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Sweeet Sara by Night Train - Adult, Short, Horror - A man meets a woman at a bar and tells her the ghost of his dead wife has been following him for five years. 9 pages - pdf, format
Maybe I'm off the mark here, but I have a suspicion that George is actually dead. If that's the case and he just doesn't know it, very cool idea but it needs to be established a little better. Even if he just vanished when that street light goes out instead of running off, it would be effective. It would still meet the challenge since he is afraid of the other ghosts, even if he is one himself.
Regardless, it's well written, Amy is a good character, and the dialogue is decent. George is heavy on exposition, but again,that would work if him being dead was the twist.
It's a little slow, the pace should be higher after they leave the bar. The tone is great though, good job there. All in all, a solid entry.
Writing is OK, but the setup here rings very false, and Amy would never sit with a whacko like George, once he starts saying the zany things he says.
Damn...Amy sure slammed that martini fast!
Still, the dialogue just isn't natural and this conversation would never play out like this - it's here to meet the challenge, and for me, that's a problem.
OK, so now Amy finally is acting like a real person.
Well, not bad, I guess, but for some reason, it just doesn't do much for me.
I don't think you need to state the gender and the name, it's overwriting, how many male Amys do you know and how any female Georges do you know.
Turn off the character CONT'D, they are distracting.
SPOILERS
I kind of feel like George would have been locked in the looney bin years ago, he is a missive oversharer, he just met Amy and he's telling her about his dead wife's ghost, I don't really buy it.
Quoted Text
Amy appears around the corner and screams when an arm reaches out of a black doorway and pulls her to a stop. She screams, until she sees it’s just George.
This confused me, she screams until she sees it's George but half a page ago she wanted him in a nutbag and to get away from her.
Quoted Text
AMY Wow. Sucks to be you.
This dialogue is so out of line with the rest of the tone of the script, it's the second time its come off comical but I see you wrote this as a straight horror.
Not much of a horror element.
The ending wasn't really a twist as you could see it coming early on when he starts talking about Amy possessing people, the obvious conclusion would be he would kill an innocent person.
The phobia was there and the RIP was there but I think it was used it a very bland way.
The writing was good but the story overall wasn't for me.
Picked this one because I chose the same phobia. Didn't finish on time though.
First off, a pet peeve of mine. One woman. Two women.
You had the ghost phobia, but it came across more as George were insane, IMO. I would've preferred to see him be a little more normal with a phobia than a paranoid crazy person.
A little too talky in the beginning, IMO. Especially when George goes on explaining everything.
Wow, this is my absolute favorite of the bunch. I read 15 so far. Very funny. I also read the comments for this.
I understand it's about a crazy man who has an abnormal fear of ghosts. He's not normal - that's true. But he has a specific fear and that is of ghosts. That's why it qualifies as a phobia for me.
Story hit home but I think you should have made the topic of their argument evident. Gives you the opportunity to explain the reason behind her haunting.
Fear of your dead wife I think. All ghosts? Still works for me phobia wise.
Page 2 and I'm a bit confused - George says he goes there because there are no ghosts, but then he's checking everyone out and telling Amy that you can't be to careful. I know this is meant to be a phobia thing, but for me this didn't fit.
AMY So who is this ghost that’s bothering you. - This felt out of place - he hasn't said that he's being bothered by a ghost. Seems odd that she would ask him this.
Amy's reactions are off - she wants to hear about ghosts, which is odd - with the way he just blurted things out I would have walked at the start, but she hangs around acting interested then flips on him mid story.
GEORGE Did you see her? Amy smacks him with her purse. AMY You asshole! You scared the shit out of me!
- knowing he was a nut job - I'd still be screaming.
At this point the ghosts almost seem like a weird obsession of George's not a phobia - he can't stop going on about them and as much as he is supposed to be scared - I'm not getting that intensely scared vibe - he's just coming across as a weirdo with ghost stories. Amy at this stage seems to be more fearful than him - but she wanted to hear about the ghosts to start off with, so no phobia there.
I did like the twist with George at the end, but the bulk of this one wasn't for me, sorry.
It started out almost as a Ted Striker story situation out of Airplane (I was half expecting a flashback, followed by a hanging), and then went into random chase movie, followed by nut job murder! What the hell??
Look, I'm probably being overly critical but you clearly know how to write so I feel I should be honest with my assessment.
From start to finish it just roamed all over the place, and wasn't particularly believable at any point after they left the bar. The characters were okay, the story just nuts though.
Formatting and spelling wise, you appear to have that nailed so no quibbles there. Phobia?? Not for me. He's a fruit loop who's afraid of his ex wife's ghost, not ghosts in general which is a phobia situation.
Nuts, absolutely nuts. Easy to read, thematically not entirely there, and the plot is just running around all over the place with its hair on fire.
Have trouble with the phobia aspect of it though, he himself says that you have to make sure they are real people after checking people out at the bar... yet he puts himself into these situations?, which is something a person with his mindset and phobia wouldn't do. He also pursues Amy believing that she has been taken over by his dead wife Sarah. This reads more like a paranoia than a phobia.
Take out the phobia aspect and this would be a good story
Pages: 1, 
Author
Sweet Sara - OWC
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