Well, it was a sweet story. The death element was interesting and kept it moving. It reminded me a bit of an old Twilight Zone episode where a guy asked death for one more sale and then stopped selling altogether.

Now, the bad news. There was no fish out of water or stranger in a strange land. Norman expected death. Death belonged there. Norman belonged in the house. No one was anywhere unfamiliar or anyplace they didn't belong. You wrote a good script, so no despair there, but it does not meet the most fundamental of requirements and didn't even pretend to.

If I had any complaints it would be the sort of heavy handed way that mom kept trying to prevent Tommy from hearing the man's story. It didn't make a lot of sense. Dude's like, "Let me talk" and she's all "shut up, man, I gotta tell my kid to leave you alone." Then he told his tale, and she's shuffling out of the room before anything else is said. Was kind of weird.

Other than that, this is the second one where the theme was very solidly not followed that resulted is a pretty good script. Good job.

Wrong page numbers

Good first act

Good second act

Great. I like it very much. It's a coherent story, well balanced with charm and heart.

There were some fine grim lines and also a lot of lightweight irony coming from death into the script. I liked that whole back and forth of changing atmosphere. That said the only way I could construe your story with regards to the parameters is that death, as archetype in storytelling, principally comes for the bad people: so here death is in a strange situation when meeting Norman, because his kindness hinders Death to get the job done… But that's really widely interpreted in your favor :-)
Whatever, I enjoyed the read.

I like everything about this except for the Death character, and the ending which I'll attribute to the character. None of it rings true after the initial introduction. The bird was great, the creepiness was great, the first lines were great...and then Death turned into a whiny brat. Which leads to the ending that makes no sense, because if Death doesn't claim virtuous people then Mother Theresa should be alive and kicking. I got the sense that maybe this wasn't really Death, except it was introduced as a real entity and not just in Norman's head, which might have been a neat way to go, with a conscience that threatens to kill him if he doesn't toe the line.

My bigger beef is this in no way really satisfies the challenge. Any interpretation is a stretch.

Anyway, good entry, one of the better ones I've read despite my grievances.

This was almost a nicely done rating from me, but here's what lowered it for me.

The way Death speaks felt strained to me. On page 7 in his dialogue

-unusual for a little boy strength- was clunky

When Norman says

-I don't want to creep people out that's all

That sounds silly to me.

Pg 8 - You have an exactly half hour.

The above and others like it detract from what is mostly good copy in this.

Page 9 - I started to feel the whole thing was going on too long. I think it was when Norman gives the second present. It felt overdone at this point. I guess less really is more. A hard thing to achieve though it sounds so simple.

This is probably what detracted the most. From the get-go, I remember thinking in the opening

a quiet neighborhood, manicured lawns, not rich
but not shabby either.

could have merely been something like

An average neighbourhood.

That would be enough to tell this particular story.

Because of the excessiveness of that first line, it could cost you serious readers who are looking for a golden nugget.

Also, when Norman says,

Single mother you know,

I was going, yes we know, we know. Don't hit us over the head with the idea.

Going back over my notes I see

an unlikely for a bird speed

let know the party is over

These things really affect what to me could have been an excellent script.

My advice for this is to rethink how you portray Death. Can you do something to make him more real rather than another Joker? Can you be more subtle?

Can you make a point to not draw out Norman's exit from the house-- you know what I mean, like don't make it too sappy? He's a a good person with a good heart we can see that, but he also needs to be real.

So yeah, maybe just tone some of it down.

Otherwise, I found this very memorable. I loved the picture in your opening with the crow.

A good one.

Sandra

Good story, but Death giving clown another chance for doing a good deed after mocking him all along for pretending to be good needs more explanation. The cleanest way to do this is if Death is ordered by a higher power to give the clown another reprieve. Of course, the writer is god in this piece, so please don't smite me!

Hey, thanks to all for the feedback, I may rewrite this one day.

Now I have to come clean about the name. Norman Gates.
As usual, this was an accident. A big stupid accident - I just googled boys names and Norman was the first to come up, Gates was the first last name to come up via google. And then I thought Norman Gates sounds so familiar. And then - all the better, Norman Gates it is.

And once I named an Indian character Ho-Chunk. In some kind of Indian language, it means the one who sings well. So the feedback I got was "oh I like your chunky whore".

And I know stupid things like this one come in three. I'll keep my eyes open for the next one. Can't wait!

Thanks again, all spot on, SS rocks))

Kham, you're making extreme progress in my eyes. Your script and "In A Pinch" were my two excellent votes.

Then, in the end, your script was my very favorite script.

The wolf and Boy story was also AWESOME

Be confident, I feel there's passion. Not only that... you're strong, go on.

Very impressive work, Kham. I'm not going to lie and say this was one of my favourites, but from a writer's perspective, this is good work. Nice job.

@Alex, thanks. Didn't see that coming, ultimate favorite, woah. That makes me very happy. I'm not giving up on it, will reopen and rewrite in a short while. It's budget friendly and because of that has a chance to be filmed I think.

@Dustin, thanks, glad you liked it. I noticed the story appealed to some. I'll rewrite and repost.