Toys by Kevin Revie (kev) - Short, Young Adult, Horror - A brand of alien toys have invaded the small town of Littleroot. It's up to two kids who know the dark secret behind the toys to save the town from an evil plan. - pdf, format

I really liked this very different way to take alien and hoax and put them together.
Had fun reading it too =].

I liked this story concept...although it is a whole lot predictable   Toys have been used before....

I think if the time element were extended to a few days it would play out a lot better and more believable   

~m~

This works much better as comedy than horror.  It reads very juvenile, but with the YA theme, it's not bad.

Lots and lots of mistakes throughout.  Your opening is a bad sign, spelling "News Room" and News Desk" as "New's Room" and "New's Desk".  Not a good start.  Lots of examples of missing punctuation.  Also, many paragraphs that are way too long...try and stick with no more than 4 lines...5 at the most.  makes reading much easier and looks more "professional".

All in all it was OK.

A little bit of Halloween III in there as inspiration, eh?   I liked this one.  It had a certain charm to it and I dug the ending.  You formatting was ok, and your actions were pretty good.  

However,  I think this script suffers from telling us too much. It's a very chatty script and a lot of the dialogue is used to explain what happens.  Instead of explaining it, how about just showing it.  

For a start, I would cut all but a few lines of the first 4 pages.   I would also cut the discussion between Peter and Mandy on page 9.  I would maybe borrow a bit more from Halloween III and have one of the toys misfire and hurt someone - that would add a bit to the danger (you wait so long before showing us what the toy does).

With a rewrite this could be a nice little script.    

Interesting story, there were mistakes as evidently pointed out above.  But I liked it.  The descriptions could do with a little tweaking here and there.  The dialogue was fine.  And the theme of Toys for Halloween, nice idea.

It might have been cool if you arranged for one of the toys to mysteriously appear with Vincent or Wendel's children.

All the best,


Javier

I thought this was okay...
Didn't really grab me, but you did followed the assignment.

I thought Mandy's and Peter's dialogue did not sound like fifteen year olds. It was very bland. They also told us a lot of the story rather than doing. On film, long stretches of this film would just be the two of them chatting with nothing visual going on.

Action paragraphs need to be broken up so it doesn't read like a novel. Could also use a good bit of trimming.

The story itself was not bad, but I feel this script needs a bit of a rewrite to help bring the story out.  

Very easy, entertaining read and certainly more original than some of the other OWC entries. The characters seemed a bit off though; I think they could use a bit more of a backstory. Are they friends, more than just friends, hoping to be more than just friends, related, neighbors, sworn enemies? You get the idea. Once you get a better idea of who these two kids are, I'd suggest re-writing the script so that the dialogue has more discernable voices.

At times this script was also pretty unbelievable, and despite all of those moments, the one that I couldn't suspend my belief for was everyone returning their toys to Peter's house. If I had the hottest toy in town and was told to deliver it to a random person's house, I don't know that I'd be so willing to turn it over. Maybe have them return it to the factory and have the kids collect them there or put up a sign. One other thing, how'd they know how many of these toys were issued?

Good start and this certainly fit the challenge, though a bit more time could have been spent knocking on doors trying to convince people the invasion was a hoax. Nice job!

Nice little story with an ending which wrapped everything up nice and neatly. As pointed out already the descriptions / actions were too long and contained spelling and grammar errors. Some were just plain confusing eg

“Down a street covered in orange leaves and surrounded by
scattered emptying leaves a small local toy store is
visible.”

“After a moment, Peter and Mandy open their eyes and see no a sign of no one.”

“Vincent stares over the men’s computer screens; the screens show the men setting up each of the toys for attack.”

Some of the characters could have been better described.

I would suggest that you proof read the script again and again and even again and then……

I find mistakes in my own work at every turn, but these ones suggest you may have run out of time.  Overall not a bad effort. Walford.

The premise is really good with this one. Notice that:

Leaves is repeated twice in the initial Toy Store paragraph.

Also notice that when you wrote this:

A bunch of long white-coated men enter the room with safetly masks and goggles on...

It reads like the room is equipped with safety masks and goggles on.

Work on cutting down on big blocks of text as much as possible.

Sandra

eheh! thanks for the feedback! happy halloween!

Quoted from kev eheh! thanks for the feedback! happy halloween!

I just noticed that you've got a comedy horror in your sig. I'd be interested in reading it after I get my next two months at the writing grindstone worked out.

Big cheers to you on this effort. You put a unique spin on our Halloween with the Toys showing up on shelves pre-Christmas. I think that you're working with a good hidden theme here. I love that!!!!

Sandra

thanks a lot sandra! this was my first owc, it was fun, i couldn't resist not participating! i loveee halloween! one major thing from reading everyones feedback is that i need to work on how i write descriptions like novels, that and a bunch more! i've got my 'accidental awakening' script up but i sent it in around the same time as this so don't expect any improvement writing-wise, it should be generally the same but in my next script i hope to really improve on everything!

Hey Kevin!



So, besides the few grammar errors and spelling mistakes, this was a good one. It reminds of that atrocity Halloween 3 (where was Michael Myers? Nobody knows.......), except it was better. And the kids actually saved the day, even when nobody believed them (unless they dressed up as interns). I think this is so far the only one I've read where the kids actually save the day and still have nobody believe them. The dialogue is a bit unbelievable, but then again, it helped move the story along.

Sean