Thinking Back by Bird Brainiac - Short - A curious boy helps his father with research funding as he goes back in time to look for a precious stone that belongs to their family.  - pdf, format

Well, this had a kind of happy ending which is always nice in a way.

Did Trevor actually travel back in time? It seemed more like he was seeing his father’s memories, rather than actually physically going back in time.

I don’t know, this story really felt like it had a darker undertone with Henry and his obvious determination to prevail in science at all costs, but that was also kinda swept under the rug for a more Disney version, and that’s my issue with this one.

It was too nice. There was so much potential for conflict in a family dynamic but you seemed to avoid most of it, so much so, that it came down to Trevor “accidently” spilling gravy on Henry so he could sneak in and see another memory/go back in time?

The good news is there is potential to improve on this – you’ve got a nice premise but you need to add some conflict, and turn Henry into the douche he obviously is. Don’t let Susanna and Laura waste away on the sidelines – that Henry needs a good rollicking and some comeuppance for his selfish ways.

Does need a little polish I’m afraid – the dialogue especially as a lot of it read so unrealistic at times.

Good effort and congrats on completing the OWC.

Steve

Dialogue is really bland and feels forced, needs a rework from scratch.

Well, the dialogue actually seems to get worse the further you read. I wasn't a fan of this, a lot of problems from the get go. Trevor seems like a douche so it was impossible for me to root for him. The kid's being a little shit when his father gives him the honour of being the first person to time travel. "Hey, I know, I'll repay him by destroying all his work and the relationship with my mother". Definitely not the best you want to start the script.

I didn't feel a connection with Laura and Henry and I'm 99% it's because you introduced Susanna and Henry in the past as a happy couple. And when you did that reversal, it didn't make much sense since I genuinely felt Henry was in the right, he didn't even seem like a douche. I mean his kid purposely spilt gravy on him, WTF?

I didn't care for Trevor or Laura's predicament, which is the biggest problem here. Why would you use your son to do something like that in the first place? Why not, I dunno, just do it yourself? A lot of little problems with this one and it just becomes too much in the end. There's potential though.

Writer,

I liked this one a lot , really. It had a pretty good flow to it, and it make me want to keep on turning the pages. First one of its kind, so far. Kudos on that, friend. I guess I'm a fan of someone trying to untie a mystery. That itself builds up suspense and keeps the reader into the story.  

Felt a little blah about the ending. Felt it needed a little more oooomph.  But for what it was, and the time restriction, this worked for me. Good job on getting this done!

Steve

I get the feeling from page 1 there will be issues with this script. The writing is not the best, although most certainly not bad either. You have issues with dialogue it seems:

Code HENRY I won’t dare to risk you or anybody else for that matter. This is why we need funds. TREVOR I know.

Trevor already knows, so this information was clearly imparted for the viewer. This will come out as unnatural when read aloud. This is page 1. All of the dialogue reads unnaturally to me so far.

Code He machine whirs back to life.

Typo, also no need for the word, 'back'.

I'm at page 6 and I'm bored. Nothing is happening. I think an issue with this comp was the page count. Not enough fat has been trimmed from most of the scripts I've been reading.

Just skimmed through to page 8 and nothing is happening. Not for me this one.

This feels remote, cold... not a big fan of the dialogue.  Not into it, at all.


--Steve

I’m at odds with this one as a lot didn’t work for me but there’s something about it which makes me feel it’s got potential.

You talk at the beginning about teleporting in full form, so what part of them is being teleported? The time travel itself seems more like a dream or going through someone’s memories so I think it’s important you establish what is going on more with the mechanics of the machine and the time travel.

Why is he using his son? It sounds like this experiment can be done solo from Trevor’s antics so why doesn’t Henry go back in time himself, especially if he has things to hide?

Why is he after the stone? Is it so rare it will fund the research?

We see Laura with the stone, why didn’t Trevor see it?

Henry seems to be a bit of a  schizophrenic. A caring father and husband/partner one minute, a possessed man of science who will do anything it takes to carry out his research the next. I think you need to establish a trait and stick with it rather than switching his personality so much.

Trevor gets to see his dad’s girlfriend being examined at the Gynecologist – EWWWW!

Trevor did the right thing in the end and I like that.

So yeah there’s a lot that didn’t work for me in this but even so I really like the idea. I’m sure a second draft could sort out a lot of the issues. Gratz on entering the challenge!

As I go...

Writing not great out of the gate.  "BARREN ROOM" - really?  What's so barren about it?  It's got a bed and a large machine in it.

Not a very strong intro for Henry or Trevor.

Passages not broken up very well.

Page 2 - Opening passage for new Slug offers unnecessary detaila dn ends in an orphan, which definitely does not need to be there.

Henry is intro'd again as simply "HENRY", then a few lines down, "young Henry.  No description at all for "YOUNG SUSANNA".

The dialogue excahnge about getting married reads rediculously false.

Page 3 - "Promise it's the last..." - awkwardly worded.

"He machine..." - "The".

"quick hides" - ???  WTF?  Very poorly worded.

Page 4 - dialogue sounds completely false.

Page 6 - This is really getting goofy.  To think that Henry would put his son through this and know where to send him to find this stone is ludicrous at best.  To think that Laura would hide a "stone" in "a hole in the wooden floor in a Doctor's office is...well...it's plain old dumb, sorry to say.

Is "ROOM" the same room as "BARREN ROOM"?  Your slugs are abysmal, BTW.

Page 7 - "DINNING ROOM" - Really"  WHy do so many peeps spell this simple word wrong?  Unreal...I'm losing patience quickly.

The dinner dialogue is agin just ludicrous and immaturely put together.  One second, Trevor is slcing his steak and asking dumbass questions and then Susanna is clearing the table without any time break.

Page 9 - Sory, but the dialogue and entire setup here is just really, really poor.  I'd have stopped awhile ago, but at this point, I'm actually getting quite a few laughs - and I'm sorry if that sounds mean spirited, but it's true and you need to know this.  The writing is so far off in little ways that make it read almost like it's a pisser.

"CHEAP NEIGHBORHOOD" - ?  Really?  That's the Slug?  How about "CHEAPASS SHITTY OLD HOUSE"?

OH man, please, you're killing me.  This is just plain old bad writing on display.  Errors of all kinds everywhere.  Redonkulous dialogue and story going on.  Damn...

Page 12 - Return of the dreaded "DINNING ROOM"!!!!  "Trevor slurps his cereal. Henry watches him eat, lips thinned. Susanna Finally, Henry bursts with anger." - Seriously?  What in the world is this passage supposed to mean/say?  Just no attention to detail whatsoever and apparently not a single edit.

Page 13 - "Gary walks in, a package in hands. He examines it, tears the package open open." - This is what you want to present to the world?  Lines like these will make it difficult for anyone to ever take you seriously again.  Very, very poorly done.

The end.  Sorry, but this is really, really bad on every level remotely imaginable.  You seriiously need to act like you care what you're writing, because this is a disaster.

Congrats on entering, but please show a little more effort in the future.

I had to reread the first few pages, besides the action...There's no way to tell if you're jumping back and forth between time... maybe a flashback or a Super is required.

By page 4 the dialogue is very static, not natural.
By page 6 it's not looking good for Henry, why would he let his son use the machine? Unless he wanted him to find out his dark secrets. why wouldn't Henry go himself?

By the way.... is this a time machine? or some sort of thought/memory machine? there is nothing to indicate this.

page 8

TREVOR
Oops. I’m so sorry. The time travel
made me dizzy to be honest. That’s
why all the questions...   now it's getting ridiculous

finished

some misspelled words, missing question marks and bad grammar .
Alot of your slugs are wrong.

Overall I'm sorry but this was kind of lame throughout, the story was pretty weak IMO. Henry sending his son back to find out details that are gonna hurt Henry, with a cliche ending. ;P

Good job on entering

Mark

I skimmed over the comments before making one and have to agree that I, too, was wondering by page 6 why Henry was using his son instead of seeing the memories himself.

I'm finding your descriptions to be ok, but the dialogue - I have to second others - some of it is definitely not natural, for instance:

HENRY
Let's try once again before dinner.

and:

GYNECOLOGIST
You may sit up.

Plus Trevor is only 14. How would he know in the short time that he saw Laura and Henry together that he looked more in love with her?

In the end, this is a sweet little story, but didn't really fit the parameters of the challenge - not time travel, just seeing memories, and he didn't do anything in the past to change the future either. All Trevor did was right a wrong that had already happened. Don't get me wrong, as I said, this was sweet and I kind of liked the story itself, but a no go for the OWC.

Best way to learn how people really speak is to go places and just listen.

Hope this helps.

Renee

I'm curious to know why Henry choose to have Trevor time travel and not himself, especially with the idea that Trevor could expose Henry of his past. So Henry needed the stone to fund his time traveling device but did Trevor actually ever really time travel? Also, if Trevor was indeed time traveling then maybe there could be a sense of urgency with the time traveling device, such as, we only have two times left of time traveling before we run out of money. You need to hurry up and find the location of the stone before it's too late.

The ending was sweet and caring but it leaves things a little flat. What happens next? Is Gary really Trevor's half-brother? Will Henry and Trevor ever be able to time travel again since they don't have any money? Lots of questions are left to be answered.

Congrats on completing the OWC.

Thinking back

Logline - not sure how a curious boy helps with research funding...let's see

I liked that.

There are a few problems, aren't there always, but you made an attempt to show the emotion impact of choices and consequences. The way the boy starts out working with his father and by the end has gone behind his back to do the right thing. The mad scientist becomes an ego manic work obsessed, selfish character.

The ability to go back, just like that, to the right time and place on his own seemed a little easy, but wouldn't take much to fix.

The scenes when he is travelling need to be clearer, indeed, we had little image of whether he was there, just watching, hoovering etc is he in the scene or we see through his eyes, but that can be fixed.

Tidy this up and it has a decent drama within.

All the best

Writing wise there are things like using ‘bright’ and ‘brightly’ in the same line (Pg.2). Also when you introduce YOUNG SUSANNA,  she should stay YOUNG SUSANNA over dialogue (though we only hear her voice at the start, so I’m unsure how a viewing audience would know she’s a younger version or even the same person).

Laura hid the stone in the gynecologist’s exam room? W…why?

Unfortunately a lot of the dialogue is awkward. You can kind of see plot points being jammed in uncomfortably. Trevor (14) using the word obstetrician isn’t likely at all and that entire exchange is way to direct.

And now Trevor’s bursting into gynecologist’s office. This kid just doesn’t respect boundries  

Alright I think the basic premise could be salvaged, but having Trevor ask Laura a bunch of questions about her OBGYN and then storm the office… well I’m not sure if that really serves the tone you were going for. But like I said the foundations of this are sound, but it needs clean up.

Congrats on completing a OWC

The ending has a good twist, but like some people have said here, why send Trevor?

It could be Hendry that travels back in time and when he sees the shithole Laura's living in, he could say 'fuck the funding' and post the stone through the letterbox then take to his heels?

Anyway I think you could make this a lot better, but that's what it's all about eh !

I like a little more description for characters than there is at the start. Without it imakes it harder to visualise what's going on.

We've got two guys, a large machine and a barren room. I'm guessing my imagination is going to conjure up something a lot different from what the writer was imagining. The thing is gets hard later on to remember who's who as there's not much to recall them with.

Well, clearing up the typos would help. There's a pedant in a lot of us which knocks the concentration.


Some quite good bits in this but it needs a good polish to bring them out.