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So, we’ve got a Brit here, I’m taking a vague punt here. Daz and Adam felt a bit one dimensional, if I’m honest, and the simplistic tones with which the whole Brexit thing is dealt with is an issue for me. I think Daz is halfway to being the correct character in him being less of a complete dick, but some more was needed. I’m not pro brexit btw, just reread that and was worried you’re thinking my review is based on my angle, rather I’d like some nuance.
The horror sort of came from nowhere. I really liked the ornament and the way it was introduced, but there was no real foreshadowing as to what would come next, which is probably needed.
It was alright, but improvements are needed in character and believable dialogue to bring it up to spec.
Well done for entering,
Cam
P.S. this review was brought to you by Half Man Half Biscuit, specifically National Sh**e Day, the Pixies style vibes did help!
If it were me I'd write the Polish character in normal English usage and use a parenthetical to denote he speaks in broken English. It just kept breaking the flow for me.
The lights frolic Perhaps dance might be a better verb?
Warming up though:
DAZ Now? ADAM No, next week.
Nice. Getting a better rhythm and humour.
Hmm, might have to eat my words, cause it works here:
DAD Here home now, you leave alone.
The snowball drew blood?
Adam drops his jeans and pisses up and down the tree. That's a step too far... Would they go to that extreme indoors?
Jeepers, that's one powerful ornament.
Ah, okay, Matka is mother hen guarding the roost. Bit strange nobbody woke with all the kerfuffle.
Not bad overall though. When the guys fell like stones, very nice. Took a while for me to warm up to it. Good writing, just not sure it would translate to film well. It felt like an absorbing read instead. I could be totally wrong of course. Jmho.
P.S. I meant to add: LIZANN, 6 or 7, Are you widening the net for casting purposes? If you don't know the age of your character nobody does, plus it's added space...And I think there's a difference between six and seven. That said, she reads a lil bit older anyway.
Your opening is troubling - why don't you, as the writer and creator, know the age of your character? I'm also wondering how/why, a small child would be kneeling at a tree, that's most likely larger than she is, to hang an ornament. No FADE IN? And no FADE OUT?
I actually appreciate Dad's broken English dialogue. It adds realism we rarely see in scripts.
You seriously need to turn off the "continued" BS on every page - just looks so amateurish.
I do not appreciate the 2 kids' dialogue, however "real" it may be. It just sounds so ugly.
The 2 kids are total asslickers and I truly hate them. It's so ugly what they do to this broken family, but there is definitely realism here and sometimes real is ugly.
You wrap everything up very nicely and this is heartfelt for sure. There's a magic to it that's very hard to pull off, but it works, and I'd say it works very well.
Easily the best I've read so far, even though I don't appreciate some of the meanness and ugliness.
I like your description of the kaleidoscopic beams and the constellation ornament. The urination on the tree was a suitably diabolical/shocking act. Also fun to see anti-immigration punks get what they deserve. The broken English dialogue threw me a little at first, but then I read more carefully to see that they were from Poland.
Solid. Not necessarily spectacular, but solid, solid, solid.
Overall, this was pretty decent. Your typical revenge story, so be it as it may. I didn't really find it all that dark or grim. i.e. light on horror. Still a very fine entry writer.
Okay, for some reason as I was reading it, I didn't want to like it. Don't know why. But I really liked it. I love the Shadow and the comeuppance the two little shitheads got and that there was no sign of it in the morning. Very cool.
My one nit are your slug descriptions and timeline. It was a bit confusing for me and took me out of the read for a moment.
Okay, nice effort here, but ultimately it falls short. Everything was just tied up too neatly. Daz and his friend getting their just do was telegrapher based on how bad they were, and I'm still not sure who the SHADOW was or how it appeared or why. I'm sure it had something to do with the ornament, of course. However, I do feel the father and daughter were drawn fairly well, so that is something to build on.
This was a tough one for me. I liked the constellation bit, the kaleidoscope imagery, and the manifestation of the shadow figure.
A lot of this felt really on-the-nose. I have to agree with previous sentiments about the Polish dad’s lines. The tricky thing with writing ESL characters is that their grammar will vary based on their native language. One can’t really remove words from a sentence and mix them around, there are consistent grammatical rules that ESL learners follow. The line: “Here home now...” sounds like a caveman’s speech as opposed to a Polish ESL learner. It’s similar to how some writers will approximate AAVE and instead write an over-the-top character that sounds like a stereotype instead of an actual person. Here is a website that explains the pitfalls of an Polish ESL speaker well. https://sandymillin.wordpress.com/2018/10/27/typical-problems-for-polish-learners-of-english/ The dialogue between the “youths” was also a bit over the top.
A few more minor nitpicks, but Daz follows Adam, who is presumably carrying two spray cans, into a house they’re breaking into, and says: “Now what”. This line was unintentionally funny to me. It just felt like a set-up to get Adam to say an on-the-nose one-liner. Also, isn’t graffiti typically an outdoorsy affair? Public shaming and all that? If they came in with bats and just started wailing on shit, I’d understand why they’d feel the need to break-in. I guess the family didn’t hear the window breaking because of the magic, that’s fine. But Dad seems pretty chill about the magical vodka bottle and presents in his home.
I’m sure this writer is well-meaning, and the story seems to hit differently with other folks, so that’s good. I think that with edits and improvements this could be a lot better.
Thanks to all for your comments, appreciated as always.
To answer a few questions...
Horror/Drama - interesting, I see it as Drama with a fantastical element - which is what it is meant to be, but given we have the spirit of a dead Mother appearing then yep could be horror too.
Dialogue - some people like it, some didn't. I decided to go with it as I work with Polish people and hear them speak in English frequently so used that knowledge here.
The attack - a few thought this was OTT p***ing on the tree etc, trust me some of the anti-immigrant attacks a reported before and after Brexit have been a lot worse.
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Where the Heart is - OWC
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