The Parkton Girls by Hubie Marsten - On the night of Parkton's firework show, will the growing number of missing teenage girls be added to?  Short, Horror, Thriller

Nicely written, easy to follow. Due to the nature of this OWC I took a guess at who the bad guy was and was right. So I could see where this was heading.

The setup was standard high school stuff and all the girls sounded the same. So I'd suggest working on that aspect and trimming it. It starts to get interesting at the firework display and figuring out who is going to be the next victim and how. That's the strongest part so I'd concentrate more on that and less on the setup, for a short anyway. If you decide to make this a feature then a lengthy setup and intro to characters is fine.

Ticks all the boxes!

I had some clarity issues from, the start. Had to read this dialogue several times and it still doesn't make sense.

KELLY’S FATHER (O.S)
Fucking bitch. If you want your two
cheeks to match, open that door. If
not, you’d want to get to school as
quickly and quietly as possible.

Is what you mean something like this ...

KELLY’S FATHER (O.S)
Fucking bitch. If you don't want your
cheeks to match, open that door and
get to school as
quickly and quietly as possible.


Then there are several characters intro'd with just names and ages so I had a hard time remembering who was who.


I guessed the villain, but it met the brief, and the partnership was sinister.

Hi writer,

The story was good with decent enough writing. The villain was easy to spot, even then you did a good job with handling the suspense. Given the theme, it is inevitable to not start guessing about who is the villain in the story.

The only confusion that I have is -- In the last scene, why is Jen in kelly's bedroom? I don't fully understand that part. Is it a twist? If it is then I don't get it. Or is it a mistake?

Good luck.

It's good, but I know the requirement so it was obvious to me that Matt and Jen are behind all those disappearings of the young girls.

I wish there was more depth to Jen. I understand she doesn't like these girls, that she's a weirdo, but you didn't let us much deeper into her character and revenging those girls for being rude to her is not enough.
It just could be a bit more, I thikn. Maybe you could give her some character too. Right now she's very bland, almost unexistent. Also, maybe. you could start with her.

Anyway, it's very good, don't mind me please

This reads like the 'mean girls' script. The protocols was to make the villains almost invisible until the end.
And did I miss Halloween...?  

I'm not sure what is happening. Either you have got confused with your names and characters or I'm missing something.

You introduce as Kelly Bronson and Jen Murphy... but then Kelly makes a joke about Jen's dad running away from Mrs Bronson (I think), which doesn't make sense because that would be her mom... and then twice you refer to a Kelly Murphy (Matt says this once and again at the end in the news report)... and at the end Jen is in Kelly's bedroom, so yeah, it's a bit muddled.

Other than that it's pretty standard fair. I think it needs it's own USP to make it stand out

Writer,

Loved the tone of this! I think you really captured the school-girl thing (if that's a thing), and each character had a distinct voice, and the contrast between Kelly and Jen at the beginning was great. Not much else to add here. Nice twist and reveal. Written so well. Def one of my favs! Great work!

Steve

             ZARA
She hates a lot of people. ..  I think this is suppose to be Kelly

Then at the end Jen is in Kelly's bedroom ???

You have a lot of this throughout I had to keep rereading to figure out the characters.

Besides it was well written and the villain was obvious.

Good job on entering

A relatively simple story. Some of your descriptions are well thought out, but some a little clunky and repetitive. Dialogue needs a polish. What's with the "--" prefixes?

The requirements were met, although I had to go back and see where Halloween was referenced, but to me this needs a few more passes to clean things up.

A decent effort.

Decent enough tale well told, but it felt familiar with a twist that was fairly easy to spot.

It's difficult to do this sort of tale with any real difference as it's been done so many times.

Well written though and hits the requirements.

This script does a good job of establishing the familiar teen girl social hierarchy as a backdrop for sinister deeds. I appreciated the brief prose which kept the pace moving, though there were times when a little more description would have helped solidify setting or character motivations.

There's definitely something unnerving about Jen helping her uncle secure his victims. If there were another layer to her motives beyond "other girls are mean to me" I'd have found that interesting to explore as a reader (unless it is there but I missed it).

Well written to be sure.

I like the twist with the uncle. It elevates it from what otherwise feels like a pretty standard high school girls script.

That said, I'd like to see more of that relationship. Which, I know, is hard to do, since you're trying to hide the villain for OWC purposes.

Without the challenge parameters, you might be able to expand on the story some and make it even more interesting than it currently is.

Good dialog and descriptions, and the story moves along at a nice clip. However, the girls are pretty much the same character, and even Jen isn’t that much different, though she’s the outsider. But that’s probably a function of the limited page number. The character who needs more buildup is Uncle Matt, since it’s for him that Jen lures other girls to their death. Now there’s a relationship that merits investigation. Also, where’s the Halloween angle?

Hi Writer

An enjoyable read, and for me to be able to follow seamlessly and be able to visualise your scenes, the writing must be good. Well done.

I've got no problem with Matt and Jen being the bad guys, but as Matt is a little underdeveloped (Appreciate you didn't want to give too much away), we have no idea why he's in the kidnapping the teenage girl business. Also the devil in me would like to know what they're actually doing with these girls - Just how evil are Matt and Jen?

Anyways, I liked it!

Thanks to everyone for reading and giving feedback. Very much appreciated.

This is the first thing I've written in years but I'm hoping it gives me the kick I needed. Really enjoyed writing it and hopefully I'll start churning a few out over the next few months.

Forgot how much of a great place this is. Thanks again!

Good script, Glenn. Story was good, but just was really feeling the tone of this one. Top marks from me.