There's a great story in here somewhere bursting to get out but it's lost in a confused bit of a mess at the moment.

OWC's inevitably lead to typos here and there but there's lots in this which really distract. When you are trying to get a lot across, this makes it harder for the reader to get your story.

The TV show is obvious exposition and highlights a flaw in your story. If we didn't have the TV show and the on the nose dialogue, we simply wouldn't have a clue what is going on.  The bit straight after when the Clerk suddenly realizes his kid is there makes it very obvious this is all for the audience's benefit and not a naturally flowing scene.

As it is, I still wasn't sure what was going on.  There's hints of something to do with kids gaining power and taking over the world, or already have taken over the world and we've all forgot. The hoodie stops the kid from shooting the thugs but then heals the kid so is the hoodie helping or against the kids? What has a gull got to do with all this?

To highlight my confusion, here's a section of the script:

"Hoodie appears behind the little boy. Startled the little boy falls back and BANG the gun goes off. Hoodie reaches down and picks up the gun. "

Which gun is Hoodie picking up? As far as I know there's no gun on the floor.

"He steps from behind the aisles and is gun to gun with the Thugs."

Overuse of the word gun is really confusing matters. If this is the Hoodie, why is he shooting at them instead of using his powers?

"In a blink SHOTS fire. The Thugs grab their shoulders that now have holes in them."

What? Have the thugs been shot or have holes just appeared in their shoulders?

You have the beginning of a nice piece of science fiction here, it just needs a major polish and a lot of development but a nice effort for one week.

-Mark

I have to admit that I didn't follow what was going on.  I think you made a mistake by not giving anyone a name and an identity.  

I didn't understand the talk show at all.  That needs to be cleared up.

SPOILERS

So, the guy mystically saved the child, then the child has to join his cult??  Do the kids give him power due to their ability to believe in the unbelievable?   Like I said, I'm confused.

Good luck
Dan

Writer,

This was very hard to follow. You should have provided some names to the thugs - but that's not the real issue here. The action was so start and stop I lost where I was at times. This piece is very busy, there's a lot going on. At times I couldn't figure out where anyone was in the store - like I said, hard to follow along. You had two thugs, hoodie, clerk, a little boy and two people talking on the TV! Not to mention a group of children at the end! Character-wise,  thats 7 in an 8 page script! That's an awful lot - no wonder I was confused. However, there were certain instances where the writing flowed like wine - and I'm talking about when hoodie was nuking his burrito. For some reason I really like that passage! Shows promise. Good writing in spots, convoluted story took me right out and I just couldn't get into it.

Steve

I don't think there's enough mystery or reversal in this one.  The drawing kid is predictable, the hoodie seems to be too, even the thugs.  Now, if the kid draws his father dying because his mother asked him to....oops.  Good luck.

I'd definitely name the characters, feels like a script populated with extras...

But I did like the premise here, and whilst this particular tale is a little straightforward I'd consider expanding a little, would like t see where this goes.

Last one for me. This better be good.

What in the hell font did you use? That does NOT look like 12pt Courier. It looks semi-bold, too thick. I'm not even sure it's Courier New!

[Copy/pasting an excerpt into Word, the closest font is 12pt Courier Prime, which, to me, looks slightly bolder than regular Courier. It's still not the same font you used. This is not a Courier font, as it has serifs.]

Speaking of bold, your slugs are chock-full of it.

"Nightly special"?? Huh???

"sets the timer for five (no hyphen) minutes."

Comma issues. Characters don't have names. This is testing my patience/endurance.

TV is capitalized, usually no periods.

ON SCREEN (no colon)

Ugh. I give up. Out on P1. Meh.

Two lines of dialogue stood out. "They're dangerous... " and " Jesus, kid, ..." (corrections added). They captured the characters nicely. Avoid or minimize the use of TV or radio to insert exposition in the story. The naming conventions in the story were odd. Gender could be male or female. Problems to fix but the dialogue had a couple of bright spots.

I found this a Little tricky to follow, and the overall concept I wasn't wholly sure about, other than a child fraternity looking after each other

I like the tension in the shop. The kids mucking about is a little well used, but the different aspects of strange young child,  pictures, disappearing hoodie etc adds to the tension and intrigue.

Imagine if the little boy left a pad of drawings all seeing the future with the last one missing as he ran off with it - could be an intriguing aspect.

I want to thank everyone for the reads. THANK YOU! I have never written a short and after this I may never write another again.

Q&A

Q: Title? Retcon? HMMM?

A: Retroactive continuity, or retcon for short is a literary device in which new information is added to already established facts in the continuity of a fictional work.

I.e. Comic books do this a lot.

That’s where the title comes from. There you go.

Q: But is this Thriller?

Uhhhhhhhhhh. Technically, yes. Thriller to me is an umbrella term for a myriad of genres. Noir is technically a thriller as well as Superhero movies.

Q: So, what up with the no-names?

It wasn’t intended to come across as lazy. But, in my mind, not one of these character’s would ever mention their name. Except for the guys on the t.v.  

The clerk, I could have done way better on,  It was truly an oversight on my part. He could have a name tag and I did not describe him. Oversight. Sorry.

Q: Typos?

I blame the inner city public school system. No child left behind...amiright?
But, to be truthful, i am working overtime to remedy my lack of knowledge when it comes to spelling and grammar. It has been noted.

Q: So the dudes on the t.v. what’s that about? I’m confused.

Good. lol. In my mind the t.v. situation would be downplayed greatly on film. If we took it out there would be ‘no dialogue’ until way later during the stick up. It is meant to play out over the scene instead of being a scene in and of itself. Not clear, I know. And even if it’s cut or edited, I still have to write it out as a scene. Lengthy dialogue and all.

Q:  But do we really need all that expositional dialogue?

What many of you consider expositional….I consider a bit of foreboding,

Q: What’s this about? Hoodie? All of it.

This one threw me because I assumed it was pretty clear that HOODIE was KAI from the future….future...future. I guess not.

So Kai is clearly unhinged. And if you listened to the t.v. guys you may have noted that they were discussing a book (fiction?) containing shadow history.

Shadow history: is a revisionist interpretation of either fictional or real history which is claimed to have been deliberately suppressed, forgotten, or ignored by established scholars.

In which there was a children uprising and (spoiler) the children were taken out. But not before some serious ass-kicking went down. Anyway, that’s the ‘Universe's lil bastards’ that was discussed on the show.

Some believe it happened and wiped from history while others just think it’s fiction. Kids have vanished and the whole thing comes across as a prank. Not so. Kai is the leader of this new uprising. And let’s just say his notepad with drawings of the future are childsplay compared to what he is capable of in the future. HOODIE is that. By the way one of his powers is persuasion. Take that what you will.

Q: So, Hoodie from future, why is he here?

Well, let’s just say history has a bad habit of repeating itself. And he wanted a burrito from his dad’s store. AWW.

Q: Why shoot the thugs?

Let’s just say...doing something inherently good like letting them go puts a major chink in his armor.

That’s all for now? I know I forgot something.

Hey Ashlie, congrats on writing your first short! They are a lot of fun and they are my first love as far as screenwriting goes.  

I only got around to read two due to a bunch of stuff going on in my real life, but I do remember going through all the titles and loglines when they were first posted. I see your explanation for the title, but I have to be honest. That title was one reason I didn't read yours. I had no idea what it meant and I didn't feel like google it just to know what it was. I'm very undereducated, so maybe everyone else knew it, but I didn't. Just thought I should mention it in case some other readers skip over your script too for the same reason.  

This story has a lot of potential. It is just a bit confusing and could easily be fixed. I encourage you to continue with it and to carry on writing shorts. This is not bad at all for your first short.

-Mark

Quoted from Grandma Bear Hey Ashlie, congrats on writing your first short! They are a lot of fun and they are my first love as far as screenwriting goes.   I only got around to read two due to a bunch of stuff going on in my real life, but I do remember going through all the titles and loglines when they were first posted. I see your explanation for the title, but I have to be honest. That title was one reason I didn't read yours. I had no idea what it meant and I didn't feel like google it just to know what it was. I'm very undereducated, so maybe everyone else knew it, but I didn't. Just thought I should mention it in case some other readers skip over your script too for the same reason.

I kinda figured as much. I'm a weirdo about my titles. They just gotta be obscure. lol

Thanks.

Quoted from MarkRenshaw This story has a lot of potential. It is just a bit confusing and could easily be fixed. I encourage you to continue with it and to carry on writing shorts. This is not bad at all for your first short. -Mark

If/when I continue on this it will be full-length. This is more so a teaser? Maybe even a one-off epilogue? Idk.

Thanks though. Congrats.

Yeah your explanation made me read this again Ash, as I love anything connected to time travel and such, and so it made more sense to me.

Great concept, it prolly just needed some fine tuning so the true meaning shone through. Well done!

Quoted from stevie Yeah your explanation made me read this again Ash, as I love anything connected to time travel and such, and so it made more sense to me. Great concept, it prolly just needed some fine tuning so the true meaning shone through. Well done!

Thanks for re-reading it. I did write this on a bender, though, like that morning. So, I'm pretty pleased with it for the most part.