A Woman Scorned by George Willson - Short, Drama - Jack struggles to understand his sister's methods of exposing her husband's abuse.     A July, 2006 One Week Writing Challenge Entry - pdf, format 8)

I kinda enjoyed this one. I liked the twisted bit of sickness.

Format wise I have a feeling it wasn’t perfect, but close enough that it seemed just fine to me.

This wasn’t a comedy, so good job on that, even though I did enjoy some of the other entries and thought they were funny and enjoyable, the challenge was to write drama.

You are very much the opposite of me in your writing. You told most of your story through dialogue, I tend to not use enough. The dialogue was very good though. Your descriptions in the beginning were really nice as well.

By page 5 or 6 (can’t remember) I was starting to get an inkling of what happened. Just an inkling, so it kept me wondering and wanted to know more.

Like I said, I enjoyed the sick and twisted part of this story and if I was a guest at this BBQ I think I’d be in the bathroom throwing up too.

Good job

8)

Ooh this one, in my opinion, I found oddly chilling. I mean, at first, it all seemed like a drama, but once I reached the end, it almost gave me the chills. That's a pretty twisted story you have right here.

There were some parts, though, that I was getting lost at. But don't worry, I was able to pick myself back up and continue reading and figure out all the details.

Good job.

Sean

This one is pretty twisted.  Whoever wrote this has one hell of an imagination ;D

I didn't really know where this one was going, I knew something was rotten in Denmark, but I just didn't know what.

****************SPOILERS*********************

Then came the ending EWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!  That was some twist I'll give you that.  When Dan pointed to the freezer it finaly came to me what happened.

Helen is whacked!  I don't know why she would do that to her family unless she was mentaly insane, which years of abuse could happen.

Anyways good job :)

Eww... I can't say I didn't know what was going on through most of the story because I knew what was going to be explained in the end very early on. Very, very disturbing but oddly entertaining. The whole plot I'm sure I've seen or read before but it was written well and it really does tie in nicely with the OWC theme.

Very nice, though I've just had my dinner and I'm just pretty glad I didn't have a barbeque today. Good job!

GBM :)

Good job.  ;D

Nice descriptions, dialogue, and story that was right on with the challange. If I had to guess, I think I would say Breanne wrote this one.

Cindy

WOW! Gosh! What can a woman do pissed off with? Jeez! So, there is drama until we know what happened with that piece of meat in the freezer then it turns to horror or something like that. Anyway, good dialogue here...Cindy? Pia? Brea? Andy? No Andy is out...Humm...Is Andy realy out? Pia? Ha-ha!

****SPOILERS****

I knew as soon as I read the theme was barbeque that there would be at least one with this twist -- haha!

This one is very well written. I kind of expected the ending a little. But it was well put together so good job at that.

Nothing negative to say except that maybe Kim seemed a little too relaxed about things when talking to her mother. Also, Dan is a real jerk for talking about wishing they hadn’t come. It would have made little difference for Kim who would still have to deal with the situation.

Also, it doesn’t say whether or not Helen’s husband is Kim’s father. It’s kind of inconceivable that he could be so abusive to Helen without Kim having any idea if this had gone on in the home while she was growing up. It does make sense that Helen would want to punish family members who had ignored her cries for help but Kim certainly wouldn’t have fallen into that category, especially when Helen herself admits that she tried to shield Kim from even knowing.

Anyway, just some thoughts. It’s still a well written, well put together short so good job.

As it has already been noted, you get the "extra points" for sticking to the challenge rules.

The sick twist at the end is the strongest aspect of this script. The weakest is, IMO, that it's the dialogue that drives the story forward, not the visuals. Yet I must admit that writing visually is something specially hard to do in only one week, and with a theme (drama at the end of a family barbeque) that atracts "talking heads" scenes like blondes atract horny teenagers.

Good job, Mr/Mrs.

Looking forward to know who you are (I got no idea).

I really enjoyed this story.

The dramatic dialogue made it very interesting. No one ever wanted to mention exactley what was going on. I guess they were all just sickened by it.

I too pretty much knew what the ending was going to be but that is only because of my own twisted nature.

The whole piece was sparse on description and action, you let the dialogue lead us. That enhanced the dramatic experience for me.So great job on that and thanks for a good read.

Quoted from Helio WOW! Gosh! What can a woman do pissed off with? Jeez! ...Cindy? Pia? Brea? Andy? No Andy is out...Humm...Is Andy realy out? Pia? Ha-ha!

Helio,

I can guarantee you that I did not write this.

If I had there would have been detailed descriptions of the killing and carving.

;D :P

From the opening descriptions I knew where this one was going, but it was fun getting there.  It was inevitable that somebody would broach this territory.

However, this was the second one of these I’ve read where I quickly lost track of the characters and had to scroll back.  It occurs to me now that a family barbeque -- necessitating many characters -- is probably not a good idea for a short script, where it is best to concentrate on a minimal number of characters.

That isn’t the author’s fault, though, and in fact, we are soon concentrating on the people most important to this story.  But it is never made clear why Helen chose to “punish” the entire family.  One character asks her this directly, and it might be nice if she could supply a reason.

And it also begs the question of whether or not Helen actually had any herself.  A few flashbacks to the barbeque itself, and perhaps to the announcement, might have been fun to see.

At any rate, this is also a solid entry with a satisfying conclusion.  Good work with a tough theme.  I have my suspicions as to the author, and it's not a woman.

What a pit!

The type of woman reactions I betted on you! Haha!

Who did that (moving my cursor)?!  There is a ghost on SS!

Loved the ending, although I could see it coming from the first page.  Didn't care for some of the dialogue, felt some of it went on a little too long, especially the part with Kim and Dan arguing ('you're gloating').  The back and forth didn't work for me.  

Also, most everyone seemed a little too cool with the situ.    

However, it was a good effort.

Just finished this one and I really enjoyed it. It was unique and set itself apart from the others. I have a few guesses about this ones author but I’ll keep them to myself, for now.

Anyway, dialogue was fine, descriptions were fine. I guess the “whoa” factor for this was the twist at the ending (which I didn’t see coming). It was entertaining to watch the characters almost give away what happen then for one reason or another didn’t quite let it out.

Great job.

-Zavier

Wow. The story was great. There was a few grammatical problems but nothing too serious. The dialgoue flowed well. I enjoyed the whole concept. This was a beautiful masterpiece. Congrats on a fine job anonymous person.  

Okay, this is the second one I read which had somebody feeding their spouse to other people...is this saying something about the group of people on SS?  Hahaha.

A solid entry. Not much to complain about, except, in my opinion, you could have taken out some of the characters.  It's only 8 pages and you have alot of characters in here in addition to Helen--Kim, Dan, Marge, Jack, a brief appearance by John--I think it could have been limited to Jack and Kim since they had key lines.

It's sad, in a gross sort of way.  Helen is abused for all this time and when she takes her revenge she's going to jail for the rest of her life.  Saddening, but again, gross.  So overall I liked this story alot.  Very well written, fantastic dialogue and another hardcore twist ending.  Nice!

Thanks to all who this one and gave some thoughts on it. This one took me a bit longer than the other one (2 hours) because I had to revise portions of it that didn't work. Had to rework some dialogue, etc here and there. I also went back and answered the question as to why she did this to her husband, but failed to answer why she served him up to her family. My bad. I'll take the suggestions into consideration if I rewrite it.

This was somewhat of a disappointment but a good read nevertheless. I guess I was just expecting something more shocking. Granted this was shocking but I read the same thing in Babra-Que.

Nevertheless, I thought this was a very well written piece. There was a very strong build, which I love. I kept on reading with growing anticipation, wondering what was going to happen next and you continued to up the anti until the climax. I think this was the strongest aspect of your script. I also liked how you to a typical horror convention and put it into a dramatic context. It wasn't Helen killing her husband and serving him to her barbeque guests that was the focus of the story but rather the impact it had upon the people involved. I thought this was very well done.

All in all, another good read from you, although I think I liked your other script better. I think it was stronger in the context of the challenge and also packed more of an emotional wallop. Horror's my thing, I'll admit, but if I go into something expecting to get a drama, I'll be more satisfied by something like When It's Over than this.

Anyway, it's tough to write a script in one week and you wrote two. I think that's a testament to your talent. Good job on both scripts, George.

It's a nice read. Good job.

Nuances are good if they help in character development. Here are some things that were never explained. If they're intentional, I don't see what they add.
1) What would John have said? Does he know anything that everybody didn't know? Is he just a guest at the party?
2) Is Harry different now? how?