Amelia by Dustin Bowcott - Drama - A young girl, snatched and raised with thieves, desperate for a way out, is given a life line. 95 pages - pdf, format 8)

Read the first ten or so, cause the logline sounded vaguely interesting.

Is there a reason for the lack of FADE IN?

I like the start to this, you pique my interest, but:

'steals stealthily down the stairs'?
Quite apart from the alliteration it just sounds like you just got lazy.

page 6 - Lurch needs to be capped on intro' I do believe? Unless I missed it?
Dialogue on page 6 sounds pretty natural - you do well at this type of everyday banter.

As I read on this reads like Oliver Twist in the Hood.  :-/

After Amelia is 'dropped off' in a park - (I really don't understand this btw) - does this guy kidnap children so they can be brought up in the hood? Did he panic and run and have nothing to do with the other guys? Plus, these guys just happen upon her and discuss finding her as if it's regular occurrence?

And then:

VOGL
'Another lost soul to join us' -

My first impression is that this guy is coming across as the 'Artful Dodger' of the 21st Century? I'm sorry the dialogue between Vogl and Nina and Thug 1:

VOGL
How can somebody bring themselves
to throw something so precious
away... it’s beyond me, it really is.

This sounds as if you're going for a Ben Kingsley in 'Sexy Beast' type of characterisation here but I'm not convinced it does anything other than sound a little cheesy.

Okay, so your main guy's (at the top) gone now and we have a bunch of career crims/pickpockets/a lil' prostitute ring/and dope operation run by YOUTHS' ... and now:

12 YEARS LATER:

And we're 'somewhere in Ireland'  with:

NUTTER, SHIRKER, MASHER? I think you could have been a bit more inventive with the names btw. They sound a bit thrown together.

WILLIAM is intro'd so I assume he's brother to VOGL? or related in some way, but I stopped reading here mainly because it's just a bit of a mish-mash to me at the moment.

I understand that sometimes a 'story' needs time to establish itself and its characters, but at this point (and I know I've only read around 14 pages, now) but I'm not feeling compelled to read on. There's no clear antagonist/protag - no-one to really get behind yet - not even Amelia - but primarily I don't really like any of these characters...yet.

That's all I've got for now - perhaps you can try to 'sell' me on the rest and I might come back to it.

Libby

Yes this is the Oliver Twist concept retold. Many of the names in the script have been carefully chosen, although as you've pointed out there are also a couple that aren't. For example Vogl Solomon is named after Ikey Solomon, a real life criminal who Dickens modelled Fagin on. William is Vogl's brother, but only through being adopted together. In fact I imagine William as being black and Vogl being of Eastern European origin. Their backstory is that they were adopted by paedophiles and the killed their adoptive parents.

Of course too, William is Bill Sykes. In my version, Bill and Fagin are brothers. Amelia is Oliver Twist, a girl... and Shirker (another word for Dodger, although granted a little weak) is Amelia's boyfriend. Nina is Nancy.

Although the story is completely different to Oliver Twist, I have only taken the concept and played with the characters a little.

Thanks for the advice on the baby snatching. I need to make it clear that the person that has stolen the baby isn't anything to do with the people that find her.

Thanks for the read.