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SimplyScripts Screenwriting Discussion Board    One Week Challenge    October 2013 One Week Challenge  ›  The Withered - OWC
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  Author    The Withered - OWC  (currently 4730 views)
Don
Posted: October 19th, 2013, 9:37am Report to Moderator
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So, what are you writing?

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The Withered by Thirty-Six - Horror - A woman severs the hands of her stalker. Locked up, he boasts he will finish the job. But how? ( R ) - pdf, format



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crookedowl
Posted: October 19th, 2013, 1:10pm Report to Moderator
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I like the story, but the writing and dialogue could use some work.

The action lines aren't clear some of the time. The beginning, for example -- I couldn't tell, at first, if Jacob was in the van or standing somewhere else.

Some of the dialogue's a little on the nose. At some parts I wondered if this was even meant to be taken seriously.

Maybe you were rushed. I don't know. Anyway, this was not bad, but it could use a rewrite.

Good job finishing the OWC.

Will
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LC
Posted: October 19th, 2013, 6:29pm Report to Moderator
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Well, this logline sounds familiar.  

This 'story' is not bad. Definitely schlocky horror - and entertaining at that.

The writing does need quite a bit of fixing though...but I expect you might know that given it has a rushed feel to it and lots of little errors/typos etc.

As I read:

'He's your warlock stalker'
'You want to see some real bad ass warlock dark magic shit! I'll show bad ass magic shit'


Lines like this are really not great. But, maybe they're so bad they're good.  

The 'severed hands' and the 'hands spider up her body' evoke some nice visuals...and all the blood - good job there.

The thing that does let it down is the writing overall:

'takes his head from his shoulders' - I take that to mean she decapitated him? As I read it, it sounded so casual - and 'Jacob's right' - what? his right hand?

It's a bit sloppily written and I sensed from reading that the 'deadline' was looming. I did enjoy it though. Has a real 'Hammer Horror' vibe. Well done.


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mmmarnie
Posted: October 20th, 2013, 9:50am Report to Moderator
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Why did Sara end up in a sanitarium? Did she imagine the whole thing?

Lots and lots of typo's and grammar issues. The writing is a little too choppy. Some details are lost which makes some of the action confusing.

The story itself, well, there wasn't much of one. I don't know much about any of these characters. It was just all blood and gore. Some of the visuals were cool, like with the hand, but I wasn't connected to anyone. For me, it felt like I was just watching people being cut up.

Even in stories like this, it's important that we're invested in your main character.  We have to want them to win.  


boop
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KevinLenihan
Posted: October 20th, 2013, 10:00am Report to Moderator
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I try to put time into my reviews, but I don't think the writer put much time into this story. It feels thrown together five minutes before the deadline. I mean I don't think the writer even tried, which kind of aggravates me, because I am taking time off from regular writing to try to read through all these.

The witches can handle the warlock very easily...when he has all his limbs.

But then they can't handle his hands, which are somehow more powerful when freed from the rest of the guy. Jeesh.

And this is not even about a stalker. It's a about a guy taking revenge because he was thrown out of a witch's coven.

The ending was obviously tacked on at 2 minutes to deadline.

I can accept a vengeful disembodied hand, but it would kill the witches in their sleep or something. I mean it's just a hand!

Kept thinking of Seinfeld: "But I got hand!"  "And you're gonna need it."
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SAC
Posted: October 20th, 2013, 8:09pm Report to Moderator
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Hi,

Great start to this story!  Excellent visuals and description with Jacob coming to Sara's front steps.  No nosy neighbors.  Enjoyed that small bit of detail there.

However, I found the rest to be a bit convoluted and somewhat of a letdown.  You lost me when the hands came to life.  Stuff like that's been done before, and I never cared for it much then.

However, I still think this can be something special if you toy around with it some more.  Just my opinion, of course.

Not bad though.  It's horror, it's witches, it meets the requirements, so good job on this!

Steve


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EWall433
Posted: October 21st, 2013, 1:10pm Report to Moderator
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First off, the writing style is a little hard to get through for me and leads to some awkward phrases. Such as on page 4, “Frees her bra.” Does this mean she’s topless now? And now that I’m picturing them naked with safety goggles on, I’m assuming any dark humor is intentional.

Ok, so the concept here is pretty good. I went into this kind of knowing what to expect and it delivered story-wise. I could sense the humor and the energy you wanted from this.

The writing style, however is not my favorite. It left me struggling to visualize a lot of what was going on. Elements of the scene would tend to come out of nowhere, rather than being set-up and then payed off. It also would have been good to have a little more back story on who these people are and how they find themselves here.

Over all a good effort though. Congrats!
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Nomad
Posted: October 21st, 2013, 2:01pm Report to Moderator
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The writing is horrible in spots and the story seems more like something I'd see on the Benny Hill Show or the Keystone Cops.

::SPOILERS::
The story just isn't plausable either.  How would the severed hands get any leverage to do the things they were doing?

I can accept that the hands come to life, but when they start tripping people and gouging out eyes, I have to check out of the story.

Jordan


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LizzAyn
Posted: October 21st, 2013, 9:20pm Report to Moderator
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Lots of typos, lots of choppy description but also lots of well-written action.  I really enjoyed it overall.  The first scene does seem like it should be INT./EXT. Jacob's van instead of just EXT. and some of the dialogue was rough but the action more than made up for it.  The ending worked as well.  Good job.
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ReneC
Posted: October 22nd, 2013, 2:28pm Report to Moderator
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Poor writing aside, I think you have a good sense of visual storytelling. You need to improve the writing to be able to take advantage of that, but that's the easy part. Keep learning and practicing.

A decent beginning, and then it becomes Evil Dead Hands. No story, just action. The action is pretty good, in an '80s B-movie campy way, which I don't mind. But without any story it's meaningless. The ending doesn't work, it just hints at the story that's missing without telling us anything.

There are way too many beats here, every little action spelled out and often on its own line. This should really be about four pages when properly written and formatted. Those extra pages would have been appreciated.

Good job completing the OWC, keep writing!


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Dreamscale
Posted: October 23rd, 2013, 12:25pm Report to Moderator
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My 2nd to last OWC script, and as said earlier, I really wanted to give these last few scripts some time and detail, but it ain't gonna be happening here, and I'm out halfway down Page 3.

First of all, as others have said, the writing here is just terrible, filled with mistakes, and just a really poor way to write a script.  Why are you constantly omitting your subject?
Passages are broken up (or not broekn up) very poorly.  So many important details are omitted, it's downright impossible to know what's supposedly going on.

Dialogue is very, very poor, and bordering on pisser quality.

Action details are laughable, almost like a cartoon.

I'm sorry, but I know where this is going to go, based on the logline alone and it ain't anywhere I want to be near.  If you want to be taken seriously, you have to show that you care and the writing on display sure doesn't show much of anything.

Sorry to be harsh, but as others have said, it appears you didn't even try here.
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Abe from LA
Posted: October 23rd, 2013, 4:23pm Report to Moderator
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This story was seemingly stitched together during a cigarette break. It tries for suspense early on, resorts to an upchuck load of comic grue and choppiness, and — SPOILERS —bails out with an, “I just pulled out the nutcase card.” Really?
You could just rename this “Nightmare on Kookoo Bird Street.”

This little payback tale is about a warlock getting booted from a coven by a witch. Okay, but where is the Black Magic showdown?  Why are they armed with all kinds of garden-variety weapons — knife, hammer, wrench, power tools? What is Bree’s role in all this, and why is she initially “hiding”? My guess is that she’s in this story for exposition purposes.

If this is a power struggle between witches, I’d like to see both combatants duke it out with ‘black magic,’ then strip each other of their witchcraft — before resorting whole-hog to Chainsaw Massacre artillery.

I don't think you're as bad a writer as this piece suggests. There just isn't much story here and it's looks rushed and ill-conceived. I do like the crawling hands angle, a little bit, cause I haven’t seen that since the ‘60s.  Sorry to say, "Withered" is a one-trick, tired donkey.
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oJOHNNYoNUTSo
Posted: October 23rd, 2013, 8:58pm Report to Moderator
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This was a fun story that had me giggling at times.  The writing is rough, some capitization, spacing, and mixed up words.  I'm sure going over this a few times would clear it all up.

Things I liked was the two going shirtless with safety googles.  It's a very cool visual, but I thought there would be more of witchcraft type solution that full out Evil Dead.  The whole hand and saw thing aside, I though it did come off humorously animated like Army of Darkness or others like it.  Cool visual with his tattooed hands on the steering wheel.

The ending felt tacked on, not that it couldn't have been better.  I didn't feel the connection from the start.

As Jeff pointed out, the subject is left out of the equation at times.  I've seen this style used a lot and I'm not opposed to it personally, I just know that using a subject instead of implying one gives the sentence strength.  But you included these in the context of the shot, so it still has clarity and that's most important IMO.

Good one,

Johnny
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CoopBazinga
Posted: October 24th, 2013, 2:50am Report to Moderator
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I like the title and I've seen this logline before - be interesting to see how this one plays out.

Where is Jacob? In the van or on the sidewalk? I'm guessing in the van because you mention it but the opening sentence doesn't read well at all.

Now I know the scene is definitely taking place in the van but we haven't changed slugs at all.

Lots of problems in the writing - I'm surprised because I think I know who wrote this and it just reads so clumsy. I'd have to guess that this was submitted on the deadline and there was literally no time to revise because a lot of the issues I'm seeing that would surely have been spotted and cleaned up. Some of the typo's are really bad and should have been caught before posting: "The swa comes alive."

Okay, the horror part was kinda cool - had hints of "The Thing" going on when the hand transforms into two parts creating a completely new creature. Other than that and I'm sorry to put it so bluntly, but this was just a jumbled mess. A lot of the time, I wasn't even sure was supposed to be happening as the writing was so poor... it just was. The characters and dialogue is laughable, on the nose and just doesn't make any sense. Although I liked that they went topless, this is always appreciated, but why did they go topless? That's what sums this up I'm afraid - it's a series of events that have no purpose or explanation.

Some good gore and nudity but this one missed the mark for me.

Congrats on completing the OWC.

Steve
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Ryan1
Posted: October 26th, 2013, 6:29am Report to Moderator
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As has already been mentioned, the opening paragraphs were too murky.  Hard to tell where Jacob was.  Not sure how you block a sledgehammer with a gift bag.  And what is he the doorway to?  Wait a minute, there's another story called "Doorway to Hell."  Got it.

Despite the spare storytelling, it seems this is a warlock bent on revenge for some completely unknown reason.  But if he's a warlock he shouldn't have to resort to sledgehammer bludgeoning like some mafia goon.  If he has the "power" he should use it then and there.  Things pick up when they knock him out.  But, uh, what exactly are they doing with a pillory in the garage?  Those are pilgrim-style stocks, right?  Not exactly something you pick up at K-Mart.  However, it seems the very next scene has two topless women with power tools, so this story has managed to rope me back in.

I actually liked the hands running free.  Granted it probably has more comic feel to it than horror, but it's still a cool visual.  Disappointed there were no b!tch slaps delivered though.  The ending was lacking.  The writer had plenty of space to wrap it up, but opted for an easy way out.  Ah, well.

Not a bad idea for a story, but I would have preferred a battle of witch vs. warlock powers rather than buzzsaw vs. sledgehammer.  And writing in that ultra-fragmented sentence stacking style is always a risk.  It really takes a good deal of skill to pull off otherwise it feels like you're riding a go-kart running on gas fumes.  Slowly.  Sputtering.  Out.    

  
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