An Astonishingly Meaningful Tale about Relations and Other Astonishing Stuff by J A Parker (GravyBoatMan) - Short, Drama - After a barbeque hasn't been as successful as the family wants, things take a turn for the worst but end up being something they all truly needed.     A July, 2006 One Week Writing Challenge Entry - rtf, format 8)

I knew who this was right when I read the title.

Man you think of crazy stuff you anonymous writer person, you. Though there really wasn't much drama (unless you call the "You ruined my bar-be-que you bastard!" line), but was more of a comedy. I laught at a few parts, and it was an interesting story.

But the ending confused me. An earthquake? Or was there another larger alien-like space ship coming up out of the ground like in War of the Worlds? Oh well, at least I enjoyed it.

Good job.

Sean

This one was rather peculiar.  I think this has been the most creative exercise we've ever had here, because these interpretations fascinate me.

*You can just say family reunion or something.  I don't think you need to identify all the ranks.
*Flabbergasted.  Nice adjective haha
*They kill the alien?  Haha.  Nice touch...I think.
*Uncle dropping an F bomb in front of the kids...classic!

So, I guess this was kind of a satire.  There's not much explanation, but stuff just happens.  I think you should have taken a different approach to the alien...just include it more, ya know?  Killing it was a funny way to go, it just would have been nice to have more of it.  Either way, creative story you got here and pretty amusing.  Well done.

I liked this. The formatting was good. Your writing style is good, easy to read, and you have some great ways of describing things and events. The dialogue is prett good. I especially liked the voice over dialogue, I thought that dialogue was really good. This wasn't really a drama, but that's perfectly fine with me. It was pretty funny. The line about the grill melting was probably the part that made laugh the most. Very interesting little story you have here with the meteor and the alien and the "twisted ending". It works, though. I enjoyed it a lot. Good job!

To be honest a kind of felt cheated a bit by this one.  What was the point of this story?  The narrator even questions this towards the end, offering up a few half-hearted possibilities along with one outlandish one that completely skirts the issue.  If you don't care then why should we?

Your dialog was fine but your descriptions were, for the most part, a little overdrawn.  The same message could be conveyed with fewer words.

I do see some potential here but it's raw.

This was an interesting read but a bizzare one as well. I wouldn't exactly call it a drama but it's not really a sci-fi either. Kind of an Eraserhead kinda thing, which is cool in my book. On the surface, it reads like a Twilight Zone episode but some of the dialogue (mainly the V.O.) suggests something more metaphorical. I think the V.O. was utilized well in this one. It was rather self-aware but in a way that called for a deeper involvement from the reader.

All in all, I liked it. Good job. I think I know who wrote this one as well.

"A family can bury a problem, hide it from the world and try to forget that it ever exsisted, but the problem will always be there, waiting to surface again.And when it does it may have grown larger and angry, and will tear the family apart."

That is what I took from this interesting piece. I do know who wrote this as well and I must say, I liked it even better than the other one I read a few days ago.

I thought that the whole setup was comical, but as I read into the metaphorical meaning, I felt the drama.(Of course my interpretation is just that, an interpretation).

The line, "You ruined our barbeque you bastard!" Just had me laughing outloud for some reason.

I have only one typo to lay out for ya. [Heinrich manoeuvre] should be [Heimlich Maneuver]

Great job on this. I enjoyed it and thanks for the little pick me up.

-Kotton

well Roberta, or gb*, whoever this may be....hmmmmmmm I wonder.  This was very entertaing and like James has already stated, it was very twilighte zone like.

the voice over worked well, some nice stuff there especially with the "stealing your furniture" stuff.

I could tell this was written by someone from the UK, just by the words used.

This really leads to nowhere, but during the read it kept me interested, so in that way it was good.

I loved John's reaction, that gave me a big laugh. :D

What I think is most interesting in this piece is how antithetical it is dealing with the first contact with Alien life. Think Independence Day's huge flying saucer eradicating entire cities, the sinister life-forms in Invasion of the body Snatchers or even Mars Attack's epic rendez-vous in the desert.

In this story man's first encounter with Alien life starts with a dismal barbeque and ends with the Alien being squashed by a shovel and subsequently burried in the backyard. And life goes on.

I liked that.

So, this author -- apparently with a fear of anonymity -- kind of screwed up and made people want to save this story for last haha.

I still won't put this author's name out here, but I recognize plenty of things in this story.  Hey, and there is our old friend the English narrator.  Stephen Fry, perhaps?

Anyway, this one takes an astonishingly random turn, followed by a not-quite-believable series of responses from the family attending this cookout.  And when our little friend finally emerges, I think he deserves a much more thorough description than he gets -- even though this point is quickly rendered moot.  

And then our story ends on a fairly ironic note, utilizing a thick veneer of sarcasm to simultaneously deliver and cheapen any message that might be found therein.  Which is kind of an interesting way to do that.  Even a little bold.

So while I don't care for this one as much as it's "sister" tale, it's OK when taken as part of a larger whole.  But I am not sure it stands alone as well as the other.

Ok, so Don should have placed Lemony Snicket on this one as it ended with his brand of ending. I did find this quite funny, and the turn of events was very amusing and surprising. As previously stated, a bizarre twist on the classic alien story.

However, it didn't come across as dramatic at all. It was a decent story and you did a fair job with it, but not much drama here.

Incidentally, there was a formatting error on pg 7. It would go this way.

                  JOHN
       Deal with it...okay?
              (to Dave)
       Let's go.

This was just....wierd.

It seems like that was your true intension.  Well, congradulations because you succeeded.  It almost seemed like you did this as a joke, to draw the reader in only to tell them on the very last page that this whole script was a joke to "allow people to steal your couch" or whatever kind of irony you were trying to present.  I can dig it though and I'm one who can take a good laugh.

With that being said, it had some funny moments in it.  One thing that made me laugh, even though I'm sure it wasn't intended to, was how the father kept saying "Me, your father" or "Dave, you uncle."  Its like you wanted to make sure we didn't forget who was who.  Well, if this is what you have to do to make your characters known then you need to work more on your character development.

But I'll forgive you because this just seemed like a piece to get a laugh and cause some fun.

Okay dear (you know, I know who you are),

I think in the two scripts of yours that I've read now, I can tell you that you have a lot of imagination. That's very good! Now you need to work on learning how to take those crazy ideas and put them into proper format and learn to tell your stories in a more comprendable way.

I was confused quite a bit during this, but I liked the basic idea.

Format wise I found tons of errors and I can't believe others haven't pointed them out. I am not the Format Queen at all so unless my PC just really messed this one up, there were lots of problems (IMHO).

Good ide, just needs a little help.  :) ;)

Great idea here. It is another original idea, like Wanna Bet.

I have just one thing to say that was a litle problem: you did not describe the characters. If I'm not wrong you just described the granmother as a early seventies ect. But it didn't take its value at all. This is a very good short script.

Great effort.

I'm thinkig...What a hell was doing a shovel left abandoned on the ground nearby the barbecue...it could caused an accindent if a drunk or desioriented person treaded on it!

Quoted from logline After a barbeque hasn't been as successful as the family wants, things take a turn for the worst but end up being something they all truly needed.

This could have worked as a quite original take at the OWE. If the troubled characters from Lost can go through such dramatic inner changes after plane crashing in mystery island, I guess that the alien crash in this garden could have influenced this family's relationships. The sci-fi angle doesn't exclude per-se the dramatic one.

But the script doesn't live up to the promise from the logline. If you want to stick to this premise, you'll have to establish a pre-existing family conflict before the alien crashes. I mean real conflict. The burned burgers, or choking won't do.

Once we know what are the problems this family has, bring on the alien, and show us how he can influence this family for good. That should be interesting but you need to work on it. Right now, the events described, don't seem to be enough for me to buy the conclusions of the narrator.

Is see potential in here. And originality as well. It just needs more fleshing out.

I would just like to say to everyone who read and reviewed that I thank you for your comments and words. I really appriciate it. :)

Though some, maybe most, didn't really get my story and some confused by it. It was my fault because I wrote it too quick whilst everything was flowing through my head and I mustn't have got it out right. So, I'm going to try and explain for anyone who wants one!

The person who basically hit the nail on the head was Screamer (Kotton), I'll repeat what he said:

"A family can bury a problem, hide it from the world and try to forget that it ever exsisted, but the problem will always be there, waiting to surface again. And when it does it may have grown larger and angry, and will tear the family apart."

That is a good explanation of my story. My explanation follows, though, I can totally tell why some didn't get why I wrote this because it wasn't explained enough. Here's my explanation:

The family were going through some problems, some problems that might begin to hurt the family a great deal, so, they decide to have a barbeque to see if they can all come together as a family and become closer with one another. (I really didn't explain this in the story that well, at all really) So, they're having minor problems at the barbeque, a few shouts and mockings, when a larger problem crashes into their back yard. Now, the father of the story realises that the alien is far too much a problem the family to handle right now, especially with the stacks of problems they have already, and he believes this "problem" will break them apart.

So, he takes it upon himself, with the help of the uncle, to destroy this problem before it even begins. They do so and, just like a lot of people do sometimes, bury their problems. Of course, they actually do bury the problem into the ground and intend for it to never return again. Because of this "problem", the family came closer together during and after. The children had someone to look up to and a father they could really respect and love.

The twisted ending is, what Kotton said above, that if you bury a problem, it will always be there and when it decides to pop it's head from the ground, it's going to be harsh and it's going to rip the family apart again.

I hope it makes sense. I'm thinking that I might do a rewrite so that I can explain what I hadn't so this whole thing can be complete. At the moment, it doesn't feel that complete. But, anyway, hope it clears something up and to everyone who wrote a review, thanks for the reads.

GBM - Jamie :)

1) The dialogue at times seemed silly. "Dave, your uncle or your father"? It's easy to see how he could be father to some and uncle to some children. Even then, I haven't seen anybody say that. There probably is a more natural way of conversation.
2) Uncle's name is "revealed" to be Dave at some point in the script. What was the point of using dialogues with 'Uncle' before that and then shifting to 'Dave' later? Didn't make sense. Unless it adds anything to the script, you could've just introduced Uncle Dave and used his name. Same goes for Mother Jane, Father John to an extent.

Okay, that was an easy read. Not bad.

EDIT: It seemed like you waited to use dialogues by name until the character is called by somebody with the name. I don't think that is the norm. But then again, I'm totally new.

EDIT: Something else I forgot to mention -- "manly shriek"?? That "You runied our barbecue" part came after the barbecue is over.