Facing death (Working title)

Tormod,

I like the idea of exploring the final moments of one's life and how you tend to let things go when you're nearing death.

My constructive criticism as a reader is that the story lacked a certain tension required to engage me in the story. I feel like I didn't have a reason to care if either of the characters were going to make it or not. I'm also not sure why the person in the stagecoach just left the bodies there. Just my 2 cents.

Congrats on writing the script and being apart of the contest.
 
Hey, I read it and I liked the concept.

A few things though... first, some of the dialogue feels a little too modern to be in the old west. Granted, I'm not exactly sure what time period this was in but it felt pretty contemporary.

I also felt that the Man going from howling in pain to laughing was a pretty abrupt transition.

Also, I don't understand why, at the end, the sheriff tells the person in the stagecoach to go away when they could potentially save his life?

Other than those few comments it was well done.
 
Thanks for all the feedback! I realise now that my writing is not as clear as I hoped hehe

Here's how I see the story.

When the man is shot, his first reaction is to deny that he will die, even with all the odds stacked against him. He believes its not his time and that god will save him. When he realises this will not happen he prays for a peaceful death.

The sheriff knows he will die, and he denies gods existence. At least he doesn't want his help.

For me the point of the story is when the man dies. He get's his peaceful death because of a change of heart from the sheriff who eventually apologizes. That is when the man dies quietly.

The sheriff on the other hand does not.

The stagecoach for me is representing the devil. It`s not there in real life. that is why when the coach approaches the life appears to be sucked out of the sheriff, and he knows it. So he becomes afraid of dying, and that`s why he yells "go away".

This is because I wanted him to not die in peace like the man, because he has cursed god, and tries to live his life doing the opposite of what god wants him to do.

But unfortunatly my writing isn't strong enough to convey all of this, but this is at least how I pictured it. :)

Keep up the feedback guys, I really need it

Thanks again!

-T
 
Tormod said:
The stagecoach for me is representing the devil. It`s not there in real life. that is why when the coach approaches the life appears to be sucked out of the sheriff, and he knows it. So he becomes afraid of dying, and that`s why he yells "go away".
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Ohhh, that makes alot more sense. In that case, I really like the metaphor. I wouldn't really say that's a fault of your writing, sometimes I'm just a little slow on the uptake when it comes to metaphors.
 
Tormod said:
The stagecoach for me is representing the devil.
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First one of these I've read and I thought it was entertaining.

I figured the coach was either death the devil or even god so I must have been pushed there by your writing as I'm not usually incredibly perceptive.

I'm not much of a wordsmith myself but this seems like a fun contest.

BTW - I take it that English is your second language. Quite an effort, I struggle with my own language, know only a few words of French and I don't know any Norwegian except "Hey" but that could be Swedish only. Not much chance to use "foreign" languages around here.
 
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yeah its my second language. I made a list of strong verbs and I spent A LOT of time on thefreedictionary.com hehe
 
Hi Tormod, thanks for the read, I enjoyed your script.

What stands out for me is that the script, as you noted early on in your thread, is the dialogue. I thought it was really good and kept me interested. The transition from being worst enemies to almost friends (or accepting one another) is very well done. The ending is good with the two passing over and their shells being eaten by hungry birds, but I think you could have done something a bit more profound for a metaphor. The stagecoach could really have been a stagecoach, something a little different would have stood out clearer as either death or the devil.

I did guess that the ending was some sort of metaphor, it had to be, because it was either a metaphor or death had purchased himself a new ride to collect souls in!!!

I throughly enjoyed the read, good stuff.
 
I enjoyed the change of pace here. A different story than what I've read so far in the fest.

I liked the relationship between the two men and how it evolved throughout the script from adversaries to just men facing death. Well done.

One question I thought of after I read the script. How did they get all the way out there in the desert? You'ld think cowboys would certainly ride their horses and not just walk out into the middle of nowhere.

I wanted to tell them to shoot the birds, however this is really inconsequential and wouldn't have affected their fate.

I liked the ending. I did take the stagecoach as the devil, but as an old west version of the Grim Reaper come to take them away. I like the metaphor as well.

I enjoyed this script. Nice work!
 
Hey there Tormod!!

Well yep to follow on from Conlan's feedback I would say that I too got the Grim Reeper twist or impression from the black stage coach at the end - adding a bleak and interesting gothic quality to the end of the story. I think that marks a fine ending too!

The concept of the men cooperating in their desperate survival is to my mind original and exciting. I think if we could see more of just how their working together allows them to survive longer - would make the evident requirement of this partnership more obvious and dramatic ala the painting 'Raft of the Medusa'

The dialogue is almost there ;) but parts of it are perhaps a little too expositional for my liking - my wife died, my kid died and so on. The tragedy of one mans rejection of hope or spiritual (or for the atheist philosophical) salvation can be better served than with circumstance alone. I think that within those lines we can have something a little more profound (as profound as your ending for example.)

The alliance of these two men comes perhaps a little too quickly, and i would like to see more resentment or a slower build to their cooperation. I like that the 'man' seems slightly immature and i think there is more of this angle that can be played - a father / son style relationship - with man as the young punk rebel, and the sheriff as the psuedo father (over the young man's death to which he is in denial and unawares.)

So there is room for more improvement, more profound meeting and deeper emotional consequence. It's too good a premise to not keep working at it imo!
 
Thanks guys for the feedback! I really appreciate it!

I am very glad I signed up for this fest, because I certainly think it will make me a better writer!

I also think the "work together" bit comes a bit to fast, but it`s mostly because of the page count. I`m really not that good at writing short stories hehe. But I will indeed do more work on it! Keep the feedback coming!

Thanks again
 
Hi Tormod! Your script was one of the first I read, and for some reason I thought to re-read it before giving feedback - glad I did.
I really rate this story /and/ script. No need forbig BANG BANG BOOM throughout the story. You got that out of the way first, then when on to tell an insightfull tale through simple dialogue.
The only reference the reader got to the reason for the shootout was 'sorry I killed your brother'. It was great the way you used this as a reason for the antipathy between the Sheriff and the Man, but focused the story on death per se and belief / non-belief in God.
Thanks for writing Facing Death.
 
Loved the story. It was unique and refreshing. Could be because you weren't familiar with the genre, but had a sense of what it was you were able to put your touch on it and it showed. Good Job!
 
What a great set up at the beginning of this story! No dialogue, and nothing but two guys gunning each other down. It works in that the reader is immediately interested in who they are and why they did what they did. Plus, being shot and lying on the ground bleeding to death is the perfect set up for some dialogue. (you can't do anything else but speak!) I had to back up a bit to really get the ending but it was great having it be symbolic. Nice job!
 
Tormod, you had an interesting script. It left me with some questions, though. Like, where were their horses? They're in the middle of the desert with no one coming to get them but how'd they get there? Did they only have one bullet each? And why did the GO all the way out to the middle of an empty desert. They could have had their shoot out in town.

Dying in the desert left them with nothing to do but talk but they didn't have that much to say.

I liked the Grim Reaper coming in the black stagecoach (that was a nice touch) but death didn't really come on a stagecoach, did it. It came from the end of a smoking revolver.

On the technical side, I see this was marked as a second draft. You really need to capitalize the first letter of you sentences. It got to be annoying that you didn't because it just looked unprofessional. God is generally capitalized, too, depending on the usage of the term. In your case it should have been capitalized.

I did enjoy you story but would have liked to have seen just a little more depth in it.

Thanks for the read.
 
A great opening, you structured your duel with some good detail and tension. I liked the simpleness of the story but I would have liked to see a little more before this since they weren't saying much. Maybe the Man calling the Sheriff out or something.

Unfortunately, as Blaine said, I've got a lot of questions. How did they get there, why the desert, wouldn't someone realize the sheriff was missing, etc?

The grim reaper/stagecoach was interesting but maybe show The Sheriff and the Man getting on the stagecoach to be brought to their death and then cut to their dead bodies in the road to visually explain their souls were taken away.

It's good, just needs some work.
 
Hi guys! Thanks for the feedback. I will fix those punctuations! ;)

I will see about the ending if the sheriff walks on the cart, it was interresting

On the other note, I actually don`t know why they`re in the desert, How they got there and why no one`s around. Why they only have one bullet and duel like in the 1800`s, and I really didn`t try to research these things. I didn`t bother.

But my point is. Why should I care. I wasn`t trying to make the script a real life depiction of the west. For me it`s a philosophical peace. It`s supposed to be about something more, something bigger than life. A story about religion, and the loss of faith.

I`m not trying to sound like a dick here, I feel I may have done so, but I`m happy as santa on new years eve!

But thanks for the feedback, I really appreciate it!
 
Tormod said:
On the other note, I actually don`t know why they`re in the desert, How they got there and why no one`s around. Why they only have one bullet and duel like in the 1800`s, and I really didn`t try to research these things. I didn`t bother.

But my point is. Why should I care. I wasn`t trying to make the script a real life depiction of the west. For me it`s a philosophical peace. It`s supposed to be about something more, something bigger than life. A story about religion, and the loss of faith.
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If this is the case, I think I'd go further than you went. Go metaphysical on us and take us WAY out there. Do a Bergman with this. Then have them get on the stagecoach and then have the stagecoach dissolve into nothingness OR leave the earthly plane. Just a thought.
 
Would go through this and fix the sentences starting with lower case -just distracts from the read.

Split up the action paragraphs and reword were possible - get them as short and as tight as possible:

One of the birds creep closer to The Sheriff, but he picks
up a small rock and hurls it at the bird. The bird is hit in
the throat and retreats a few feet, but more birds take its
place. The Man follows The Sheriffs lead and starts throwing
rocks on the hungry birds around them.

change to

One of the birds creep closer to The Sheriff, but he picks
up a small rock and hurls it at the bird.

The bird is hit in the throat and retreats a few feet, but more birds take its
place.

The Man follows The Sheriffs lead and starts throwing
rocks on the hungry birds around them.

Didn't change a work and as you can see its easier to read.

Other than these minor issues, the formatting is good.

Bits of the dialogue felt a bit too modern for the time period - easy to fix.

Story wise I enjoyed it. Liked the ending the most. The use of the stagecoach was a nice touch. Well done.
 
Okay, so i just finished this one and I dug it. I truly did! Normally, you never see the protag and antag together in such light, and you definitely never have the trouble of choosing a side, like in this script.

I noticed a **** TON of missing caps. Many of the times in dialogue, the first word wasn't capitalized which pulled me from the story. That little comfort zone of perfect grammar, believability, and structure gets punctured when I come across something like that in such abundance. I'm not a perfect writer, I'll admit that, but this did keep pulling me out.

On the whole, I dig the conversationalist aspect of the piece and would definitely read a rewrite.
 
I read this first and reviewed it then but after reading all the scripts just wanted to say that it's my favourite. Can't say why as it seems simplistic and on the surface pointless, and I've been a bit harsh on that point with others.

To me its a bit "all quiet on the western front" and even "no mans land".
Have you seen "no mans land"? It's a brilliant anti-war war movie. Have a look at it!

Both these and your script have protagonists confronting each other in close proximity and in some ways seeing they are basically the same.

BTW - I'm a fairly bad judge and rarely pick winners so I hope I haven't jinxed you.
 
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