scene where it's Shaun injured transitioning to him heading to the finish line. That...is...excellent.

Most of it is really good but the dialog needs work and just smooth out some other things people pointed out and this will make a great short film.

Nice work writer!!

Lots of strong writing on display here and the story had a lot of effective drama.

A few bits felt a little spoonfed but they've been picked up above.

Very good effort.

Yeah, liked this a lot. The initial POV could be cleaned up a bit, maybe edited a little to make it easier to visualize.

Needs a better title too. Nothing about 'Shaun' makes me want to read/see this.

Overall, good stuff. Worth more attention, for sure.

A nicely contained story with a bittersweet ending.  That said, I’m not sure the final flashback is needed - or at least placed as it is.  Feels more organic to end on the high note you create with the race rather than the darker missing leg moment.

Good misdirect with the opening; I like how it all connected at the end - certainly unexpected.  

An uplifting ending for a change - bit of a rarity for these challenges.  We are a morbid lot…

Good stuff.

Writer,

I really like the misdirect at the beginning, when it jumped to the end? Wow, really well done. The writing needs some work though, a lot of OTN dialogue and some passive description, which isn't really a huge issue when the story is so good, quick fixes.  Fix up the dialogue and some of the description and you're golden I think.

Good Work!

This is a solid entry, with a positive conclusion. I want to hear the rest of the cow joke. The dialogue in the bar can probably be sharpened.

Funny, but I thought the marathon wasn't real, that it was a metaphor for his motivation to keep alive despite his injuries. It was just surreal enough to work that way. The baby and his prosthetic leg could be his subconscious already aware of those things even before he has registered them in his conscious mind.

Since it seems to not be that, the ending is a step backwards for me. Revealing the leg seemed obvious after he has a prosthetic one. The rest worked well enough, though the writing is rough. A decent story though.

Thank you one and all for the feedback, as always it has been invaluable.
A few comments on my dialogue being too OTN. That's absolutely right, it is. I've pondered why this is and now I know. It's my job.
Working in healthcare, I write several reports a day and everything has to be accurate and fully explained. I've been doing it for 33 years and it's a habit I find it hard to break. I HAVE to explain everything, this is why I feel my writing has to be too accurate and I cannot leave the reader to figure things out for themselves or leave an ending unexplained.
It's something for me to work on.
Well done to everyone who submitted a script, I enjoyed reading them all and have learned quite a lot from them
O