Never Stop Running by Timothy F. Betts (Souter Fell) - Short, Drama - Two prisoners on the run seek refuge from the outside world. - pdf, format

Okay, this was a hard one to read.

First off, you barely even followed the genre and theme. Your only mention of the prison cell was at the beginning, and it was only half of the page. The rest was out in the wilderness where they were talking about being in prison and stuff. This was also more of a thriller/horror/suspense rather than a drama.

The reason why this was a hard one to read was because of your descriptions. The way you described things sort of made it hard to follow, such as describing metal teeth crunching a walking stick, and later telling us that it's a bear trap, when you could have just said it was a bear trap in the first place. I didn't understand where they were going except it was like a bunker, and there were hatches...and stuff...it made it sound like Gerald was prepping up to get in an underground rocket ship or something the way I saw it.

Also, I don't fully understand why Gerald gets so defensive when he finds out Mason is on Parole...has been paroled...whatever.

The thing I liked about it best, though, was that it had zombies in it. I was thinking of doing a zombie drama in a pirson cell...but that'd be kind of hard...and I'm sort of trying to take a break from zombies.

Sean

isn't the whole point of a short to have a beginning middle and end? I don't see a middle or an end here. It's like a scene from a "new" updated George Romero film where he tries to make unique zombies to say "I'm still the man" but we all know time hasn't been well to the man's ability.

Anyway, the short is odd and I've never seen a zombie that can't find a man with a bloody leg... even if it is wrapped in a shirt.

It had some "real" moments between Mason and Gerald but the story is barely existing and the reason why they are headed where they are headed makes no sense until we learn about the zombies.

Why would the prisoners be left in prison if the zombies have taken over the world? Was the prison overrun with zombies? Were the prisoners starving to death? Did he have to escape in order to live?

I just felt like with a little more effort you could have made this a little better. It's not terrible but it is incomplete.

I actually liked this one but as mentioned above, it doesn't really deal with the genre and theme of the OWC.

I didn't get lost with the descriptions but there was one or two sentences that were worded awkwardly. Otherwise, an interesting futuristic zombie short.

This one seemed alright until the zombies came in. Their entrance wasn't hinted at in any way. It was completely out of left field and threw the story way off course. With a curveball this big, not to mention awkward, I'm not sure I can call this an entirely successful script. It's just way too uneven. Even Gerald's reaction seemed a little too extreme for the kind of story this seemed like it was set up to be. Again, it felt like it threw the story off course.

You had some good dramatic elements going on between the characters for the most part and I thought their relationship was generally good. There was definitely potential here but it was executed very poorly I think. The result was very disjointed. I also think the OWC guidelines were almost completely disregarded. There's always a couple scripts that don't follow the guidelines just right but here, it felt like they were just ignored, for the most part. No good.

I agree with Sean.  This seemed hard to read because it felt like something John Kerry would write.  I didn't feel much emotion or excitement or even drama for that matter. I know the drama was in there, but I didn't feel it,  I just felt like the story was diddling along.  Bringing the zombies in at the end was very out of left field, not that it's a bad thing, but it was just so unexpected.  Kind of comical, actually.

I think with a little more energy this thing could read like Howard Dean, and that would, as a whole, make this that much better.

Somehow, and I don't know why, I knew there was going to be a zombie brought into a drama.  I know that there's no betting allowed, but I got twenty bucks that says if the next OWC's genre is a musical and the theme is the true story of William Shakespeare, we'd still end up with a zombie script somehow.  And it would probably still kill teenagers whose only dialogues are in cliche's.

Well, I have to give the writer credit, though.  At least this doesn't take place in a mall.

Not much new to add story-wise then what everybody else had said.

As for the writing.  At least it was in present tense and the formatting was pretty good.  Although the descriptives were hard to follow and were actually kind of boring.  Actually, it might have been hard to follow because they were long and boring.  He's in a prison cell and he get parolled through a cannister in a tube?  I think you need a little more explanation as to what exactly is going on.

And I don't see why Gerald would care if Mason was parolled or not.  He was still taking him with him, wasn't he?

It was also kind of annoying that there was no end.  I'm assuming Gerald gets eaten, or turned into a zombie, but what about Mason?  You leave him in the middle of the woods, no explanation of what's going to happen.  No resolution whatsoever.

- Mark

I liked this OK, but concur that the intrepretation of the cell was loose at best...I got why Gerald was concerned about the parole (cause of the code, which, as it turns out it wasn't such a good idea after all)...Liked the howling zombies, like coyotes, adds a chilling element to the genre...Some awkward text (A water bottle collects from the stream.)

Reads a little more sci-fi than drama, although I though the dialogue between the two men was good.

I thought this one was clever, odd and had its moments.  I like the interaction between Gerald and Mason.  The dialogue wasn't bad either.  However, I felt it lacked substance, was a bit of a dense read, and certainly barely - if at all - met the OWC challenge.

It’s a shame though because as it went on I got more and more interested in this strange world you created.  But then I was disappointed because you didn’t give me enough information to really understand it.  If I could have understood this world I would have liked this script a lot more.

I would have given you a consider but I think this really needs a REWRITE.  

This short was okay. I think everything was going pretty great until the zombies show up. I've never thought they were really that scary, and in this script it's too much of a shift in tone. You've got a cool tension building up between Mason and Gerald and then suddenly we're in a B-horror geek fest. It never really worked for me.

I also think you could've done a better job of fitting the script into the genre and theme. There's not much drama and you've only got a few paragraphs inside a prison cell. That could've been handled a bit better I think.

Other than that, this was pretty good. Some of the descriptions were a little wordier than necessary, but the dialogue between Mason and Gerard was good. The plot took some intereting twists and turns (up until the zombies) that I liked quite a lot.

Anyway, a pretty good piece. The set up is better than the pay off, but still an enjoyable read. Good work.


Matt.

This was more thriller/sci fi then drama. First question, in what way did you think this fit the challenge? Was this the best you could do to fit your story into the challenges theme?

They were in the wild, outside. Unless you wanted to say the city is their prison(join the club, there seems to be one).

But i'm not all bad, this def had some nice moments. Kept me entertained for a bit.

Congrats on finishing! Now on to the rewrite!

This is intriguing and a good paced story. However overall I didn’t really get it.

Philip

I have mixed feeling about this one.

It was well-written but I didn't feel it complied with the OWC. It's as though the writer took a script done before the OWC was announced and just tacked on the first bit in the prison to make it fit. I'm not accusing the writer of that, but that's how it comes across. I don't have a problem with the horror angle though, I still think this is enough of a drama - but it's a stretch.

I'll have to give this a C-, for no other reason than I don't think it belongs in the OWC. Judged outside the challenge, I'd give it a B-.

This is the best written, so far, to me.  I enjoy the script-as-literature style, and the additional flourishes found in the descriptions help to lend a distinct voice to the proceedings.

It is a shame that this has nothing whatsoever to do with a prison cell, as this is my favorite thus far.  This story slowly unveils its secrets, raising questions, and ultimately answering them with everybody’s favorite answer -- zombies.  But they make sense here, and once revealed, they are a fundamental part of what has gone before.

Unlike the prison.  It is as if somebody took an existing story, shoehorned a prison into it, and thought they were golden.  Not so.

I like this story a lot.  I like the descriptions, I like the slow reveal of details, and I like the conclusion.  But, darn it, you have deviated too far from the constraints, and you know it.

OWC Score:  80%

I kind of enjoyed this for the most part but I also felt a little cheated by the ending.  For me the real reveal wasn't the zombies but when Gerald discovered that Mason was paroled.  I thought this opened up some really interesting possibilities about his identity and/or motives but, alas, you threw us a curveball in the form of zombies instead.  It felt like you took the easy way out.

I wish you had enough faith in your characters and your original set up to see where you could have taken this.  The zombies really came out of left field and felt tacked on.  On the plus side though, Mason and Gerald were interesting characters, just not fleshed out well enough perhaps.

-Mike