A Nuisance Call by James Shearer - Short, Drama - Revenge is sweet. 1 page - pdf format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

Hey, James! Hope you're doing great!

It's difficult to pull off an effective one page script. What I got from the story was that the driver was the London MP whose life was destroyed due to (false?) news published by Hill. But I don't fully understand what the MP was trying to achieve? Maybe this needs to be fleshed out.

Good luck.

It took me a while to understand what was happening, probably because I can be a slow at times, and also, possibly for reasons mentioned by Yuvraj above. It is hard to pack a story into one page. I think you pulled it off, though

I'm content with the writer releasing a news story that the gunman didn't like. Could be true, false, damaging, whatever. The bottom line: the phone-relayed gunshot into his eardrum sent a a sarcastic "thank-you" that it wasn't appreciated.

While the story could end there, I agree with Yuvraj that this could be fleshed out. I'd like to know more behind the action and see what happens next. Was this a threat or a payback? Was the author's story enough or was it the tip of an iceberg of a bigger scandal? In that case, was the author being told to back off?

This story has the look and feel of an effective pre-commercial hook to a TV detective story.

The only formatting issue, if you can call it that, it that when something is put on screen to be read by the audience, it should be typed in ALL CAPS. I've only seen that as an instruction in a couple of places so I don't know how rigid of a standard format rule it is. I thought it was worth mentioning.

Hi James, I see another one-pager. :)

Newspaper should probably be an Insert. Acceptable as is though.

This was not entirely effective for me.

The 'gloved hand' etc., made me think this guy was a hired hitman, working for the politician.
Lots in the news these days with the media (especially UK) overstepping their marks, causing real damage, tapping phones - the Milly Dowler case comes to mind.

But in this scenario, it's a toughie cause it crosses over to amoral and corrupt pollies, who in this case would be deserving of the burst eardrum, not the guy who broke the story.

Jmho, of course.

Thanks all.

The MP was after simple revenge on the journalist who wrote the exposè. I doubt anyone uses a phone kiosk in ths UK these days - and as a consequence this form of assault will die a death.

Quoted from LC Newspaper should probably be an Insert. Acceptable as is though.

This comment interests me. I religiously used 'inserts' having been told to by a How to Write Screenplays type book, but recently amended my works, under the impression that I was the only writer still doing so. In fact, one California based writer/reader questioned my reason for using the practice.

Like anything things go in and out of style, but technically I'd say yes, it's still used.

A previous discussion on this very topic on SS here:
https://www.simplyscripts.net/cgi-bin/Blah/Blah.pl?b-screenwrite/m-1420394545/

An interesting read. Thanks.

The script is super short so my comment will be too. (Interesting)