Stranded by Herman Chow (coding) - Short, Science Fiction - Two survivors stranded on a spaceship need to find whatever ways to survive.-9 pages - pdf, format

Nope, sorry, this did not work for me.

So many mistakes on the opening page.  always a bad sign.  Didn't like the story here, and although it indeed got quite dark, I just didn't get into it at all.

Writing wasn't too great and maybe that's why it didn't do anything for me.  Lots of grammar errors that really stood out.

Not much of a story here, IMO, and I think that was the telling blow.

Good effort though.

For me, this was a confusing read. There is so much action. The story never takes a breath. And, like Dreamscale, I was distracted by the numerous grammar mistakes.

The biggest problem, though, is the ending, which -- after all the action -- is anticlimatic.  

Nice approach to the challenge.  Definitely different.

Still, it lacked zest.  Maybe skip over the first few pages and get right into the grind of them trying to survive.  You could have them in sector 1 and someone else had just died.  That can start the story off.  That way, you save a few pages and wah-la!  Dinner's right there.

Speaking of which, it was a little too soon for these people to resort to cannibalism.  If I read this correctly, it was five days or so until they started feasting on Sam.  Five days?  That sucks, but humans can go way longer, especially before resorting to the absolute last option.  That is, if I read that correctly.

A little lacking, but still a good effort and I liked your approach to the challenge.

Greg

Nice to see a pure sci-fi story in the challenge.  I think this story had all the elements, but they just didn't come together.   You were never really able to establish that sense of dread as the survivors realize they probably aren't going to make it.  And, with all the available bodies it would seem they had plenty of meat for 21 days without the guy having to cut into himself.

So, a good effort with possibly great potential.

Excellent effort.

I can tell you really put your heart into this.  Personally I think this one could turn out to be a very surreal and haunting Machinama.  Something that would stick with the viewer for days.  

Nice job,

Alive in space.

Not bad.

The concept has been done before so famously though that it needed to go an extra mile or find another twist somewhere.

A straightforward title, logline, and premise.  All of that is good.  Even the pros have a tough time with that.

But there is so much awkward phrasing here and there, with oddly stilted dialogue.  The words you give Kate are particularly on-the-nose.

And this must be the first spaceship ever to store food in cans haha.

This reads like someone's first attempt at science fiction.  You do have good ideas in place; they are simple, but effective.

But you do not carry them anyplace new, and you do not carry them far enough.  And the ending is dull.  There is no other way to put it.

You have everything in place here for a good script, and I suspect more time would have helped.  C

I think if you rewrite this one it could really work, but as it is right now it has some problems. I liked that this was pure sci-fi though. My biggest issue here was that I didn't really sense the desperation here. I think it would work much better if the ship somehow is on a course into nothing forever. They will never return to earth. They will die here in space. Also make this go on much longer, timewise. The two of them are way too desperate for food after such a short time.

How do we know Henry recovers from his headache? You don't "show" us anything that gives us a visual clue that he even has one.

I'm no expert on spaceships, but I'm willing to bet they don't run on gas. Change the fuel tanks to something else.

"drift that fast without fuel"?? there are quite a few things already in this script that doesn't work, science wise. Space is a vacuum. There's nothing there. Once you get up to speed so to speak you keep going at that speed. There's nothing to stop you.

Boy Kate isn't very nice, is she. That is a problem here. I couldn't have cared less if she lived or died. Henry on the other hand seemed a lot nicer so I was willing to hope that he would survive.

Anyway, not bad at all, but needs work.  

Glad to see a sci fi entry in here. There are some problems with it that were mostly covered above. Sounds like they were flying one bigazz spaceship all by themselves. Sam was the only other they came across. Seemed like she was drinking whatever he was cutting out of himself though. That threw me off. Not bad for a week

James

Yeah, good to see a sci-fi entry. Not much of ' the dark' in this but it was a good effort.

The main problem I had was some of the dialogue made it almost comic! Or at least a macabre type of humour.
This reminded me of an old Stephen King short called 'Survivor Type'.

Anyway, the writing was ok. The spaceship stuff was good. Needsa good re-write though.

The darkness of space is a really good setting for these scripts to unfold - see Grace on the Moviestorm website for a great example of what you can do with the technology - and it was nice to see a sci-fi here.

BUT somehow, this felt strangely...flat. 'Distant' is a better word, perhaps. For such a vivid situation and setting, I just couldn't get into this story at all, by which I mean it never came off the page for me. I echo what others have said about the strange things about the spaceship and how quickly they resort to cannibalism. I did like the final image, but it just never really kicked up into a high gear, for me.

I must be in a bad mood or something...not liking any of the scripts today! Sorry...

Too the writer...

I'm a sci-fi fan so obvious I had to take a look at this one.  A few writing issues and this was dark IMO.  Your ending was well, lackluster.  Good to something eles besides the norm.

Not bad, but need a re-write and mainly because if your thinking inside science as we know it, then you have to be accurate somewhat.  Me I think out side science as we know it, so I could get away with a lot of things no matter how farstretched they may sound.

Congrats on completing the OWC .

Ghostwriter

I think the biggest problem I had with this story was the believability of it. Specifically the fact that someone would resort to eating their spouse within ten days. I mean surely they could've waited a bit longer to get back to Earth. And they had Sam's body to eat so that would have lasted them. Also I wasn't sure if Henry had sacrificed himself for Kate or if she had killed him.

Good job on completing the challenge, but I think a rewrite would help this one.

Cheers,
Tim.

So, I have a very fundamental problem with this one. It has to do with survival. Humans can survive a very, very long time without food. Granted, not as long without water, but there was actually no need on a 21 day trip for Henry to go to that extreme. I mean, she came out of the hold with 4 cans of food. What happened to that? What about the rest of the ship? There was just no justification for it. I don't buy it.

It's also really odd that in their entire walk, they found only one person...and he was impaled by a random pipe...in the pantry...under a shelf. If they were hit by surprise, why would a guy run into a storage closet and hide under a shelf?

You had a good start, but as you moved through it, the implausibilities kept piling up when we discover this space-faring pair are husband and wife with a kid somewhere back home, I guess added for a bit of a heart-tug, if the idea weren't so far out.

I'm not sure how salvagable this one is. If you tripled the length of the journey (at least), removed the family references, and added a few more crew members, it might work, but right now, it's just a mess. Sorry.

First, congrats to you Pia on beating me to the punch - indeed, the "drifting" of science fiction is a myth.  Space is curved, an in essence everything in the vacuum "falls" through the curvature, once it's been sufficiently propelled through an atmosphere - ah, skip it...

There were hints throughout the story that we were going to see cannibalism, and that's what we got. No otherwordly presences, no deep inquiries into the human mind - so this ended up being not so dark for me.

More of a miss than a hit for me unfortunately. Good idea, but not very plausible she would eat someone with 5 days to go. Sector 2 is mentioned but never explored, which disappointed me.

I didn't like Kate one bit. She was all for herself as soon as she was introduced. Maybe you should have made the story last over a longer period of time so we see her changing from a good person to a desperate cannibal instead of her just being a bit*h from the start.

Personally, I would get rid of the timer that tells them when they will return to earth. Make that a mystery so the cannibalism is more plausible. Then, as soon as she kills/starts eating Henry, they make contact and the rescue ship is sent.  

Overall, good effort but needs some work on the rewrite.

Brian

I too had problems with this one.  Their being married (or divorced) with one kid was way too much.  That just could have been kept out of the script.  There is no way that NASA would risk orphaning children just for the sake of a mission.  After World War II, America's federal government officially keeps relatives from working the same dangerous missions (dangerous being the main word).

If a pipe had gone through the guy's chest, wouldn't water have leaked out somewhere?  Another problem with sci-fi and reality trying to be mixed together.

You should try doing another story.  This one was just too limiting given the space and time restrictions you placed on yourself.  Keep trying though.  We all get these negative reviews at first.