Dan, not sure how closely you followed along with this OWC, but the challenge was to retell, re-imagine, twist up a fairy tale with horror, being the genre.

The actual fairy tale, "The Boy and the Wolves" is what I was referring to as being "goofy", and in that original, there was no killing whatsoever, so no one should have known how either story would play out.

In the original, the boy is left alone and does suffer to the point where he basically joins the wolf pack, then sees his brother later on and turns into a wolf and runs away.

I added several twists and had the boy turn into a werewolf, basically, and take revenge on his brother and the entire village.

Best of luck in 2017 with your writing.  I do not recall receiving any E-Mails from you in quite some time...in fact, I think I E-Mailed you a spreadsheet of my CD collection and never heard anything back from you.

If you want something looked at, just shoot it over to me.

Take care, bro!

Yo man,

Said I'd read this when the names got announced. Totally forgot. I'll apply a mantra of "better late than never."

Anyway, more or less the quality and consistency of style I've come to expect from you. Believe it or not, a good chunk of your scripts have stuck in my mind over the years, even ones I didn't like. This one's a little more straightforward than the others I remember, but most of your tropes are here -- blood and guts, T&A, and clean, concise writing that creates an image without a lot of extra bullshit.

Among other things, I notice you do a lot of this:

Quoted Text A police car backs out, drives away.

Quoted Text Mom pulls away, looks over to Jimmy.

That is, drop the "and," keep the action down to one sentence whenever possible, lest you end up with a lot of repetitive "he/she" phrases. I've been doing this a lot as well. I should have a new script up before the year's over. If you happen to hammer me for it, I'll keep in mind that you do the same thing.

Anyway, solid overall. Bergren's transformation was a much appreciated twist, since I so expected him to just be killed by the wolves and you'd end up with another generic cautionary tale. It doesn't seem you can take all the credit for that, but you still built it up in a way I found interesting. I also think feral children/humans is a stellar concept that isn't taken advantage of enough in horror.

Only gripe might be the point of Dad telling Matt the story at all, especially admitting that it's a fairy tale. The kid's seventeen. I mean, it's the exact same situation he and his brother are in, but given his age, how much of an impression can it really make? I think Dad would've been better suited to say the story is true or at least a legend.

I do like the idea behind the bookends (I like bookends in general, really), but it has a weird effect once Dad finishes the story, even though Jimmy turning makes perfect sense dramatically. Dad and Matt seem to have cooled down, as if the act of telling/listening to the story has an inherent purging effect, but again, there doesn't seem to be much of a point, given that Matt's plenty old enough to see through the scare tactic (and presumably Dad would know that as well).

I don't know. Could be grasping at straws here. I was generally satisfied with the script. I'm actually glad I let it sit for a while, since I would've been totally over the gore after reading so many other scripts with the same schtick.

Keep up the good work.

Thanks for reading, James and glad you liked it.

You are absolutely correct about what you quoted, in that I ALWAYS omit the word "and", and just use a comma.  "and" is almost always a wasted word. Whenever you can save a few spaces, do it!  Personally, I also think it speeds up the read in the reader's head, just like using commas as opposed to periods, does as well.

I would never knock anyone for doing this.  Actually, I'll applaud them!

I look forward to your new script.  Hit me up when you're done, bro.

Take care.