When Bill Hardy Put Down His Gun

Sarah Daly

Sarah Daly

Well-known member
When Bill Hardy Put Down His Gun - My first ScriptFest entry...my first Western...oh you lucky people!

And what is the no doubt delectable premise you ask? Well...

A near death experience forces a gunslinger to question his violent lifestyle...

Yes, I know...my girlish sensibilities are showing...
 
Welcome! I like the idea, sounds deeper than a run of the mill shoot-em-up. Look forward to reading.
 
I like the idea, gunplay always carries more weight when you bring emotion into it. Looking forward to it.
 
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i'm reading all the lonely scripts on the 2nd page so i picked yours and read it.

the beginning has a decent hook, meaning that your script invokes a question and the reader keeps wanting to read to find out what's going to happen. i found myself wanting to know why bill was at a bar drinking, instead of at his house. this was a good hooking mechanism.

the dialogue was 50/50 good and not so good in my opinion. alot of the things bill said, i can't distinguish from other characters. basically meaning it sounds like it's all coming from the same person. i really liked this line

BILL (V.O.)
I didn't see my wife. Not my
kids. Instead I saw the faces of
all the men I ever killed. I'm
telling you, it wasn't pretty.
Tortured, bloody bodies, men
begging for mercy. Shook me up
pretty bad, if I'm honest.
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i don't know why it stuck out, maybe because the line "Instead I saw the faces of all the men I ever killed." tells a thousand stories instantly, and you know this guy has killed a ton of people throughout his life. that was done really well it thought.

the bible blocking the bullet i didn't like so much. you never know, but it just doesn't seem realistic.

BILL
Promise me you won't make a
living outta killing. Cos it's no
life at all.
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this line seemed very 'corny' to me.

overall i think you told a good story within 10 pages. you find out what this man has gone through his entire life, and his last day of killing. you also did a good job of structuring the V.O. and the flashback story. so, good job.
 
Yep well first of and i hope this isn't too sexist (because it is a little bit) but i think its an added challenge for a female writer to approach a genre of such er man stuff (the word testospherone I can never spell it) so erm man stuff must be hard!

However this story stands a lot on expectation really. Do we expect every script in the fest to consist of deformed midgets, poodles and psychotic perverts? Not because not every script can read like my diary! *ahem*

This is an unashamedly warm - family friendly - gently Christian, pre-watershed hall mark channel dainty that is cute - very cute! There was a line that had me laughing away and i think it might be all the cuter because your a girl writing this *ahem*


BILL stares out REILLY, a stocky man with a handlebar
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moustache and beady eyes.
​
​
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Great! Perfect! That is thee villain of all westerns! Ultra cute! So anyway I think really the point made about speaking in the same voice - between these characters, and their overt moralising - could be restrained a little. So you could still retain a positive tale but make it seem a little less obvious! Also perhaps there is a more profound way he can find 'salvation' as it were than the bullets through the bible as that is a little bit of a cliche!

Otherwise a charming story and a lovely debut!​
 
nouou said:
the dialogue was 50/50 good and not so good in my opinion. alot of the things bill said, i can't distinguish from other characters. basically meaning it sounds like it's all coming from the same person.
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Yeh I hear you. I guess I haven't watched enough Westerns and kind of tended to revert to generic cliched Western voice :) Fair point.

Also, the bible...that was an addition to this draft and one of those niggles that I should have paid more attention to. It's too easy, not believable and again, cliched. Dammit! I should listen to my gut!

And what's with the moralising? Who do I think I am? Oprah??

Geez!
 
You kept my interest throughout. I wanted to see why he wasn't with his wife and kid, so that keeps the story flowing nicely.

I agree with what you and others have said, the dialogue could be tightened up a bit and is a little too on the nose in spots. Also I saw the Bible scenario coming. But all this you seem to know.

I like that you told a warm tale and a story about morality (it was a little too obvious), but it still worked for me. Most importantly I cared about the characters and wanted to know what was going to happen with them.
Nice work!
 
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I am grateful for the different tone of this script. Thank you for tackling the genre with your own sensibilities.

My nit-picky suggestions have already been covered by the others. On your dialog I'd recommend that you read the script out loud to yourself. That's been one of the most helpful suggestions I've ever been given as a writer. Dialog that sounds great in your head can be nothing but stumbling blocks coming out of your mouth and reading out loud really helps me during the rewriting process.

I hope you continue to write and enter these fests.
 
Hey, just read it and I enjoyed the change of pace.

I agree with the responses above me about the dialogue somewhat but I thought there were plenty of lines that did work... just minor adjustments in certain places.

I know this has been mentioned already and I'm not trying to beat it into the ground but I didn't like the bible blocking the bullet... Kinda cliched and corny to me.

But the rest of it was entertaining and well-structured!
 
Hey thanks Tim, Krestofre and Conlan forever! I'm glad you're all finding the same few things wrong with it so far and not just finding it generally bad! I'll definitely dive back into this and take out that pesky bible - it was never in the first draft - I just needed something to stop him from actually getting killed. Maybe the kid should have taken the bullet? Hmmm...

Also I'll find some Irish cowboys to act out the scenes for me and sort out the dialogue!

As for the Seventh Heaven approach I've taken, next fest I'm going dark :)
 
Sarah Daly said:
I'll definitely dive back into this and take out that pesky bible - it was never in the first draft - I just needed something to stop him from actually getting killed. Maybe the kid should have taken the bullet? Hmmm...
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That's not a bad idea at all. That would also put that extra weight of guilt on his shoulders to REALLY make him question his lifestyle.

Sarah Daly said:
As for the Seventh Heaven approach I've taken, next fest I'm going dark :)
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Right on! Me too. :beer:
 
You seemed to have nailed formatting down. Nice easy to read action descriptions. Short, well descripbed and easy to read.

Not too sure of slugs such as EXT. HOUSE. PORCH would think it would read better as EXT: HOUSE - PORCH - DAY (I've been told you should always include the time of day.

Dialogue I think needs the most work. It seems to be trapped in a place that all of us writers find ourselves in one time or another. Characters talk is too perfect in places, to wooden and all talk with the same voice. Also some of the dialogue is a bit long winded. Try and cut it back to a few sentences for each set. Also try and make each characters speech different (if you can) give them something unique to the others - even if it's constantly repeating words or getting words wrong.

BILL
Hold on now, kid. Believe me, the
last thing I want to spend my
days doing is fighting but this
Reilly fella, he's a real
nasty…hold on...how do you know
what I got planned for Reilly?

BILL
Thrust me kid, I would avoid it if I could.
But this Reilly is a real son of a...wait a
second... How do you know
what I've got planned?


Well that sort of thing. I see it was advised here, to read out loud, rather than in your head. This is good advice that was also passed onto me when I started and if you ever see an actor's reading of some of your work, you can see how well this method works. I've even done such putting in accents etc - if I ever get caught they will be locking me in a rubber room. But its a worthwhile habbit to get into.

Overall the story works well. Nice tone and good happy ending. I liked the intro a lot when the kid saw him and rushed the mother.

Good work.
 
Nice solid script. Reads really easily.

Some great lines, my favorite being:

DANNY
My name's Daniel Aloysius Carter.
My friends call me Danny.
BILL​
Makes sense.

A lot of good comments have already been made. The one thing I'd like to add is that your initial set up of Bill is so effective and powerful and dark, from the opening scene to his entrance at the bar, that when he talks and is so darn nice, it's a letdown.

I'd just edge up his dialogue a lot.

I think the kid should totally take the bullet. But then, I'm a Martin McDonagh fan.
 
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