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The Darkest Hour by L. C. F. - A desperate man discovers there is always more to lose when he learns of a terrible cycle that seems doomed to repeat itself. Short, Horror
Excellent work. I couldn't figure out what (PRE-LAP) meant, nor who Jacob is talking to in the Ruins at the beginning. Everything else seemed to fall into place. You've taken, what really is a basic ghost hunting turns up real evil story, and used the experimental narrative to give it more drama, more edge by showing us the repercussions it has on those who witnessed it. I really enjoyed it.
I think it shows how if you play around with the narrative, you can achieve different things.
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Basically: Prelap is a screenwriting term that means the dialogue from the next scene precedes the cut, and the beginning of the dialogue is heard in the outgoing scene. (Wikipedia) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prelap
Basically: Prelap is a screenwriting term that means the dialogue from the next scene precedes the cut, and the beginning of the dialogue is heard in the outgoing scene. (Wikipedia) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prelap
Thanks! You learn something new every day. I never heard of that before but have seen it in one of the other scripts since so suspected it may be a general term.
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Meets the parameters for sure and very effective use of pre-lap IMO. It often is just gimmicky – here it is used to really maximize the impact – nice.
Quoted Text
JACOB A daughter. She killed herself.
You got to milk that out a bit – no one says I had a daughter she killed herself. That info needs to be revealed in a couple of dialogue blocks.
The dialogue from Jacob gets a little preachy/long-winded at the end. When you are no longer bound by a 6 page limit – I’d chop it up a little bit more into bite-sized chunks.
Great job. Writing is top notch. I really like the way you weaved all the victims together into a never ending loop, i could see it just going and going. Demon probably has quite a kill count. An imaginative way to bring in the ghost hunting aspect as well, unique. Cudos.
Nice job. I liked that you took a common trope, something that comes back every so many years, and had some one confront it for very uncommon reasons. I do wish there was a little more action cut into the exposition, like when the junkie is talking about her experience that is when you can go in and out of her actual story rather than revealing it later. Wouldn't seem like so many talking heads in a row. Very nice work though.
It was an Okay-ish read for me, nothing that stood out. The writing was good but the 'pre-lap' parts didn't do anything new here, it wouldn't have altered the story if left undone. And the timeline felt convoluted just for the sake of it. It could have been much more effective if the non-linearity was clearer(atleast for me).
A second read-through of this is very helpful. The first read, there's just so much going on. I was really struggling to keep up.
But, it's all there, so that's not a critique of the writing. It's a statement on non-linear narrative. It's very interesting and definitely adds depth to a story. But, it can be really hard on the reader/audience.
In the end, I think this story is better for it. Though, I can definitely see why writers should use the device sparingly.
Good job, writer!
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Not much to say other than, wow. Really great. The way you constructed this around the interview process was smart, you make the challenge seem easy. a top runner for sure.
The impetus for Jacob's quest to confront the monster is his daughter's suicide, but why does he think the monster will help him "reconnect" with her? Couldn't he just kill himself instead of depending on an outside agency to do it, or is this his version of suicide-by-cop? I think there should be a clearer connection between his daughter's death and his search for the monster.
On page 4, the Priest says of the monster: "It shouldn't be allowed." Not allowed by who? God? Isn't a priest supposed to accept this sort of thing as God's will? And what exactly was the Priest's experience with the monster? The other people interviewed talked about their run-in with the monster, but not the Priest.
In Susan's video, the monster is invisible, yet she has drawings of it in her journal. Her cameras were recording in infrared and ultraviolet, the usual thing ghost hunters use because they capture what the human eye can't see, yet apparently it was the other way around in her case.
I liked the premise and structure of the script, but it needs more work.
I wasn’t sure if Jacob was after the demon to gain access to a portal in some sense, under the guise he could find his daughter wandering in its midst, or if he wanted the demon to take/kill him so he could meet up with his daughter in the afterlife… or maybe it was neither.
The layers here, the video, and the over-lapped voices are well tuned for this story. I thought the writing was crisp and clean and it flowed well. It also had a dark surreal atmosphere lurking within that kept me entertained. Well done for this challenge for sure. Best of luck.
Great writing on display, here. I was very intrigued throughout. You used the time jumping very well and it was very easy to follow, overall. Definitely a page turner. And I loved your transitions and the use of PRE-LAP dialogue going into the next scene. It made the story move at a fast pace. My main issues with this were that it sort of ends on a whimper. I think we should have ended it with the entity walking away from Jacob and hearing that laughter rather than Jacob explaining to a podcaster what he had experienced. And it could've done without Jacob explaining how the entity chooses its victims and why it chose to not take him. Seeing it would've ended this on a much more powerful note. Also, we don't find out that the entity had taken Jacob's daughter until late in the story. With all the time-jumping, we should have seen his daughter being taken.
With a rewrite or two, this could be even better. As is, it's still a very solid entry.