Unwitting Accomplice by Frank MacCrory (FrankM) writing as Secret Identity - Short, Fantasy - A dark hero enlists the aid of a straight-and-narrow superheroine to protect a tipster. The two of them learn that they are incompatible in more ways than one. 5 pages  - pdf format

Writers' Tournament theme: Blood is Thicker than Water:  Using Items: Mason Jar, Public Pool, Manicurist

Writer interested in feedback on this work

Ambitious and complicated with a lot of plot threads running every which way and I confess to getting a bit lost but you get points for a very ambitious imaginative and colourful effort.

I hate to say it but everything felt a little shoe-horned in re the elements, and the location was one of many.
I would have liked it if Just Ice had a more feminine moniker too, but that might just be me.

Going to re-read this one after the others to make sure I'm not shortchanging you cause this genre is my least favourite. The theme? Not sure.

Good effort! I would have fallen down in a heap if I had those elements.

That is one set of complicated elements to use! I don't envy you.

Ambitious to say the least, just very confusing and I didn't see the theme but I got lost quite a bit. I think this needs quite a few more pages to do it justice.

-Mark

Hi,
There is a lot going on here and I admit to getting a little confused at times reading it, but I felt you managed to get a whole story in there and opened up a whole cabinet of possibilities with other strands to pull upon to create a larger universe.
I liked the addition of the hero dog, complete with outfit, reminded me of Scooby Doo in a strange kind of way.

Well Done.

I liked that the super heroes are ordinary people. And their super powers are also cool. I would have liked to see Duke’s power in action, though (among other things, he can sniff out lies). However, the plot is somewhat muddled.

Consuela passes on a note to Yi to meet Mal Suerte. M.S. wants her help protecting two of Señor Vice’s suppliers because S.V. suspects them of informing the police he was going to rob a museum. Just Ice (Yi’s alter ego) agrees to help him because tipsters shouldn’t be harmed. Never mind that it was J.I. who prevented the heist in the first place, so protecting the informers should have been her concern to start with, not M.S.’s. In actuality, M.S.’s aim all along was to get her to give up her quest to bust the fake id operation run by Paco, who happens to be M.S. I think this is all way too complicated.

Plus, the connection to the theme (‘Blood is thicker than water”) is awfully thin: all Consuela does is pass on a note, and in the process gets her nails fixed.

JUST ICE = Justice get it? ha ha ha  > > >

Anyway, the heroes are tracking the Henchman of a foe named Vice. Since Vice never shows up, I wondered why you couldn't just have the pair hunt Mister Vice instead  one of his no name thugs.
I'm not quite sure what's going on here. They seem to put innocent people in danger and it takes Paco and his dog to help get them out of the ice. The thug isn't really dealt with. AS for busting Vice's operation...you lost me. It's as if this was a few pages longer and you sliced it off at five.

Good attempt at getting something in.

Well that was lots of fun and you sort of get the criteria in too.

The writing however was very dense and a little difficult to follow in places.

But well done for managing to get all those elements in.

I enjoyed that but I'm a comic book sorta guy. Loved 'Chain of Events' once I realized that was the name of his super-chain. Very cool.

Like others, it was confusing and a lot to cram in 5 pages. Some fluff could be trimmed and other information clarified. You've got the mind to get this one right, I can tell.

Great attempt, but the execution is wanting. Thanks for the read, I did enjoy it.

Damn this is hugely inventive. I had to read it twice but still lost the thread lol. But you created a very cool world and used the variables nicely (although those pesky mason jars just happened to be on that window sill - a big slice of luck lol)

The theme wasn’t really there but you should get good marks for the elaborate world build

Not much to add that hasn’t been said.

Clearly creative, dynamic and lots going on.

Just needed more time, space and pages to get the message across

In five pages I would have kept it more focused, but that’s hindsight for you

Well done

Read this twice and still didn't catch it all. You are a great comic writer, but this was way too much for 5 pages.

Loved the characters, the dialog was awesome, loved some of the extras like stealing people's Karma. The writing is also very good. But just way too big for 5 pages. Impressive though, that's for sure!

Frankly and you may not like me for this - but my third attempt to read this. And yes I got it.

I think you took too long to go from the first scene to explaining what it's there for and that is disrupting.
The other thing - maybe you could try to simplify for the reader.

Cos you have a vivid and beautiful world here and you really want it to shine brighter. I'm not a superhero fan, so for the likes of me that can be a challenge.

Also, I think that something like that is good for the feature. You have a world, not just a superhero here. Cos there was a supers challenge and everything there was pretty simple, no world building or else. But your characters are too colorful and your world is too different - you may want to expand it into a feature.

The dialogue is on the nose and some of the writing isn't very clear. I'd be lying if I said I totally got it.

I also didn't know superheros were fantasy, I thought that was a genre of its own.

Okay, so the third time through, and after reading the comments, I think I get what's going on...

First, full marks for being hugely inventive. This is the type of script that doesn't really work well on paper, because it's not really prose and dialogue based. We need to see the colors, and the action, and the performances. So this would work better on screen.

I was confused when you intro'd DUKE, because Mal Suerte addresses him first, and then chastises Just Ice for bringing him. So Duke belongs to Ice?

I was with you for about 4 pages, until we get to Ice's brother. I'm not sure what he did - he supplied something in a heist? And he's given Ice's good karma, which I suppose fits the theme, and at a cost, because it renders Ice powerless to fight her other crime.

So then Mal agrees to do it, however it appears to be his plan all along, to get ice off the trail. Here's where it breaks down for me because even though Mal protects his sister Consuela (another nod to the theme), I'm not sure who the tipsters are and who the other counterfeit ring is - is it Ice's brother? And if so, how is he in danger when he got her good karma?

Anyway, again, hugely inventive, way too much story for 5 pages but that only hinders you until Monday.  Not sure how I feel about this in the end? But I think that on the screen - perhaps animated - it would be entertaining.

AJR

So, this one was the thing that I handed in. Thank you everyone for the reads and the feedback.

First thing first: I somehow managed to revise my script and upload the old one a second time. Sending in the correct version might have alleviated some of the confusion, but not all of it. Space was tight.

The "blood" versus "water" conflict was Just Ice's. She knew that doing something gray (deflecting a murder instead of trying to prevent it) would put her out of action for a while, specifically affecting her case hunting down the fake ID racket... but took the easy road to ensure her brother's safety.

On a rewrite, I'll definitely make it clearer that Just Ice consciously made that decision.

It's intentionally left open whether Mal Suerte masterminded this whole thing, or if the case just fell in his lap due to his "loco" luck. Now that he knows her weakness, though, he'll certainly take advantage of it in the future.

Everyone seems to agree that they were confused. So, what the hell was going on in this story?

In some unspecified city we have your standard Saturday-morning-worthy superheroes ("the fancy cape club") with secret identities, and Just Ice is one of them. Not important to the story if they're an organized superteam (Flag Five, Justice League, etc.) or just a bunch of good guys who help each other.

Of course, we also have supervillains to keep life interesting. Not specified in the story whether Mr. Vice has superpowers or is just your run-of-the-mill kingpin. I imagine he might have some power that manipulates the id (impulsiveness and pleasure-seeking) that he leveraged into a kingpin-type position.

Somewhere between these two groups reside dark heroes, vigilantes, and other denizens of the gray area (think Batman, Deadpool, Punisher, etc.). Mal Suerte (Spanish for "bad luck") is one of these, and given that his secret identity is a gang leader, it'd be safe to assume he's closer to the supervillain side. In fact, it's likely he only ever does heroic stuff to foil his underworld rivals (e.g., Mr. Vice).

Mr. Vice bankrolled an overly elaborate museum heist because, well, that's just the kind of thing that bad guys do in superhero stories. The heist is broken up by some of the "fancy cape" heroes.

Mal Suerte gets some information about Mr. Vice's next move, namely that he wants to make an example out of someone for tipped off the cops about the heist. Mal Suerte works out who Vice's suspects are, and one of them is a hero's brother.

Shortly before FADE IN, Consuela melts her nails in a "freak accident" while making fake IDs for Mal Suerte's gang. Based on what we later learn about Mal Suerte, "freak accidents" probably happen near him with alarming frequency. Sure things fail, longshots pay off, and bizarre coincidences happen all the time. Since we also know that Mal Suerte (somehow) knows that hero's secret identity, he may have engineered the "freak accident" intentionally. Or it could have happened by chance. Things like that happen to him.

Mal Suerte, whom Consuela knows as his secret identity Paco, slips her a note to pass to her manicurist. He gives her precise instructions not to open the note and who to say it's from. The note says that Mal Suerte wants to meet Just Ice at a certain time and place, though probably in a round-about way in case someone sees the note.

As luck would have it, Consuela can see Yi right away. Yi knows who Mal Suerte is, trusts him about as far as she can throw Montana, and decides to bring some back-up.

Yi, as Just Ice, asks Duke (who is considered a hero in his own right, not a side-kick or mascot) to come as a favor, which he does. Mal Suerte, Just Ice, and Duke then exchange some exposition-heavy dialog so that people won't be completely lost later on.

Mal Suerte leads the real heroes to Vice's contact with the first suspect. This was supposed to be an easy catch to build up their confidence in him. It turns out to be the opposite of easy, but at least no one gets killed. As luck would have it, he happened to bump into an object that turned out to be really helpful during the clean-up.

Mal Suerte's real plan involved the second suspect, but I didn't have enough space to lay out properly what was happening. He was looking to earn some gratitude from Just Ice, maybe even enough to call in a favor later. Bonus points if he or his methods earn a little credit with the heroes and law enforcement. He'd planned to exaggerate the danger the brother is in, save him from it, and reap the benefits. One wrinkle is that Duke's presence kept Mal Suerte from exaggerating.

The other wrinkle is that Mal Suerte's methods aren't simply different from Just Ice's, they're anathema to her. There's going to be a cold-blooded murder... we have to stop it! Because we're good guys! And something about apple pie and the American Way! Preventing the murder probably isn't feasible, but Just Ice doesn't even try: her obligation to save her brother specifically ("blood") wins out over her obligation to uphold justice generally ("water"). She takes the easy way rather than the right way, which disrupts the certainty-of-righteousness upon which her powers depend.

Watching his second plan implode in less than an hour, he offers to pick up her other case as a friendly gesture. Turns out the case involves his gang. Lucky bastard, third time's the charm. Rather than play Yuri in No Way Out, he decides to bust a similar operation run by a rival organization. (If he was a smart long-term thinker, he'd minimize the damage of busting his own operation to throw off any suspicion of his secret identity. He's not that smart.)

Mal Suerte doesn't get any of the cred he sought, and may even have launched a rivalry with Just Ice, but... he does get some additional business for his gang and learns about an inobvious weakness of Just Ice's.

Quoted from Spqr I think this is all way too complicated.

My intention was to be twistier than straight-forward, but not head-spinning. Sorry if I missed the mark.

Quoted from Spqr Plus, the connection to the theme (‘Blood is thicker than water”) is awfully thin: all Consuela does is pass on a note, and in the process gets her nails fixed.

Quoted from stevie The theme wasn’t really there but you should get good marks for the elaborate world build

Having her be Paco's sister was probably a mistake, because it drew attention away from the real brother-sister-fueled dilemma. I just wanted someone who'd mention his name in dialog so that he could correct them to say "El Jefe." I kinda ran out of space to do the denouement properly.

Quoted from LC I would have liked it if Just Ice had a more feminine moniker too, but that might just be me.

Quoted from DarrenJamesSeeley JUST ICE = Justice get it? ha ha ha  > > >

All of the good superhero names are taken. All of them.

Quoted from DarrenJamesSeeley Anyway, the heroes are tracking the Henchman of a foe named Vice. Since Vice never shows up, I wondered why you couldn't just have the pair hunt Mister Vice instead  one of his no name thugs.

Good question. Mal Suerte isn't really a stand-up fair-fight kind of guy. Besides, taking on a major supervillain would justify bringing in all the big guns in that city. That's not happening in five pages.

Quoted from AnthonyCawood Well that was lots of fun and you sort of get the criteria in too. The writing however was very dense and a little difficult to follow in places. But well done for managing to get all those elements in.

As I said, there was a revision that I messed up submitting, but the biggest bang for the buck in a no-page-limit rewrite would be breaking up the action blocks.

Quoted from JEStaats I enjoyed that but I'm a comic book sorta guy. Loved 'Chain of Events' once I realized that was the name of his super-chain. Very cool.

I am unreasonably proud of that pun.

Quoted from Geezis I liked the addition of the hero dog, complete with outfit, reminded me of Scooby Doo in a strange kind of way.

And here I though the allusion to Lassie was already too strong. Maybe I need Duke to rescue a kid named Timmy from a well

Quoted from ajr Okay, so the third time through, and after reading the comments, I think I get what's going on... First, full marks for being hugely inventive. This is the type of script that doesn't really work well on paper, because it's not really prose and dialogue based. We need to see the colors, and the action, and the performances. So this would work better on screen.

That is going above and beyond for feedback. Much appreciated!

Quoted from ajr I was confused when you intro'd DUKE, because Mal Suerte addresses him first, and then chastises Just Ice for bringing him. So Duke belongs to Ice?[/url] We hear Duke first, though it's not obvious. Then Mal Suerte does that macho address-the-guy-behind-you-without-turning-around thing. I thought it was clear, but when my wife looked it over, her question at that point was, "Duke is a dog, right? Not some German dude?" As I mentioned above, Duke is Just Ice's peer. That can definitely be made clearer in dialog. [quote=ajrscreenworks]I was with you for about 4 pages, until we get to Ice's brother. I'm not sure what he did - he supplied something in a heist? And he's given Ice's good karma, which I suppose fits the theme, and at a cost, because it renders Ice powerless to fight her other crime.

You got it, he was just the dude who sold the bad guys some of the gear they used. He failed to call the cops, which makes him less than heroic, but certainly not deserving to die.

Quoted from ajr So then Mal agrees to do it, however it appears to be his plan all along, to get ice off the trail. Here's where it breaks down for me because even though Mal protects his sister Consuela (another nod to the theme), I'm not sure who the tipsters are and who the other counterfeit ring is - is it Ice's brother? And if so, how is he in danger when he got her good karma?

I tried to leave it open whether he masterminded the whole thing, or it was just a stroke of luck.

Mal Suerte lives in the gray area, and he'll sleep perfectly well at night even if he never figures out who the tipster was. It'd be useful to know (as a source in Mr. Vice's operation), but not essential.

Just Ice's brother is completely out of danger, which morally speaking is better than he deserves. In Just Ice's eyes, Mal Suerte's karma-shifting power is basically weaponized unfairness. And she now has a days-long unscheduled vacation to resent him tempting her down to his level.

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Though this is a fun little world, apparently it is impossible to get anything superhero made unless it already has a huge comicbook following. I could come up with other characters and stories in the world, but would have no clue how to get started making a webcomic. (Even if Hyper Epics ran another OWC, entering something from this world wouldn't be anonymous.)