Never Innocent by Adrian Tullberg - Short, Drama - A cautionary tale of future events. 8 pages - pdf, format

I like this story.  It could definitely be part of something bigger, which may be your plan.

A few things:

Right off the bat, and in other places, passive wording: is waiting, instead of waits; is walking, instead of walks, etc.  Examples:

A man, besuited, sunglasses, close-cropped haircut is
waiting outside a parked sedan.
A kid, 6-7 year, is walking to the gates. He doesn’t look
too happy.
A MOTHER, waiting for her kids, leans over to the Man.


Wrylies used incorrectly throughout:

KID/SEAN (NOT CONVINCING)
Okay.

Should be:

KID/SEAN
(not convincing)
Okay.


I don't think we needed to read all the Latin words, unless there's something really important in there.  Makes it tough if you don't know Latin (who does?).  I ignored it.  Something like "Man reads from book in Latin" would suffice, maybe with the first few words.

Easy read, good pace, nice action, good dialog.

Fix the formatting and turn it into something bigger.

Thanks for posting.

Thanks for your feedback. This was written a few years back when there were news reports on the same subject.

I am not sure this stands alone as a short, and I am not entirely clear what happened at the end.

I did not get the impression that Sean was killed in the attack, but it seems the funeral occurs soon after, based upon Phil's wounds.  I did not understand why the attackers were reading what I assume to be Latin.

You do your parentheticals wrong and should look up how to do those correctly.  And there is no need to capitalize a character's name each and every time you use it.  Just the first time is how that's done.  Otherwise, your formatting seems fine.

Some would tell you that you capitalize way too many words in your descriptive passages.  I use those pretty sparingly myself.

You write action pretty well, but I could not place it into its proper context, as this story leaves too much up for grabs in the ideas department.  It needs a few more pages to feel complete, I think.

Better look into those parentheticals. The Latin was a prayer of exorcism.

Hey Adrian,

The beginning of the story starts out very interesting to me, but a little confusing.  Was Phil teaching Sean to be a mercenary or something?  Teaching him how to make little boys scream like a girl?  If Sean's so famous, it seems like they'd want their clone to prove to everybody that he can melt into society without any trouble.

The middle of the story, probably right about the time Sean starts singing the fight song, is where the story tapers off for me.

The action blocks are pretty confusing.  I don't get what exactly's happening.  I get the idea they want to kill Sean, I just don't get the exact details.  You say four men get out of the van, but then another attacker comes out of nowhere.  And I never got the idea once that Sean had died until the funeral.  When you say that 'Sean's eyes remain wide open', I got the implication he was staring around in fear.  And why does Phil say 'Thanks mate' after he sees Sean is dead?  (If he is dead at that point.  I'm not sure when he dies.)  It just doesn't fit for me.

And I don't understand the exorcism at all.  I don't think the Roman Catholic Church would perform the ritual of an exorcism because 1) They just kill him anyway.  Isn't the purpose of an exorcism to expell a demon and save the mortal's soul?  If the clone doesn't have a soul like they believe, no need for an exorcism.  And 2) There is no demon.

I don't get what point the ending is trying to say either.  Nothing really happens.  We just see that Phil is irritated and doesn't want to answer questions.  The end doesn't really satisfy anything else about the rest of the story.

Like I said, I liked the beginning a lot and I was curious to find out about Sean, I just think the rest of the story needs fleshed out some more.

Hope this helps, mate.  (I'm not too sure if Americans are aloud to use the word 'mate', but from talking to a lot of people on here, it's damn catchy.)

- Mark

This was well-written and had a good pace to it. Also, I was as connected to the characters as I possibly could be for 8 pages, so good job with that.

*SPOILER*

I agree RC about the ending. It isn't very satisfying. Nothing about the way Phil acts after the death sets him apart from the other people who obviously didn't like Sean, and so there's really no emotional resolution. The reason an emotional resolution is so important for this story, in my opinion, is that clone discrimination isn't something we're dealing with in our generation, and so I don't already have an emotional bias toward the situation.

My one problem with this was the religion part. I understand that it's central, but it just isn't realistic. I feel like the "evil religion" mentality within this script isn't so much focused toward religion as a whole, but toward Christianity, and that just doesn't seem realistic in our day and age. Sure, in the 1800s or the Medieval age Christianity might have done something like this, but in modern times, Islam would be much more likely to do something like this. Based on the use of "mate" I'm assuming you're either European or Australian. If it is the former, then Islam is one of the most prevalent and radical religions in the area right now, whereas Roman Catholicism is trying very hard to suck up to everyone due to falling Church attendance.  

It may seem like I'm nitpicking, but in my opinion, if you're going to make a point about the dangers of radical religion, or religion in general, you have to do it based on realistic likely-hoods rather than stereotypical, Middle Ages-influenced bias against the Christian church, and Roman Catholicism more specifically.

You're obviously a good writer, and this was a solid piece. Overall, nice work.

-Elmer

Quoted from jnave Right off the bat, and in other places, passive wording: is waiting, instead of waits; is walking, instead of walks, etc.

Those aren't passive; they're progressive!


Phil

I liked this very much. The first reveal is when we learn that he's a cloned boy and the second when he dies and nobody mourns him (kind of a twist)

It work as is for me, so I do not suggest changes.

I found the first page slightly misleading, had to read it twice - I thought Phil was a pedophile at first. It's probably the mother who says "they let him to our kids" - so I thought she was speaking about Phil. Maybe clear up that part...

On page 7 - I'd shorten the Women's lines. I don't think they'll let them talk this long on screen - they are such a minor characters - just a taste of the attitude.

Great job!