Pure Love by blank - Short, Drama - A young man set out to propose the girl of his dreams.  - pdf format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

Heartfelt and touching. As a technical note, excellent writing chops, breeze to read, great descriptions.

First off – I enjoyed the read. A poignant tale- did make me feel something so and I felt for your characters – all of them (except the pimp of course). Iit will get solid marks from me. That being said…


The descriptive blocks got a bit clunky in places.

Here’s some examples:

Quoted Text A city buzzing with evening life, whiz by outside.

Whiz is the wrong tense and it at the wrong end.

The sedan whizzes by the busy streets of the city.

Quoted Text MARCUS, (18), sits in the passenger seat. Head tilted down. In his lap, a small, but nice store-bought bouquet of flowers. He’s not cute, not ugly. Just teenage awkward and insecure. No longer a boy, but not yet a man. In the driver’s seat is TOM, (45). Average middle-aged father. His face kind, but besieged by worry. With his shoulders slumped, he holds on to the steering wheel with both hands

Overwritten – for example, modest bouquet of flowers. You don’t need all of the no longer a boy, not yet a man – we know what 18 is. You don’t even need verbs like sit – since you wouldn’t stand in the passenger seat. His appearance is not really needed either. Unless you want to just say average looking.

Not this exactly – but all you need is --

MARCUS, (18), in the passenger seat, head tilted down, grasping a modest bouquet of flowers.  TOM, (45), worried, splits his attention from driving and glancing at Tom.

It may be a style thing so others could disagree here – but I do think some streamlining is needed.

Anyway – nice job. I enjoyed this story – tugged at the heart strings.

Hands down you really got a thing for nice descriptions. I enjoyed them almost more than this wonderful little story. Well done!

This one hit me on a personal level. A powerful story that is very well told.

Love your descriptions, makes it easy for me to visualize all this in my head. Great character work, as well.

Feel like this one will definitely be a contender. Great work. :)

I liked this story. The chunky descriptions did take me out the the story a few times,  but that's an easy fix.
This one did fit the theme.
Congrats for getting an entry in this go around.
Cindy

A nice little love story and its hard to pack into 10 pages. So kudos for that.

It is a little stretched that Lola was pretty much crackhead or meth head and then the next day complete transformation. But again limited pages.

Well written.

Good job on entering

Got one question off the bat … does his father know the place he was taking his son to?  I kind of think he does and that's why he trying to get him to think things through, but not really sure as he wouldn't even be driving his son to a place like that.

This is a nice story you have here. Works well as a short, but I think you can make a decent feature-length script out of this too.


Good work.

I liked most of this, great setup, desciptions too and the inevitable rejection.

All felt 'right'.

Then the ending left me flat, how did she just happen to know where to find him and when in the Park, and what now 24 hours later she's not addicted to meth.

I almost expected a camera angle shift to Marcus imagining it.

Absolutely this is a love story, but which sin are we supposed to be seeing here?

Decent effort.

Nice story.  The wheelchair part was a surprise.  Overall, I think it's a good submission.  I think if I'd add anything, perhaps spend half a page, or a full page with a flashback showing how she ended up in the wheelchair.

Cute little tale of young, pure love. I dig it. I like the twist. All we saw confirmed Tom assumptions while he was driving him there but we were wrong. It felt good to be wrong about it. However, the back and forth between the two love birds was quite rigid. "I love you, Get out" That was it. I wish you could rewrite this and make a more interesting dialogue between the two. She will make good points saying no and he will make good rebuttals. Other than that, it was great.

You had me in the palm of your hand (so to speak) cause I got to page 8 and thought where's the rest of it? That's how immersed in the story I was.

The thing is (for me) you set up gritty realism in the first part that was very credible, but I'd buy it more if you'd stuck with that.

Lola seeking Marcus out to tell him she remembers and appreciates how he was there for her in high school - yes. But this girl's fully entrenched in this lifestyle of drugs and prostitution and she has a pimp who's going to come looking for her soon - and might even follow through on his threat to have someone cut Marcus into little pieces.

Okay, that's the cynic in me.

I didn't get what the sin was, unless you're going with the sins of the flesh - which is Lust. But then you clearly have Marcus differentiate between the two in conversation with his dad, which kinda felt like a shoutout to your audience.  Nice reference to Maya Hawke btw, made me chuckle.

You chose the fairytale ending but I think it might have worked better if Marcus learned that sometimes you need more than just love.

SPOILERS
Very impressive opening scene, good dialogue and excellent definition of the characters' relationship -- the few words and described body language for Marcus are terrific.
For me, the story is strangely delightful, not just the enchanting ending but all of the interactions of the characters, there's no excess, no waste, just heart grabbing simplicity.  
I love that the girl throws the flowers repeatedly.  This is a winner.

Hi Writer

Decent writing and your characters seem real.

It's set up nicely, but an ending of convenience with Lola finding him in the park. There wasn't anything that grabbed me with this story.

Good effort though

This is an effective script and Marcus is an earnest character. I love his devotion. The fused knee on Lola is a great touch--it makes her more human and real. Great backstory. Lots to like overall.

I wonder how Lola knew to find Marcus at the park at the end of the script. Was she just hanging out there randomly? Not a big deal, just pondering.

I got some Moulin Rouge vibes from this without the singing. All you need is love!

The sugary sweet ending juxtaposes the bitter, gritty realism of the setup, but there's nothing marrying the two. It makes the ending seem like fantasy, not reality. It's too perfect. All it takes is for one person to show up with, as the title says, pure love and that's enough to turn a lost soul around on the spot. Of course nothing says she isn't still a junkie entrenched in her situation, junkies can have lucid moments too, but even her finding him out of the blue like that suggests it's surreal. There's also no indication of the passage of time, so it might be weeks or even years later which would make it more believable, but as written it seems like it's literally the next day.

It's a sweet idea, I just don't buy it. Sell it better, make me want to buy it, and this could be a really effective story. The writing is quite good, I don't doubt you could pull it off.

As for the sin, there's talk about lust but it isn't evident here. It's just love, misguided and foolish love that somehow pays off.

Really good writing here, great action and the dialogue felt natural, really good pace with this story as well. Your story had a message as well so bonus for that.

As with the story itself, I really couldn't buy Marcus's character, he seemed so desperate and all that he could think of for the last three years was her? She didn't even know this guys name...

I know you try and rectify by having him say that he's not into handicaps, but I really think Marcus has a fetish. But you adhere to the challenge, so well done with the entry and good luck.

-cheers