GUY: 23 years, fashionably dressed, smiles a lot and talks loudly.
GIRL: 20 years, good looking, flirty.
…
Crowded club. Dimmed lights. Loud music. GUY and GIRL are chatting by the bar. GIRL takes out a new pack of cigarettes, opens it and takes one cigarette out. Then she turns that cigarette upside down, carefully puts it back into the pack, takes another one and starts smoking.
GUY (surprised): I can never understand you completely. Never. What did you do to the other cigarette?
GIRL: That’s a lucky cigarette. You gotta smoke it last. And when you smoke it, your wish will come true. Stupid, I know, I know. I don’t really believe in it, it’s just a habit left since high school.
GUY makes a face.
GIRL: OK, gotta go. I’ll see you around. (smiles)
GUY: yep, see you.
GIRL leaves to the other part of the club. GUY takes out his old pack of cigarettes, takes a cigarette out and is about to light it, but at the last moment he turns it upside down and puts it back into the pack. Then he takes out another one and starts smoking.
Fast-forward mode. Lights, club, crowd. GIRL smokes a cigarette after a cigarette. GUY smokes a lot too. Very often both of them are glancing at each other in such a way that the other wouldn’t see.
A beautiful girl is trying to flirt with GUY, he doesn’t seem interested, and the girl leaves. A man is trying to hit on GIRL, she talks to him indifferently, still glancing at GUY.
GUY smokes his last lucky cigarette, constantly looking at the GIRL. GIRL is talking to the man at that time. GUY finishes his cigarette and leaves the club, upset.
GIRL finished the chat and looks at the place where GUY has been sitting before, looks at the door. Constantly smokes. Fast forward mode. Lights, club, crowd.
GIRL smokes her last lucky cigarette staring at the door. She finishes the cigarette and leaves, upset.
It is very much film script. Play could be if he returns the lucky one. Takes another. Can not wait and gives cigs to all around and takes the rest seven and smokes all of them simultaneously… Finally is ready for the last one – the lucky one… The girl has stared at him all the time… He is smiling at her and here comes her boyfriend and is taking her… Or a girl is taking her…
ReplyDeleteAlso in the beginning they seems to know each other, but are not close… The flirt is just starting…
Other end she is leaving and even more sexy girl is asking him for cig. He is searching but can not find and other boy not at all attractive is coming from no where and offering … Or could be a 77 years old man, waiting in the shadow his lucky strike…
I really like this second ending which Nedyalko suggests!
ReplyDeleteBut no matter the ending I think that the spirit should be some kind of desperation, as coming out of the club- there are no lights, not cigarettes, no beautiful boys and girls and you are back into the reality where the last cigarette has no power!
And if you keep waiting for your lucky "cigarette" you may get old and still waiting...alone as this 77 years old man...
I would probably suggest to change the final scene....To make the story more dramatic, the girl should run on the street after the guy in 2 minutes after he left the club..Certainly, he had disappeared already..So I would imagine rain pouring down and her desperate look, giving an impression of the worst solitude one could ever experience..
ReplyDeleteThe main idea – missing an opportunity because one relies too much on chance – is simply great. This behavior is what causes half of our failures, while the other half is probably cause by trying too hard to achieve something.
ReplyDeleteBut the reader should be able to understand right from the beginning what the relationship between your characters actually is. Try to develop the dialogue to create some sort of a tension that makes you understand they actually want one another, but are unable to express it, unable to reach out.
Also, it would be good if you could solve the conflict in the end somehow, showing that at least one of them will quit relying on luck… Dunno, you can play with words, like a line at the end of the sort “ I might be smoking Lucky Strike, but I obviously stroke out tonight….”