Hey again, Frank.

sorry to read it in pieces - this is just how it is for me those days.

Anyway, I'm through with the third vignette. It was a good one. I liked the formatting on p47 - liked the fact you didn't do dual dialog thing.
And I liked the story.

Thinking you could make us root for Leroy and you didn't - you could personalize the story at the beginning, tell us about him. You provide a lot of description about how he is and what he's doing but you never really let us know him.
But you showed the moral struggle real well. That was a strong story. Although I still in the clouds about why they did it. I understand the prohibition thing and how they all had to find death by beer bottles, but still the question why is there.

Could have ditched one of four I think. Even have two - Richard and Leroy - and the story would work the same.
Was a bit hard for me to visualize the whole thing. But that could be just me. I understand what's going on and everything but lost on the visuals - all I'm saying.
Overall it's a strong vignette but thinking it could be written better.

Off to the last one. Or maybe you have two stored there for me. Let's see.

And, I still want more of the overall story. What's going on with the paining the observer is doing?

Wow. Emma is such a Jesus freak. Emphasis on "freak."

Also, let's not forget that man, not God, wrote the Bible, so of course it's gonna contradict itself. Hell, even Ned "Diddly" Flanders admitted it. Okily dokily.

Quoted Text I think she might be involving herself in witchcraft.

Those fingers in my hair
That sly come-hither stare
That strips my conscience bare
It's witchcraft

Quoted Text There’s no one calling at our house, and she spends all her time in our library.

No one's calling anybody, period. Alexander Bell didn't invent the telephone until 1876.

A "parody"? Like a spoof or send-up?

Quoted Text Laura’s been upset [about] something terrible about the fight with the South, saying every day she means to do something about it.

Quoted Text The Demon sniffs derisively, then stares at the bowl of blood mixture. It growls in an impossibly deep voice.

Like a death metal vocalist? Louis Armstrong? Cookie Monster? Barry White?

Pretty good start. I'm gonna call it a night.

Quoted from khamanna For the second I have - Liz and Thomas and Liz and Suitor (p37) was kind of repetitive for me. As we know already what Mirror Liz is doing - it's kind of the same thing over and over. I wish Liz became more proactive and then gave up or something. But still it's a very strong one and I liked it a lot. p30 - you've got montage here. I'd think formatting it regularly would make up for the stronger storytelling. I've never been a fan of montages though.

Although the story's inciting incident is that Mirror Liz hurts someone for the first time, the Mirror Liz character doesn't develop during this story... she's basically all id and just happens to Liz. The only development here is Liz as she goes from horrified to angry to annoyed to meh.

A parallel could be a series of patients for a doctor as that doctor loses interest in healing.

Quoted from khamanna I started the third vignette, but have to reread. It's a bit not clear to me what's going on in here.

You're not the only one who found it difficult to work out exactly what's happening. Definitely needs fixing.

Quoted from khamanna Anyway, I'm through with the third vignette. It was a good one. I liked the formatting on p47 - liked the fact you didn't do dual dialog thing. And I liked the story. Thinking you could make us root for Leroy and you didn't - you could personalize the story at the beginning, tell us about him. You provide a lot of description about how he is and what he's doing but you never really let us know him.

I introduced Leroy the way that the Teetotaler met him, which ties in well with a plausible painting in the gallery. It wouldn't be out of place for the captives to tell each other a bit about themselves. Involving flashbacks here would inflate the budget even further, but I think we're way past a festival-circuit budget anyway.

Quoted from khamanna But you showed the moral struggle real well. That was a strong story. Although I still in the clouds about why they did it. I understand the prohibition thing and how they all had to find death by beer bottles, but still the question why is there.

I realized with Gabe's write-up that I completely forgot to make the Teetotaler's motives clear. He said that each was on a path to "do great harm." Specifically, he found each of them passed out drunk in a public place.

I'll also clarify that this is not the first group to be put through this exercise, and during the wraparound mention that Leroy is the one who led to the Teetotaler's capture.

Quoted from khamanna Could have ditched one of four I think. Even have two - Richard and Leroy - and the story would work the same. Was a bit hard for me to visualize the whole thing. But that could be just me. I understand what's going on and everything but lost on the visuals - all I'm saying. Overall it's a strong vignette but thinking it could be written better.

Leroy and Richard are the focal characters, but the other two are necessary to provide an icky means of escape. I'll have the other two say just as much during the introductions, if for no other reason than to give Leroy more pause when using them.

Thanks again, Kham!

Quoted from ChrisBodily Wow. Emma is such a Jesus freak. Emphasis on "freak." Also, let's not forget that man, not God, wrote the Bible, so of course it's gonna contradict itself. Hell, even Ned "Diddly" Flanders admitted it. Okily dokily.

There are people who believe in the literal truth of the Bible. Emma is not one of them, and Laura hasn't given it much thought. The scene is just supposed to show Laura's faith deteriorating, but I did slip in tiny bits of educational content about Christianity, Wicca and Satanism

Quoted from ChrisBodily No one's calling anybody, period. Alexander Bell didn't invent the telephone until 1876.

"Call" in the sense of paying a short visit is an older meaning than to use a telephone. I'm trying to write in the period vernacular, but I haven't found a lot of examples to go by.

Quoted from ChrisBodily A "parody"? Like a spoof or send-up? Travesty might be a better word, but it doesn't read as smoothly to me. "Laura's been upset something terrible" is another bit of that speaking style stuck between colonial times and Little House on the Prairie. [quote=Eruption]Like a death metal vocalist? Louis Armstrong? Cookie Monster? Barry White?

"Impossibly deep" means this guy is a bass in the barbershop quartet where Darth Vader is the tenor. It will almost certainly involve electronically manipulating the actor's voice.

When different species meet in the wild, often they will try to intimidate each other by seeing who can make the loudest, deepest sound, since that is correlated with size and strength. This big, bad demon is really big and really bad, and his voice helps sell that.

Thanks for the read so far, Chris. Looking forward to your take on the rest of it.

Finished your feature.
To the last short and some pages preceding it:
p53 Is this related to any of the story?
p55 - The whole scene is misleading for me. Bill is the atacker. Then he talks to the lady normally like she's an individual and they are having a conversation. Then he jokes about her heart being too hard to cut out...
p59 I read this scene several times to understand what's going on. Where's Maggie's reflection? In a poster?
Nice to see the reflection thing coming back, but I'd like all of the characters that you brought up in the later shorts (I've seen Liz and Laura) to make some difference. Otherwise there's no need for them to come back imo.

Most importantly I don't understand Bill, what's he pursuing and who he is.
You write bits of info here without connecting it all into a whole.
Finished the short and got to admit it was a toughie for me. It's got to do with the way it's written. p65-66 didn't help either.
My suggestion would be to bring more clarity to the short.

To the ending - I'd like more for the blanket story, and most of it should come earlier so I'm more invested in the way it ends.

Having said all that - those were a set of interesting shorts. The last one, if rewritten can make a whole Black Mirror episode. The ideas were very good and were there.
The simplest of all is the first one actually. But good nonetheless.
I especially liked the Mirror thing. Mirror Liz was fun. The third one too.
It needs a rewrite but which first draft doesn't.

Quoted from khamanna Finished your feature. To the last short and some pages preceding it: p53 Is this related to any of the story?

This montage was just supposed to establish that the company has put a LOT of cursed items out into circulation. These four stories are part of a larger class.

Quoted from khamanna p55 - The whole scene is misleading for me. Bill is the atacker. Then he talks to the lady normally like she's an individual and they are having a conversation. Then he jokes about her heart being too hard to cut out...

My intent here was to establish that this Woman knows her attacker. This attacker speaks to her is a smart-alecky way that reveals that he does in fact intend to kill her, and wants her awake when it happens.

I haven't made any serious study of serial killers, so this is just me cobbling together a way to say he feels she deserves punishment, and he wants her to know why.

Quoted from khamanna p59 I read this scene several times to understand what's going on. Where's Maggie's reflection? In a poster?

I made a mistake in setting up this scene, which probably made it a little harder to understand what happened.

The subway platforms in New York do have advertising posters, but they aren't encased in glass. The only reflective things on the walls would be display screens (these show train information and some ads).

Maggie's reflection would be in one of these display screens while it was showing a dark-colored ad (for a better visual on the reflection).

Maggie is implied to be a descendant of Liz.

Quoted from khamanna Nice to see the reflection thing coming back, but I'd like all of the characters that you brought up in the later shorts (I've seen Liz and Laura) to make some difference. Otherwise there's no need for them to come back imo.

This is definitely a goal for the re-write. I'm thinking of more interesting ways that they can interact without derailing the story.

Quoted from khamanna Most importantly I don't understand Bill, what's he pursuing and who he is. You write bits of info here without connecting it all into a whole. Finished the short and got to admit it was a toughie for me. It's got to do with the way it's written. p65-66 didn't help either. My suggestion would be to bring more clarity to the short.

Bill is pursuing ex-girlfriends, maybe desensitized to violence by video games or something. He came up with an elaborate plan to kill a bunch of red herrings to cover the pattern, and used technical wizardry to foil the surveillance cameras. Off-screen, he's obviously using a boatload of forensic countermeasures as well... basically what he can learn off the Dark Web.

Quoted from khamanna To the ending - I'd like more for the blanket story, and most of it should come earlier so I'm more invested in the way it ends.

This is also a goal during the re-write. The Artists (well, at least four of them) will have personal connections to characters in the vignettes, and the Curator may just have picked them as some sort of belated revenge.

Quoted from khamanna Having said all that - those were a set of interesting shorts. The last one, if rewritten can make a whole Black Mirror episode. The ideas were very good and were there. The simplest of all is the first one actually. But good nonetheless. I especially liked the Mirror thing. Mirror Liz was fun. The third one too. It needs a rewrite but which first draft doesn't.

The mirror vignette was definitely the most fun. I tried to recreate some of that fun in a pretend trailer/sizzle reel for the feature (https://www.dropbox.com/s/idfisc3jnzctf5q/Glass%20House%20Sizzle%20Reel.pdf?dl=0), though of course it would need to be updated with a rewrite of the feature.

Thanks for all the help, Kham, and I'm glad you liked it.

Hello everyone, I want to thank you all again for your awesome feedback.

A new draft has been uploaded, in which I’ve tried to incorporate as many of your suggestions as possible to improve the vignettes as well as the overall story. The last bit can be left as an open-ended “uh oh we’re in for it now” or, my preferred use, the hook for a sequel.