Draugr by Anonymous - Short, Fantasy, Horror - A Norseman travels into dangerous territory to find a cure for his dying wife. - pdf format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

Woohoo! Yes! I don't recognize this writer's style; new to OWC? One word - Awesome. If I had anything 'negative' to say... what? A couple orphans? BFD. Who cares.

I can learn a few things from this writer. Frigging great writing on display here. My kind of story, too.

Nothing else to say.

Agree with John. Excellent writing, entertaining story. Someone is a Skyrim fan. Lol

Only negative is the title page. What's going on with that?

Not much else to say. I loved it.

Hi there,
I really liked this one - the writing was clear, purposeful and just overall enjoyable. The sparse dialogue was fitting and well-written and enhanced the stark atmosphere. I could really picture the weather, the landscapes - good job!

My only real negative are a number of typos, but they are easy to fix and didn't really get in the way .

Worried by the off-centre Title page, wonder what the rest is going to be like?

Well written and engaging though not sure about flitting between English and Norse for the dialogue, it implies the characters are which would be odd, and you can lose the CUT TO: transitions, this is implied by the scene change.

Other than those niggles I really enjoyed this, story is lean and effective and you build the characters well a short space of time.

Great effort.

Not bad, each beat kept me entertained to the end.  I like how you kept the idea small and personal—Sigurd setting out to protect his family.  Clearly defined goal, stakes and urgency—all good stuff.  Dialogue felt about right—at least didn’t feel out of place.

Storywise, for me, I guess it just feels too familiar (though granted the page count doesn’t help).  Set up the quest, journey for the ‘thing’, and defeat the (insert evil thing here) to win.

I liked it enough just could have done with a fresh take on the idea or some unique twist/reveal to punch it up a bit.

Good luck.

The logline intrigued me.

The story was very well written and moved at a fast pace.

I'm currently in the middle of playing God of War and the Father's search for a cure for his dying son. Similar concept in pissing off the Gods

You packed in enough Drama/Action for a short and it was heartfelt.

Congrats and I'm sure you'll be up there with the winners

Title page is off

Quoted Text SIGURD (softly, in Nordic tongue) Ek'm mit pe'r, ok pu're mit me'r. Par til endiinn or timi

Not sure I understand why the Nordic if the characters are going to speak in English. And I don't understand why you are going back and forth between Nordic and English.

You have a lot of "beats" in there that you don't need.

You needed a new header - here:

Quoted Text He enters the cave. Wind howls through the tunnel. Strange symbols sprawled out on the walls.

We are currently working off the header EXT. CAVE - he's inside now.

Quoted Text Embla, now healthy, approaches from behind, carrying Orvar, a year older. Their small wooden home stands just up the hill behind them

Think you need a one year later super here.

You have a lot of extra spaces between words.

Interesting tale.  Writing was vivid in many places. Certainly a unique premise.

Yo ho-ho writer - I finally get to join this party!

I have chosen yours first based on the title - Because Draugrs are awesome!

It didn't disappoint, my kind of story. Writing is pretty solid, someone who knows what they are doing.

It's nothing groundbreaking, and it played out pretty much as I expected it to - But it was done well and was an enjoyable read.

If this is the quality of the rest of them, my entry is in trouble lol

But wait... are you missing one of the criteria?

Criteria 1 - ?
Criteria 2 - Skeleton
Criteria 3 - Sickness

I don't remember seeing sand, snow or space in this (A Snowstorm came in but was a footnote at best) - Am I being too harsh? did I miss something? Someone feel free to correct me

Best of luck, Writer

This type of story is not really my cup of tea but I really enjoyed this, well written and I could really visualize this. I almost didn't want it to end. This is my favourite so far.

As for the criteria, I saw snow:

"trudges through the deep snow"

And:

"The storm has arrived.  Violent wind, heavy snowfall"

Oh and the title page... So what!

Just to add:

I would like to have seen subtitles, I even tried to Google what was said. Might just be me on that, maybe it wasn't important but I would like to have known.

As I go:

- "He needs his mother." Not a fan of this exchange. They both understood that these were the stakes from the start of this argument. The baby's interjection is for the audience, and it's well placed. But they don't need to say it out loud like that. I'd have liked to see Sigurd come up with something stronger here: instead, she just sort of accepts his optimism when she didn't before.
- Confirming the above now: Sigurd needs to convince her her to let him go in a way that plays into the fears that the Draugr brings up. "I'm the only one to protect you -- I need to do this for you." Or whatever. The argument there, and the way Sigurd wins, should set up the elements that the Draugr will draw on.

Thoughts:

- Great piece, but I do think the final realization is muted a little bit by Sigurd's general sense of certainty throughout the piece. For us to feel his journey and its triumph, we need to understand the ways he could have failed -- this is done well in terms of the physical narrative here, but not so much with the emotional one. Sigurd seems too unwavering in his commitment for us to really worry. I think a seed of doubt needs to be sown in the scene with Embla that nearly leads to Sigurd's defeat with the Draugr.
- Anyway, super cool little story, and told with aplomb.

Chris

I really enjoyed reading it.  The story really intrigued me, sucked me right in. I see that your very efficient in your writing. A couple of things I would have changed here and there -- but to me, its not worth mentioning.  Good stuff!

Ghost

Final Draft always misaligns my title pages randomly, I’m glad I’m not the only one to suffer from this. I even raised a support ticket with them and all they advised was for me to uninstall and reinstall but it has made no difference.

Anyway, onto the story. Really well told, very atmospheric. Maybe a bit too prosey but in this instance it worked. Also, the beats and parentheticals distracted a little when none where required, your action and dialogue speaks for itself without any stage direction. Similarly with the scene transitions.

I normally don’t mention orphans as a few doesn’t matter but I noticed a lot in this so for the second draft I’d suggest a tidy up to fix these, the typos and extra spaces. Again, if you are using FD it is a bugger for inserting all sorts of extra spaces and lines but there’s an option in the menu to fix them.

Originality wise, it’s lacking. It would be great to see a new spin or twist on this tale but I enjoyed the read and it was very easy to follow. I can see this being up there at the top when the votes are cast.

-Mark

I loved the atmospheric setting and the obvious love story. Dialogue and action for me was spot on.
Re-reading it a couple of times had me thinking of Beowulf for some reason, not sure if this story was inspired by it or if I was just looking for similarities.
Overall I enjoyed it.

Wow. You hooked me. I loved it. Awesome visuals, which means exceptional writing. The story was pretty basic but it's what I saw that blew me away. Really...top fricken notch writing. So well done. I hate you. LOL

I do have a few thoughts...pgs 2/3...the flashback. I had no idea it was a flashback until pg 4 when it was over. So that did stop me from reading...it broke the flow. You had an excellent transition with the fire crackling, but I thought he had just arrived home. I think this is one of the few cases where telling us something is useful. Tell us it's a flashback and then BACK TO SCENE when it's over. If we were watching it on screen, there are visual clues to show us it's a flashback. Just my opinion but it did take me out of your story, which broke up the flow.

And you are blessed with the ability to convey descriptions...why use "beat"? And you use it a lot. It's void of anything. Actually, IMO, if you removed every one of them it wouldn't change anything in your story except for making me wonder what's actually happening during these beats.

Excellent writing. My fave by leaps and bounds. Great work.

Very nice. Very mythic. His final line, “I”ll be waiting” is good but a little ambiguous. What will he be waiting for: To fight Hel or to die? My bet is on the former, so maybe instead of saying he’ll be waiting, he should say something like “My sword will be sharp.” Only better, of course.

The dialogue is a bit on the nose: "No one comes back alive", ""At Fornheimr's core, that which you
seek lies beyond the Draugr.", "It's just a tale.", "You know it's not." I think it would be of no harm to just skip this on the nose dialogue between Sigurd and Embla and leave just a couple phrases ("My love", "It will be ok"). Perhaps that scene on pages 2-3 without dialogue would give the viewer some context, but there would be a bit of a mystery as to why and where he is going - I don't think there is anything wrong with a little bit of mystery and letting the viewer make guesse.

So who lit the torch on page 6? Is it magic? I think that even in stories with fantastical elements maintaining real-life logic benefits the story, makes it more realistic. But in this case it probably is some sort of magic, since Sigurd is in a supernatural cave.

I wish the Draugr didn't give up so quickly and insisted he is Embla, making Sigurd doubt himself. What's the point of trying to fool someone if you give up so quickly? It would be a challenge for the protagonist to overcome. I'd say it's a missed opportunity.

Hel is a she.

It was somewhat difficult to read at first, though maybe it's just me.

The protagonist and Embla have both been so close to death, one of the most intense experiences a human can have, and it doesn't seem that changed them in any way. I think this point (both of them on the verge of dying) has potential for character arcs. Maybe they both went through a similar experience, but it changed them in different ways? I wish we knew something more about the characters, Who is Sigurd? From the way he wields his sword, we can assume he is a warrior (it might also be interesting if he wouldn't be a warrior, but some skald, and had to do fight the Draugr). But what kind of warrior? Maybe the woman he loves is someone he met when pillaging a village and instead of raping her he actually saw something in her that tamed his inner animal? Or maybe something else happened. Lots of opportunities for backstory and character development here. Same for Embla - who is she? How did she end up dying? I think character development could make the story stand out more.

An interesting read, nonetheless.

Great script and writing here. Not much to say that others haven't said already. Clearly a pro at work. Kinda reminded me of Beowulf. I would've liked to see more interaction on top of pg 6 between Sigurd and Draugr before its true self is revealed. Nothing else to complain about really. Probably my fave so far.

Very well done.

Only complaint is lack of originality in the story. We pretty well know how this is going to play out early, it's just a matter of the specifics from there. Would have been nice to be surprised a bit.

Still, a good piece of writing.

Side note: You killed my computer. Twelve years, with me every day... and it died when I opened your script. I feel good that the last thing it saw was a good script.

(And, since it killed one computer, I was leery of opening the script on my laptop. Saved this script for very last, in case it was cursed. Glad I got to read it. Even more glad my laptop survived the reading.          Farewell, my faithful iMac.)

Hey,

For another time the 'beats' take me out of the read. They don't belong into the world I'm experiencing.

not sure if you need the flashback – I mean, the original chronology would have done it, and imo even better, since you, as is, break from the journey and send us back to the slow dramatic impulse.

A little Nibelungensagaesque :-)

Yeah, and they all lived happily ever after. So be it.

I think the plot is a little too slow. Partly, it felt like a stage play- love choreography - fight choreography - love choreography- pretty straight and structured.

The atmosphere of the journey worked fine. That said, it wasn't what I'd call multi-layered, or say, complex storytelling, either. But okay, not everything has to be... All in all a solid, good work in my eyes.

Writer,

good marks for this one. Well paced, liked the flashbacks, even though they weren't noted I did not mind as I'm sure some will. Ending? Meh. So, he beheads the Draugr and saves his family. Is that the best you got? Personally, I'd revisit this and come up with something a little more meaningful. A twist. Something worthy of the first 9 pages. Overall I liked this. good job.

Steve

snow-covered. Please don't be another writer with a hyphen aversion.

Weary-eyed. Still on the first page. Two errors like this mean there's not going to be a single hyphen in the script.
There's no need for a double-space after a full stop. We don't use typewriters anymore.
This story reminded me of Beowulf, not a bad thing. A linear storyline meant the ending was obvious. A bit too simple for me, I suppose.

Criteria Met (Y/N) - I don't care.
Story (1-5) -  3
Characters (1-5) - 3
Dialogue (1-5) - 5 (for the Nordic research)
Writing (1-5) - 4
Overall (1-10) - 7.5

A fair score, I think.

Nice work. You nailed it with your writing style. Story sounded familiar though. Couple of nit picks - too many beats, which I think should be pauses. Title page?

But atmospheric and imaginable.

Maybe the narrative could be drawn out as a feature eventually.

Thanks for sharing.

Tell me if this isn't kosher to post, but if anyone wants to read the script side by side with analysis: https://scriptreader.ai/disp.p.....e5a81d0&tab=cont

Looks like you scored highly. Maybe time to enter some Comps.