Silent Nights by Bill Krampus - A family buys special ornaments at Christmas time; but at what cost?  Short, Horror

OK, now this is my 1st official read.  I'm going to do my best to be as nice as possible and try to discuss the story more than the writing.  I will give a simple writing is good, or writing needs serious work.

Here we go...

Sorry, but right off the bat, I see the writing needs lots of attention.  Probably to the point where I would normally jump ship after the 1st page, but I'm going to stay in and won't bring up the writing again.

Concept-wise, I think this is decent to pretty good, but execution-wise, not at all good.  We have no real characterization to make us care about these peeps.  Samuel is quite the evil Antag, but for me, he and the entire story is actually too evil and mean spirited.

It's not for me, but if the writing was better, I'd give you higher marks, but as is, it's a...

**

Really liked the concept here, worked well and the tone worked for me.

I thought the middle dragged a little and could be shortened without detriment.

Could see the end coming, not a bad thing really, but the collecting the baubles bit felt unnecessary.

Good effort

Pretty nice concept. I think with a little more refinement it would've been better.

Avoid redundancy between your header and opening description. Like here:

Quoted Text INT. MOTEL ROOM - NIGHT The Motel 6 room is dark, then... a bedside lamp clicks on. Cardboard boxes on the bed. More on a small table.

We already know where it a motel room from the header. Just start with “Dark….

EXT. MARKET - DAY

Quoted Text SUPER - DECEMBER 23 MIDWEST U.S.A A small town marketplace. It’s a cold day but the sky is clear for now. People and children stroll past the two rows of stalls which have food, vegetables and craft. In the middle of the rows is a large decorated Christmas tree.

The SUPER goes after the opening description – not before it.

The writing is a bit clunky – inefficient, I guess. Here is an example:

Quoted Text SAMUEL(35)a tall, pleasant faced man, has a folding table set up at the very end of one row. The boxes of ornaments are neatly stacked with one open on display. A handwritten sign reads: ’$5 PER BOX - CASH ONLY’.

We know Samuel is a man – and has a folding table set up – as a long way to go vs. Sam just stands by a folding table. Like:

SAMUEL (35), tall, pleasant face stands by a folding table at the very end of one row.

Same here:

Quoted Text A woman RACHEL(30) stops to look.

Better as:

RACHEL (30), stops to look.

Okay – not going to keep going on – the point is you could make this crisper.

Surely you meet the parameters of the challenge - kudos for that. The story didn't quite land for me.

Writer,

There's a few things to like here. It took this one a while to get going. Once it did it kind of drew me in, which was exactly how the story goes. Misdirection. I was wondering if you'd give it a proper conclusion, and you did. Overall, one of the better ones I've read, regarding story.

Steve

Alright Krampus, if that is your real name...

Right then. Need a bit of work on the old dialogue, some of the back and forward felt a bit telesales channel. The concept itself? Nice! Nasty baubles doing their pied piper shizzle, yeah I can get on board with that.

The visuals were good, although I’m not sure why the dude had to get naked, I laughed at that bit, but the rest of it hung together.

Competently written overall, dialogue needs a good old tune, maybe stick some clothes on the lad, but even though it’s not my preferred genre I liked it.

Nice one,

Cam

P.S. music during reading was Billy Bragg, Levi Stubb’s Tears really did work well with it for some god known reason.

Another horror... I'm feeling all Christmassy now lol

Hello Writer

Opening repetition of the slug doesn't give a good first impression, neither does the misuse of ...

The dialogue comes across as a bit wooden and cold.

My main takeaway so far is this drags, with a lot of unnecessary dialogue - in 6 pages we need to get to the point quicker.

The story is good, evil baubles that steal children. I'm not sure why they are being stolen but oh well. The story as is can be cut a bit, it drags and the simple act of the Dad coming home and testing the baubles becomes boring.

Personally I would like a bit more rhyme and reason as to why the children are being stolen.

Good effort

Happy Holidays

I found it easy to follow and the imagery was nice, atmospheric. I just think it was an overly elaborate and quite frankly odd way to steal children... which all hinged on the parents discarding the boxes of ornaments in the same dumpster!

Very decent effort though.

-Mark

Great concept but I found it a difficult read. Dialogue wasn't very realistic and pretty clunky overall. The quick flashes to the motel room was kind of weird too. With some work, this could be a great little story of capturing souls in ornaments for an opposing Christmas entity. Definitely revisit this one to see what you can do with it.

Great idea, writer. Work it!

Okay, not enough love on this one, so I'll give it cause it deserves more imho.

Such a great creepy idea.
Satan's disciple at Christmas, nice. Well, not nice really... More like seriously macabre.

I think some of your quick flashes were formatted weirdly, but I put that down to page count. If you did it correctly you would have gone way over, and you managed to pack a lot of story in six pages. There was proper motivation for Samuels's actions here. Not sure about the naked bit - reminded me of Ted Levine as Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs - just an image I'm not sure that fits with the rest, but hey, I might be wrong.

Loved the visuals.
Horrifying and surreal final image.

Great job, writer. Right up there for me!

Oh, and I meant to add, great title.

Good concept. The faces of screaming children within the ornaments is an effectively scary image and a strong way to end. You have touched upon the fears of all parents.

Quick question: Do we need to have the ornaments malfunctioning followed by a return trip to the market? This would work just as well without people going to the market to complain. In other words, the ornaments don't work, people get upset, the next day all kids are gone. Maybe at that point people rush to the market, which is just a bunch of lonely, abandoned stalls.

There is a small "i" on page 2.

Ahoy Writer, just my humble opinion, etc. I sometimes read during mealtimes. Helps my digestion. So does typing with one hand.

Coming late into the game, Christ this is some strange stuff, I dunno what slice of the audience enjoys this kind of ending, but I hope they take their meds and lock all sharp objects away. Then again, each to their own preferences. If you do a rewrite, can you make it less scary. I got to get some sleep.   Overall, I did like this, just wasn't crazy about it.  I'm just wondering is the story built up enough in these six pages. Just brain farting here. Best of Irish luck!-ghostie girl.