Criterion by Samekh - Short - An adolescent girl fears her tribal initiation. 12 pages - pdf, format

Great writing. The story makes no sense whatsoever. It all feels pointless in the end. It’s a shame. If this writer had something to say, he or she could write something formidable.


Breanne

Well....it's different.
It's got a wierd surreal vibe in places, I don't mind it. Even if a was a bit zigzagged, trying to figure it out.
What I did mind is some clunkiness "...without the horse---horseless horseman" (p3) and the "character" of 3, (?) late in the script. I guess what annoyed me more was the writer describing all the crazy NOISES IN CAPS in some places and underscoring with other sounds and actions in others...

With all the good visual and surreal stuff going on, all that which I just mentioned throws the read off balance a bit. Then there's this on p8:

Quoted Text GELDEZ And too! These 'r ed'ble. Not too tasty. We still callem poberty verries. They tole tha white man this, 'ya needa eatem ta protect against Dam's Disease'.

Is Geldez telling a joke and therefore giving a mocking tone of speech?
I hope you didn't teach spell check those words; but more to the point, he pronounces words differntly before this, and now all of a sudden...

It feels intentional. But at the same time, I count them as spelling errors.

Some folks are going to go bonkers with the DISSOLVE.

As for the four character, one location....I'm 50/50 on it, but I'll let it slide. Big hill. Film one side. Reverse angle, film the other. Trees nearby.  A general location...but I don't think too many SS peeps are going to crazy over this. Nice effort though. And different.                

Sorry but I felt a similar way. I was just lost. By page 3 I was frazzled.

Someone had a powerful idea, really had soemthing to say but I couldn't keep up.

Best of luck and well done for entering.

tried...I really tried.  Got to page 4, and that's it.

Absolutely ridiculous.  Seems like another shroomfest going on...both in terms of what's supposedly taking place on the page and in the writer's mind.

The writing itself may be competent, but is far from "great", IMO.  It's purposely hard to read, and doesn't make sense (and I'm not even referring to the story not making sense) as written.

Please send whatever drugs induced this tale to me ASAP.  Thank you!

Congrats on completing an OWC entry.

From what I can tell, this was an effort to work visuals, strange words and underlined terms to achieve something. Sorry couldn’t figure it out. The writing needs improvement. The in the cage, out of the cage is an example.

This was the first one I couldn't finish.  I was just utterly baffled as to what was going on.  Could this have been written by the same person who wrote Thrice?  Same colorful use of language, but a similar lack of clarity in the narrative.  

It actually got a bit quicker to read toward the end.

Boy, Sandra's been busy this week.  This is the third one I think she's written.

I thought the dialogue and the writing were fantastic here - even though I think there was a bit too much writing going on and not enough explaining.

This sort of whole new universe thing can work in a feature but it's not appropriate for a short.  It usually leaves people feeling completely lost.    I have to admit that while I sort of got what was going on with this tribal religion the specifics of it were lost on me.  And I think those specifics were crucial to the story.

When you have something complex like this, choose the right things to put on the page and the right things to leave off the page.  I can't even begin to suggest what you should have left off and what you should put on because I don't think you gave me the correct information to make that decision.

I know you get it. Now help me get it.

Ok. I started reading this during the NFL game I was watching, but that wasn't gonna work. Too tough a read. So after the game, I made a pot, and here we go.

I think there is possibly quite a bit of talent with the writer. So I certainly hope the writer presses on and continues working. Some quick points.

I have read some fantasy and sci fi in my day. This felt like a chapter from a fantasy novel. Now, if this is something you have adapted from a larger work in order to fit in the Criteria for this challenge, I hope you understand that is outside the spirit of the exercise. But let's give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume the idea is fresh.

This writing is definitely more in character with something we would find in a novel. For example, at times the action lines are vague, in way they might be in a novel, where a writer often teases the reader, tries to engage his mind, capture his curiosity. But descriptions about what is happening are supposed to be clear in a script. Too often here it is not.

You're introducing key concepts about this world, such as Initiate and Criterion, but never really explaining. You succeeded in creating mystery and some curiosity about what was going on, but did you even give the audience any chance at all at figuring things out? I have no idea what happened at the end. It seemed like Min was going to be a sacrifice, but then there she is in the next scene. I think people have to be given some clue what's going on or has happened.

So, I hope you are encouraged to continue. You have a powerful imagination, an eye for some cool visuals, and some sophisticated ideas. the writing shows you know how to craft with words. To be fair to your reader, you have to be a little clearer, and give people some chance to figure out what's going on. Unless you plan on directing your own stuff, in which case you might produce some cool esoteric films. I'll check back here for story explanations after the reveal. Good luck.

Seems the OWC rules are not in effect for this one.
This feels like Apocalypse Now meets Apocalypto.
You went for it, without a doubt, so kudos there.
But I haven’t the foggiest of what you were going for though.
The descriptions were not helping much to orient me.
If I had some context, perhaps I would’ve gotten more invested.

Regards,
E.D.

I have no idea what this is about.

Far too much stuff going on, far too overwritten in every aspect.

This reads more like a book than a screenplay.

Keep it simple.

Greg

I see some comments about great writing. Maybe it is, I'm not an expert in English, but I do think it's more suitable for a book and not a screenplay. Overwritten IMHO.

The story, was okay, but I got lost in the wordiness of the writing. I usually don't care about formatting, but you had a lot of things that would be considered non standard script format. What's with the underlining and the * for example.

As far as the OWC goes I think you went a little too far. I could live with one stretch, but when they start to add up...

One location: well, could be considered one even if broad.

Up to 4 actors: well, could be 4 if we don't count the Horseman.

Low budget: I can't really see that. Children, not only hard to work with but there are laws about how much they can work and so on. Horse... Costume department. I don't know, maybe some creative person could pull it off. It just seems a bit ambitious to be low budget to me.

In short, not bad, but I came close to not finishing due to the writing. Maybe simplify it some to make it a little more clear and easier to read.

I am not reading the scripts in the OWC in order and so far I have had three "trips" in a row and now my head hurts. I am a very imaginitive person - read a lot of fantasy, play RPG's, bit of a nerd but I was lost in this.
Maybe you are trying to be too clever or I am not clever enough to "get it".
Some nice, original descriptions however.

I think this is well written and I'm annoyed that it's not more entertaining.  There's a sort of mean-spirited undertone to it, as if the author disliked the characters and the reader.  Well, that happens.

Sorry, but I got lost in this, too. Found myself skimming over the pages past page 3 and still didn't make sense of it... Sorry.

Cindy

I tried reading this.  By page five, I realized that I had absolutely no idea what was going on.  None of this made any sense to me.  You need to write a little clearer than this.

You describe some things in ways that are not filmable.  The big example of this is:

Quoted Text This is a matriarch who will quell the evil of her tribe.GELDEZ KERUB

How do we know that she is the matriarch and her role in her society?  If I was watching this on the screen, I would only see an old woman.  You need to describe things only as they can be filmed, through sight and sound.

Sorry that I didn’t finish this short, but I doubt I would’ve understood what was happening anymore if I continued.


Phil

As I go:

Page 5:  Geldez got some attitude, but I feel like Min is my protagonist here -- she's the one that only knows as much as me.  Wondering when we're gonna get back to her!  Or, at least, Telanu.  I feel like Geldez would be better kept a little more mysterious early on, especially since she has such an appealingly innocuous sense of humour.

Page 6:  Exposition at the top of the page here could probably easily be rewritten to be a little less on the nose.

Page 8:  Has this always been a Chinese village?  If so, I was well thrown off by the name Geldez.  And also...thrown off in general.
See I think it'd be really funny if this was the first time we got a glimpse into Geldez's private personality.  I guess I also just wasn't convinced that the sequence of her receiving the Criterion was necessary.

Page 9: Love 3.'s line!
There's not anything specific to say that this isn't a Chinese village, just that there's not very much to say that it is...still struggling with what the deal is with the culture here.  Nachi and Meedath are made up, right?

Page 11:  Well there's outright culture mixing, with numen.  Unless the Chinese use that word -- I don't really know I suppose.  

Thoughts:

Yeah, I like this one.

Lots to digest, with some fairly standard fantasy ideas offset by some very original visuals and ideas.  I think you've done a good job of creating your own mythology here and I also think that the characters are strong.  I think you'll probably get a lot of groans for the novel-style description, but I found it, if nothing else, in keeping with the nature of the story itself.

I've commented above about Geldez receiving the Criterion, and having finished the script I don't feel all that differently.  I would much rather have spent that time with Min, ideally getting a sense of her relationship to Telanu -- obviously she knew her when they were younger.  I guess that's not entirely necessary but it's what I wondered about.

You definitely stretched the restrictions for the OWC.

The horseman didn't really pay off, in my opinion.  I think it's a good idea to have that masculine element but I was disappointed when our only real images were of him doing his rounds and him walking Telanu.  I was wondering if and when he'd be involved further.

Not clear on Telanu's arc.  Did she deserve her words or the sheet at the end?  If so, why?

Look forward to the author's thoughts on this one.

Thanks for the interesting read!

Sorry, I couldn't finish this one. It reminded me of studying old English lit in college. The writing was far too poetic, IMO. There were so many unfilmables. And that was just what I understood

Still, you clearly spent a lot of time on this one, so good job

I would like to try the drugs that were used in conception of this script, as long as it doesn't involve a needle I'm cool. My God this one is strange, even the names are strange, but it isn't boring, I didn't understand a lick of it but it was entertaing, and that is what is most important. There is no way I could pass a test on this one. Good work on the OWC, it was a real trip!

Is this SS's answer to Terrence Malick? It's Malick-like (or is that lite?) in the maddening aspects of his work that turns many people away - the difference here is that there isn't anything in evidence of the tortured genius of Malick's work that will appeal to people; so that's where the grandiose comparison ends.

This needs stripping down more than [insert your most desirable specimen here]. Clarity is the key missing ingredient. When everyone's talking about the writing and not the story, then it's obvious something has gone awry. The only thing truly bamboozling me is whether or not the writer is irascibly (or perhaps facetiously if that's too offensive) throwing a middle finger to everyone, or whether or not they're Terrence Malick in spirit, alas minus the talent. Even the most divisive and perplexing writers are capable of crafting stories that at least some people will relate to. That's where I think you need to ruminate: what is inherent in my story to draw people in.

Andrew, you've given several insightful reviews, very intelligent work IMHO. But maybe it's a good idea to comment on the script and avoid commenting on someone's talent level. This could have been an experimental attempt by the writer, a chance to try out something different. Or like many writers, someone who has written in novel format and not yet used to screen. I'd hate to discourage someone before they have a chance to grow into the work.

Like any story that leaves much open to interpretation, it's never clear whether the writer is a genius, or just confused and unclear themselves. That's probably even true of Malick. Sometimes the difference between genius and bad writer is reputation. Malick could throw spaghetti on the fridge and people will think it represents something genius.

The writer deserves a chance to expand or explain the story. Let's not make broad judgments on talent. Submitted with all due respect.

Fair point. I did say 'whether or not', but see it could be ambiguous. An ironic case of clarity. I wasn't actually saying they were sadly without Malick's talent but debating whether or not it was the case. To be fair, any comparison (grandiose or not) with Malick is actually intended as a compliment.

Apologies to the writer if it came across as rude or damning. Certainly wasn't intended to be either.

Well, there's always these stories that remind me of The Yellow Wallpaper, not a movie, but literature. This is one of them.

I feel like it is perceptually based and that's probably why a lot of people are having a hard time. Mostly, I think there's a lot you can do at the beginning of this to tie it in with the ending and of course provide clarification in readers/viewers minds on how these women/girls, and blanketed horseman all fit together in a cohesive arrangement that actually hooks them in the first glimmerings of maybe a minute or so of screen time.

I think there's too much going on here for twelve pages, but even so, it's probably doable on some level.

Perhaps someone can do a "Schmoyoho" with it.

Very clever, I'd say, but as someone has already stated, perhaps too much so.

I agree with Heretic. 3.'s line is funny, but also scary. Who the hell wants to confront that?

Behatzlecha on this one! Means Good luck or Success.

If you don't know schmoyoho, then try this one. I love Charlie Sheen BTW

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=9QS0q3mGPGg

Sandra

I want to officially thank the people who have taken the time to read, or try to read and comment. It's really very much appreciated.

After everything cools down and some people have the time to catch up, I'll post individual replies, but I want people to have the chance to read without any interference on my part if they so desire.

Sandra

Okay read it.

Writing seems okay to me.

Story is interesting in a "what I miss" sort of way. Maybe a scroll down of where, what and when this story is taking place at the begining might help some folks who might get lost quickly.

Upside is that this might look really interesting visually.

Good Job.

Ok we're already in October mode I see so let's pack this baby in.

Breanne:

Thank you so much for taking the time.  I had considered the ending at the beginning and so when it came to the end, I was unable to lose it. More on that later.

Darren:

When I wrote: The Horseman, he was a completely blanketed individual that could have been played by one of the four allowed actors. When I wrote horseless horseman, it was to describe a blanketed “horseman” but without the horse. This shows the oddness of the world. For how could he be a horseman without a horse?

Regarding the noises that Geldez was making and my choice to use caps. I thought that important noises required caps. I did however consider writing them in dialogue however, I wasn’t sure because I imagined the first sound would come over a distance without Geldez in the picture at all, just the landscape of the area surrounding the camp. Then, we would see her cupping her hands and making the trill. It didn’t feel right to me being in dialogue, so that was the choice I had made at the time for better or worse.

Geldez’s words came from a true story I had learned while out on a Harvest Moon Walk at a nature sanctuary. Our guide told us that a particular kind of berry (which I can’t remember its regular name now) were called poverty berries by the natives because they weren’t so palatable. It was a joke among the natives to say to the white man that they needed to eat them to be healthy and protect them against whatever. I just made up the idea of them calling it Dam’s disease. Geldez relays the story when she’s half-corked and isn’t speaking clearly.

On spell checker: I don’t use spell checker at all. I check the old fashioned way.

Jeff:

I don’t do drugs like that. I have one coffee in the morning and after that it’s herbal tea of some kind. Before bed I’ll have a vodka or a scotch or a wine.

When I’m writing, I liked to work in silence.

The first image of the cage was to come from inside and thus from Telanu’s point of view.

Ryan,

I’m sorry you were unable to finish, but thank you for trying.

Michael,

Thank you. I worked very hard in my decisions of what to place on the page and how, but I wasn’t able to successfully create the sensations for people to understand.

Kevin

Criterion is not part of any larger work. I worked on it daily over the course of the week. The concept came to me as a way of exploring initiation rituals and strange beliefs that still exist in areas like for instance: Africa. Of course, we’re all familiar with real cases of demon possession and the idea that evil “travels” and searches for a home, a mortal frame in which to exist and so I saw this tribe existing in the now,  with mixed cultures as we have now, together. And every year, it was necessary to perform this ritual, to find where the evil lurked and cage the unfortunate person.

In this case,

And I think I really screwed up in not showing this clearly:

Min had visited Telanu. None of the people except the sages were allowed on Cage Hill. It was forbidden and forbidden for a reason. But curiosity kills a cat. Min had visited Telanu and from thence on, part of that evil came to live within her. Her fate was thus sealed.

So her fear was warranted. She knew she had broken the rules and was crushed by guilt on top of fear.

So yes, I think the reason why the story didn’t work for people was because I failed to execute that knowledge in the appropriate way.

It’s such a great balancing act trying to give enough appropriate screen time where it is needed. And from that, I think that those who have said this is too big of a world for a short, I think they are right.

E.D.

Thank you for trying. As I’ve described above. It was probably too big a concept for a twelve page script.

Greg

Believe it or not, I tried to Greg.

Pia,

I know what you mean about budget. Depending upon who you know of course.  I kind of  did a mental “wave off” with a pretend conversation:

Dude
I don’t see this as low budget. Horses?

Sandra
What? We got horses. Bowden Rodeo
In July. Hey, buddy, can I borrow your
Horse? ‘He’ll be in a movie? My horse
In a movie?! Really?! Well sure?!’”

Dude
Ok, let’s say it’s that easy. What
About this mystical horseman angle?

Sandra
You never were a ghost on Halloween?
Sheets are the ticket.

Dude
A thirteen and fourteen year old?

Sandra
They can be older. They just need
To look younger.

Dude


Darren

Everyone is different and that’s good. I don’t play RPGs. I read different things all the time. Just finished a book entitled, “Anne Conway – The Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosopy. It is unique because it was published posthumously and anonymously in 1690 many years after her death in 1679.  Anne criticizes the philosophy of Descartes, Hobbes and Spinoza. She was apparently a master in the docrine of Lurianic Kabbalah and got “in” with the Quakers who she said were the only type of people she could handle being around, especially because of her illness. (Of course, she didn’t use the word, “handle”,  but that gets the point across.

Anyways, I found it fascinating to read because I knew that what I was reading was originally written in a faint hand, before times of such modernity that has us using computers and cell phones etc. Not only was I transported to that world and time, I actually felt like I could feel her soul in the words she had written.

But is it for everyone? Probably not.

Hello CM,
I will try and do better next time. I worked very hard to try and make this work.

Cindy

As I mentioned above, I think there were some critical errors that I just didn’t see and the most important is that I did not show Telanu going to Cage Hill, Some evil entering into her and thus: She holds this as extreme guilt and fear because she knows inside herself that she will be the selectee. Really, the more I think about it, it becomes more and more clear that this story is too big for twelve pages. I had a lot of stuff that I was seeing and none of it landed on the page.

Phil,

I knew I was going to get heck for that one, but I really did think I had to make a choice and my choice came from this reasoning:

The character who plays her knows and will put into it what they see as being “matriarchal”.  I wanted it specific enough, but open enough of a character cue to be interpreted as somewhat “commanding”, but also, by situations and dialogue with “the sheet”, also known as horseless horseman, that give her a warm and naturalness—not as some mystic mystic, but as a woman who runs off and has flings when she should be minding her work.

Heretic,

Yeah that exposition on page six. I kept thinking about the excellent expository speech that Vincent Cassel, playing Thomas Leroy, gives to his ballerinas. His great work and all that swooshy-swish with the cameras and I thought:

Oh what the heck: Just write the exposition. That’s what it is and we can work with it better perhaps if someone gets a ginormous brainwave.

It’s not a Chinese village, but a multi-cultural one designed to reflect the mixing of cultures across the globe that we see today more than ever.

Nachi and Meedath were made up, but I’m going to google them to see if there is something like that.

I do know what you mean about time spent on Geldez receiving the Criterion. My reasoning there was that I wanted to show that she’s not just some veiled mystic, but a gal who will:

1.     Seduce “the sheet” to get out of bed to eat red berries and blossoms, obviously a weakness to the sheet.
2.     Avoid her work by gallivanting to Lange Syne (a reference to the past)
3.     Receive the Criterion that isn’t your typical old scroll, but a towel. Because… if you’ve got sheets, you might as well have towels, too.

So my desire was to establish that this was not to be specifically a dark piece. If I would have only had the caged Telanu, it would have been especially dark.

Part of the Horseman’s job was as a “time keeper” and to fulfill the idea that, “It’s very much the same ole – same ole, even if it is Ritual Day. He’s there, very much of a symbol of time, making his rounds very much as the postman does.

Regarding Min and Telanu:

I failed to establish a strong connection between the two of them, as I mentioned earlier in my discovery here. Really, I think I needed to show her “going against the rules”. When she’s at Cage Hill, (prior to the actual start of this story) and she’s going to as if  like “getting a touch of the flu”, she gets a touch of the evil from within Telanu, represented as being very animal like, a kind of descent from the human level of speech and understanding. In other words, a very low degree.

There just wasn’t time for that and I failed because I didn’t clue into it until now.

The ending didn’t work for a lot of people. The purpose of the ending was this:


I needed to be clear that the reader/viewer was being requested to take a perceptual shift back—that even after troubles and great distress, life carries on. When they clear that table together, it is a representation of “clearing” which holds with the theme of redemption that I established at the beginning.

The red motif  was used because it is indeed the color of Man. Adam , the Hebrew letters aleph, dalet, mem actually is the color red.  There are many biblical associations with the color red and its variants such as scarlet and crimson. It has many positive qualities, but also negative ones such as lust and being even overly passionate. So that’s why I specifically put the verse from Isaiah 1:18 front and center at the top, and importantly, made the decision to use a child’s voice because it on surface sounds strange. Can a child possibly be the voice of reason? Speak of reasoning together? Don’t children just make demands and look at adults as just bodies to fulfill their needs? And then there’s the voice that we would expect to hear. Of a Wise Old Man, The Ancient of Days, but no. No, it’s a child.

Anyways, I hope that helps those who were frustrated by this. I worked really hard, but there it is and there she be..

Rdhay, Jordon and Andew

Thank you so very much for attempting this. LOL, you know what, Andrew? I had to google Terrence Malick. I’ll have to watch his work.

Hugh,

Thank you for the read. It was a serious attempt to work on visuals. The time aspect you mentioned needed some kind of clue. To me, it’s in the future, far enough to take us to the point where we’re working more directly with the forces that govern nature. Far enough that culture’s are all so mixed, (indeed they are quite intermixed now)but even more so. I imagine this to take place on an area of land, on our world that has been spared from any catastrophic event, once rocking the world. As such, the elders work hard at keeping malevolent evil forces “away” from their closely knit group.

Tzall I got for now. In the future I will entertain this story some more, but I have to keep moving on. It’s the way I work. Criterion will fulfill itself in all of its subtle forms when and if it desires. I’m going to appeal to my sensitivities and not superior logic. It will when it will. Takes nine months for a baby to be born. You can move the date up some,  (nature does it sometimes – all my children were born early) but too far and it’s a risky deal. Same thing with writing: When something’s completely ready to be born in perfection, it will be so.

Toda Raba!!!  

Sandra

This story was impressive in many ways, Sandra. Mystery is good, too. It's a matter of having the right blend of mystery and clarity. The great thing about rewrites is that clarity can be tweaked very easily, mystery not so much.

I do think this needs to be more than a short, and would be intrigued to see it develop if you would like to do that.

Quoted from leitskev This story was impressive in many ways, Sandra. Mystery is good, too. It's a matter of having the right blend of mystery and clarity. The great thing about rewrites is that clarity can be tweaked very easily, mystery not so much. I do think this needs to be more than a short, and would be intrigued to see it develop if you would like to do that.

I would like to do it. Am I capable of it? That is the question. I agree. This is too much for a short.

I'm spending some time creating lessons for a Chinese lady and I'm in the process of developing another story, but I have Criterion hanging on my cork board. It's not out of sight and mind. If it calls me, I'll go answer.  

Sandra