Summoning by Daniel Robinson - Horror - A priest who believes that there is a higher God than the one he serves decides to abandon his previous beliefs. He learns of a book of spells suppossed to be hidden in an old abandoned house in his small community. He enters the house and finds the book in plain view. He reads from the book and nothing seems to happen. As he gets built with frustration he goes to leave the house but can't.  - doc, format 8)

Fairly short (60 pgs).  Read this over lunch.  A fairly conventional "people spending the night in a haunted house" story, but your narrative is pretty disjointed.  Doors are locked one moment, then characters leave through them a moment later; characters are tied up, then walking around in the next scene.  One of your biggest problems here is continuity.

(Spoilers)

*  Boy, you sure like exclaimation points!!!!  It reminds me of an old bit on Seinfeld.  I offer up two out of literally dozens of examples:  "Jeff looks up at the sky and sees a starry night!" and "I have to fix my carberator!"  You should probably go through and replace just about all of these with a simple period, otherwise it gets kind of silly.
*  You should describe this "clubhouse" where adults are playing poker.  I could not form an image of what you were talking about.
*  You constantly have them turning on lights.  This old house has power?  Just give them flashlights.  It's creepier that way anyway.
*  Tom finds a "dead animal."  Is it a dog?  A squirrel?  An elephant?  Tell us.
*  "There is no answer.  After 20 minutes, Jimmy gets worried."  You are going to have Jimmy sitting around for 20 minutes?
*  Donald gives him four hours?  Then disappears?  Instead of killing him right then?  Then, Tom finds the spell, but decides to have a smoke first?  This is just getting silly now...
*  On several occasions, you refer to Jeff as "Fred".  You must have changed the name at some point, so go back and look for those.

The biggest problem with this story (and it's a big one) is that the motivations for these characters really needs to be stronger.  The source of conflict between these characters is some "shooting off at the mouth" that happened prior to this story.  It is mentioned (frequently), but is never fully explained.  And the whole "brother" revelation.  There is never any reason for this.  It is just...there.

I think you need to go back and make sure that all of your characters (particularly Donald, as mentioned above) are behaving in a rational way.  That, and lose the exclaimation points, which DID become quite silly ("Tom walks over to the chair very slowly!") after a while.  I'm afraid your story is just not working right in its current form.

Hey Bert sorry for the late reply. Nice to see that your a moderator.

I have a few new scripts, if your interested in reading them Die Cut should be up soon,

Talk to you soon,
Dan

I started reading this, Dan, but I found the problems in it to be too distracting.

Your opening scene has a priest reading a mystical text and suddenly deciding to abandon his faith.  Just from reading a book?  Entering priesthood is something that takes years to decide (and do).  It's a lifelong commitment that no one takes easily.  I've seen McDonalds employees with more dedication than this priest.  I can't even imagine a priest reading such a book, unless it was some research project for the Vatican.  This preist reads it (casually reads it, I'm assuming), and suddenly decides that his faith is wrong.

Then you have the part with Tom and Jeff.  How old are these guys?  I'm picturing twelve years old because they're arguing over whether a house is haunted.  No details about the house here, which I thought was annoying.  What makes the house haunted?  This is where you draw us into the story.  Tell us what we should be afraid of, even if it is just urban legends.

Your dialogue is extremely on-the-nose.  The characters talk like they're encyclopedia entries.  You don't have to tell us everything right away.


Phil

Thanks Phil,

This was one of my first scripts, I agree with everything you say and I am Planning a re-write of it soon,

Thanks Again,
Dan