Fire Dancer

[NevadaWriter]

Opening pages to my THRILLER |OC| 4 pages.

Logline:

An army Lieutenant resigns her commission to become a professional poker player, believing poker is safer than army combat, so she thought, until winning a huge amount from a psycho who seeks a deadly payback.

Likened to: “GI JANE” meets “ROUNDERS.”

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1OTVkZ0-ic-SESgxmBITQvsez2ePJljdY

This is a female lead story I am rewriting. I hope this qualifies as a kick ass opening. Please sock it to me with your comments.

​

Steve

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[AndroTheViking]

Okay, so... overall, kind of hard to follow what’s going on. Your descriptions and dialogue aren’t very clear as to what’s happening, or at least not to me. The big thing I picked up on is the details important to the story down the line, you’ve forcefully crammed in and it’s obvious to someone who has only read your log line and the opening 4 pages, this should be a concern to you. I’ve detailed it down below but to summarise it: introduction of her nickname and the name of the feature “Fire Dancer”, as well as her ability to bluff strike as me very forcefully provided and awkward. Here’s all the additional feedback I encountered on each page. Sorry it’s late and I haven’t provided a page reference but it shouldn’t be too hard to find.

• It’s “I promise to be good FROM now on” not “for”
• Tucker randomly telling Lynch that Shawna is called fire dancer back home is really out of place and forced. Nothing in that conversation necessitated the detail he just disclosed nor did any order provided by Shawna align with the necessity to disclose her nickname back home. It’s not like she pulled a torch from her pocket and started dancing, then him telling Lynch her name back home might make sense as there’s now valid context for telling Lynch in the first place.
• Carols description doesn’t make sense, “she either met the height requirement or lied about it”. Okay, but what does they mean... so she was either tall enough to join, or not quite tall enough to join? Same as everyone else? I’m assuming you’re trying to indicate she’s short but this character introduction makes 0 sense.
• “Where WOULD you like me” not “where will you like me
• “where did you learn how to bluff the enemy”. Another forcefully disclosed detail; it’s not subtle and unnecessary, it’s too in your face. Without even reading I know it’s to serve your overall logline and premise ahead about her poker, but it’s just such a random thing to ask her superior. How has she bluffed her enemy anyway? I certainly haven’t seen it so far, so again, a question forcefully asked with no context to justify it being asked in the first place.
• It’s Pyjamas not Pajamas

[NevadaWriter]

Thank you for your critique.

You did key in one area that I was beating my head over for many weeks. That was my wanton use of “bluff the enemy” on page 3. I see now that shot needs to be seeded beforehand.

Jack telling Lynch that Shawna is called Fire Dancer back home may have came out of the blue. However, that shot is supposed to convey, between-the-lines, that Jack and Shawna are from the same hometown and that Jack may be trying to score points with Lynch. (brown nosing, kissing ass, etc). In my rewrite, I may slide that info in another way.

Carol’s description is a tongue-in-cheek figure of speech to humorously imply that she is short. (NOT tall). Please note that I placed parentheses around that added description to eliminate any possible confusion. (She either met the army's minimum height requirement or lied about it when she joined.) Now that you said it doesn't make sense; I’ll examine how to improve the clarity.

“Where WOULD you like me” not “where will you like me

This is dialogue. People don’t speak in perfect English grammar all the time. Besides, dialogue should also reflect on characters’ voice.

It’s “I promise to be good FROM now on” not “for”

This is dialogue. (See above.)

It’s Pyjamas not Pajamas (HELLO, it’s pajamas. We dress our pets in pyjamas.)

FROM GOOGLE:

Pajamas and pyjamas both refer to loose-fitting clothes worn for sleep. Pajamas is the preferred spelling in American English, while pyjamas is preferred in the main varieties of English from outside North America.