Petal to the Medal by Kevin Revie - Comedy - Maggie finds herself the target of her sister’s wedding-thirsty bridesmaids after unintentionally catching the bouquet, messing up the bride-to-be queue. 88 pages - pdf format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

This was a nice story.  I didn’t see any glaring format problems. Your style is clean with enough color to keep it interesting.  I liked the beginning of the story and how it unfolded. Your humor hit the ground running.

I particularly liked the flower catch description “mosh pit of chiffon”. I really pictured that.

I thought your pacing was well done. There were some opportunities to get bogged down in minutia. You stepped around them. There were some discussions about feelings but they were short and shallow. You let the character’s actions reveal their feelings.

I can’t think of anything that stood out as bad or wrong. There are a couple of things I would do differently with respect to the use of transitions. In general I find them distracting.

You only have a few. The one on page 7 I agree with although admittedly, not at first.  After a lot of thought, it works. It makes a creative break between the “how we got here” and the “where do we go from here”. I can see it on the big screen as you describe it. It looks good.

However, I don’t agree with the transition on page 29. I think it would be better with a new slug line and some action description or a parenthetical to clarify that it’s a “later that day…” kind of situation. In other words let the director decide how to move the story. It’s just a difference in our styles and not a mistake.

You have one more transition worth noting at the end. Just like with the transition on page 7, my initial response was “Oh, come on. What’s wrong with the traditional FADE OUT?” I played it out on my inner theater and it did produce a nice effect. I would have added “Closing credits over black.” That’s just me. Most people don’t mention credits.

Anyway, I liked the voiceover at the end. It matched up with the voiceover at the beginning and buttoned up the story nicely. Maggie saying, “Knock on wood.” , followed by her reaching down and knocking the hardwood floor, followed by the Cut To BLACK was beautiful.

I may have found a few typos that are worth pointing out in case they are real and not a writing style that went over my head.

On Page 22, “Maggie’s visible outrages the girl’s completely calm demeanor.”  It doesn’t read right to me.

On page 49, “Zara sits on a bench nearby smokers.” Same thing.

On Page 51, Zara’s second-to-last dialog ends with “Al of it.”

In closing I want to add that the restaurant scene that began on page 41 did make me laugh. With the opening of a crash of a server’s plate, the humor hit the ground running and carried through the whole scene.

D.A.Banaszak, thanks so much for giving this a read! I’m happy to hear you enjoyed it and really appreciate your kind words. I’ve definitely received the transition note before, and I know I can step on the director’s toes a bit with that, so I will try to be mindful moving forward and clean them up for the next draft. Always appreciate the typo call outs too! I’ll make those adjustments.

Thanks again! Cheers!

I'm new at reviewing, please forgive me.
Only thing I feel comfortable adressing on your story is characters. There is a lot of them that serve little function. What i mean is I know little about them or what they mean other than to keep the story moving faster. ( maybe that's the point ) In that case forget my comment. I thought your diologe was pretty solid overall. Thanks for listening.

                                    Ward

Hi Ward,

Thanks for checking this out! I'll make sure to give a closer look at character purpose on my next draft stab. Cheers!