Curse of Chief Keigh-Tugh-Gua, The by PC (me) - Short, Young Adult, Horror - A boy and a girl, closer than friends, stumble upon an old Indian curse that threatens their town... more than once... - pdf, format

That one was good.  Liked the characters, liked the story, loved the ending, the writing itself was pretty good too.  However (I love that word) However, you did not meet the challenge.  There was absolutely nothing in there about them trying to convince anyone that the event wasn't a hoax.  Possibly themselves..but that isn't what was asked.

The other thing that you did was used dual character formatting when they were saying the same thing in unison - this was distracting and not really what this formatting is intended for.  You should just have put the character as CLARISSA AND SEAN, or something like that.

I was going to give you a 5 for this but I can't really do that because you didn't meet the challenge, so you get a 4 from me.  Well done.

haha, loved the ending. So the reversal of the curse was actually a trick to provide the real curse.

This one is level with the last one I read as the best so far. Again, I think the only aspect of the challenge you missed was the hoax. I'd have liked the worms to be a bit more dangerous but you sorted that out by making that curse just a trick.

I don't think you needed the double dialogue for their reversal of the curse. My understanding of double-dialogue is that it should be used when two characters are speaking at the same time, but saying different things. When they say the same thing you can just write both names seperated by a slash. Nit-pick city, huh?

I thought your dialogue and characters were great, I just wish you fitted the hoax part in. As it is, again, I can't give you top marks.

Great work!

I liked this one a lot, worm invasion...haha, would have been better if it were maggots , just kiddin'.  I thought you did a good job with the kids and you ended it with a great payoff with the Indians coming back.  I think I would have liked maybe a little more worm stuff, but what's here is fine, you don't wanna go over the page limit.  I really didn't see the hoax part, but it succeeded as a good young adult horror.  Anyway good job on this one.

Top marks on your writing. Dialogue sort of leaves something to be desired. But...it's still good.

There's A LOT of people saying repeatedly that writers didn't meet the mark when it came to the theme of hoaxing and two kids convincing others it's real. But, to be honest, A LOT of writers didn't follow the theme anyway. So i'm going to just grade it on what i thought of the story. And, to be honest, this is light years better than most stories in this challenge. You know what you're doing when it comes to "your craft" (craft is a word i despise)

And Holy cow i just realized i may know who wrote this...

This is the second entry I've read now about a native American curse.    Both are quite different though.  The worms were maybe a little more cringe-inducing than scary but it still worked and it created for some amusing moments.  In fact I'd say that's what made this come alive - the little touches you wrote in like how Clarissa casually flicked off a worm that was inching its way up to her keyboard.

The ending was a nice twist too.  I guess they used the wrong chant to break the curse.   I can't say I saw it coming but looking back I can see now how it all fits in with the story.  I think all those worms provided a good distraction.  I'd say of all the ones I've read so far this most closely fits young adult horror.

This is a really fun script.  The dialoge was good--seemed natural and like 14 year olds.  I liked the little montage showing the worms invading everyone's space.  I liked the twist at the end--people really should think about the words they are chanting before they chant them.   I thought the chant wording was a little lackluster though.

Interesting script, I loved the montages and the ending was clever.

It did seem to jump around at times, one second Sean's telling Clarissa his house is covered in worms and a second later they're at his house... did they go there straight away? Afterschool? Same thing with looking up how to reverse the curse, one second they're on the computer and then the next second they're digging up bones from a graveyard, though I attribute both of these things to trying to adhere to the page limit.

The dialogue from the two teens, especially the curse, felt a bit cheesy, but the story itself was really good. If you wanted to go back and flesh out the characters a bit more I'd recommend that. The ideas introduced in the beginning, that Melissa is hot and doesn't know it, or that Sean's voice octave is mid-puberty are humorous details that were kind of abandoned at the start. I think there's some potential for humor and additional conflict there if you wanted to expand this.

Overall, one of the most original ideas I've seen so far among the entries and well executed in one week's time. I think this one could be even better if you decide to extend it past the 13 page limit after the competition's over!

This was good.

Pretty well written, other than the double dialogue thing, which is definitely incorrect.  I also don't think the montage is necessary the second time around.

Like others have said, I don't feel you hit the requirements again.  No hoax, no warning...  Probably one of my favorites, but because of this, I'll have to dock you a star...sorry.

Good job overall, though.

Oh noes! You didn't follow the theme. Who were the kids trying to convince? Did they need to convince anyone? After all, the worms were all over the place. Also, I'm not sure what genre I'd file this under. It wasn't horror. There were a few lines I chuckled at, but I wouldn't call it a comedy either. As for the dialogue and action/descriptions, nothing really stood out. It was just mediocre.

Finally, the ending showcased what this script could've been. Zombie indians > Worms.

Yuukk! Love the worms spilling out of the shower head!

You have some very arresting images throughout but there appears to be a lack of narrative coherence. It might be instructive to overlay any one of the structure formats over your story to see how the different plot points align. One issue that may be working against your story thread is the competitive themes of the relationship between Clarissa and Sean, and the curse. That is, I think you need to decide what is your theme and focus on it. Your logline exemplifies this point. For example, you might want to consider dropping “closer than friends” so that our attention is better focused on “an old Indian curse”. Although the relationship between the two teenagers is engaging, how does it support the curse theme? Presently the relationship of the protagonists comes across as a competitive theme instead of an interesting sub-plot.
Thirteen pages means we need to be especially fastidious with our choices.
Once the theme is better distilled, it should assist filter the story telling and adjust the weighting to support the theme.

You may also want to review your descriptions and abbreviate some of them. You’ve set up your world successfully so you can rely upon the reader to follow without every detail being spelled out.

A minor point: perhaps replace “obsidian” with a few descriptive words.

I think you have a good piece that either needs more space or greater distillation on a single theme.

Of course, use only whatever rings true for you – dump the rest.

Okay...I liked this one   

Worms worms worms...lots of worms...and the twist...take care of the curse...but they went too far...so I guess it's back to the drawing board...or maybe that's what the Indians wanted then to do so they could be released from the grave...

Either way I enjoyed the story.  Good job!

~m~

The worms did not provide any horror aspect to the story.  The real impact came at the end which was in my view was too late to save the story. I was already bored by then.

You gave the characters some traits (voice issues and good looking) but you didn’t use them in story.  Who is Ellen? Assume she was the mother but we didn’t find out. Were where the parents in the two kitchen scenes? Would they have not noticed the worms?

Some the descriptions didn’t ring true.

“The two whirl around the room until the black rock gets
knocked off the desk,” – how long did they whirl – an hour ?

Too much staring by far…………..
“They stare at the broken rock on the floor.”
“They gaze at the glass rock.”
“He stares at the worms in the bowl.”
“Perplexed he stares at the worm”
“Sean and Clarissa share worried stares.”
“Clarissa stares at the rock,”
“She gazes at him with fascination.”

“There’s something in the middle of the rock. Looks like a fossil of a two inch long worm.” – The characters should have told us this.

The scene in the bedroom when the worm tries to get into Seans mouth we didn’t know he was asleep in the bed before this happened.  Didn’t work for me . Walford

Getting this out of the way:  where's the hoax?  where's anyone who even suggests that it's a hoax?

Done with that.  

This was a good story, maybe one of the better ones I've read.  It fit the adolescent horror theme very well (the youngin's will be scared but won't need counseling).

It was a bit choppy, as someone earlier mentioned.  Sean tells Clarissa about the worms.  And, all of a sudden, they're at his house.  They decide they have to do something and they suddenly have a curse reversal spell and Indian remains.

The ending was an interesting twist.  I actually had to read it a second time to make sure I understood it.
God story overall.



Phil

This had and interesting premise, but it failed to deliver as we moved forward.

There wasn't really any battle or threat that happened. The kids merely searched the trusty internet and found out how to reverse the curse and that seemed to work until the end when the army of Indians appear again.

Good effort.

Sandra