Slipping by Rebekah Hay (rhay) - Short - A grandmother is shut away in a hospital room and can do nothing to find out the secret that her family is keeping from her. 7 pages - pdf, format

This is a sad little tale.  Unlike a lot of the previous entries I've read, this one seems much more grounded in reality.  I'm sure scenes like this can and do play out in real life all the time.

For some reason, it didn't have much emotional impact on me, though.  I think I figured out by the first page that there was a very unfortunate reason why Helen hasn't come to see her mother.  

The whole bed pan/bed sore sequence didn't add much to the story.  I think you could have used these pages more effectively to show us Mary's close relationship with Helen.  Maybe showing Mary clutching a picture of Helen or recounting a story from when she was a kid.  Or even have Helen visiting her mother at the beginning of the story.  Anything that would solidify their relationship in our minds.  As it is, Helen is just a name because we never see her or a picture of her.

But this was sobering tale of the agonies that go along with aging.  I like how you kept it short and didn't draw it out too much.  Solid job and with a few more passes it could become excellent.

I didn't get much reaction since I didn't know who Helen was. I know some family member but how close was she to Mary. I thought the ending was that Mary turned a bit crazy finding out that Helen died. Helen's relationship to Mary should be developed so the ending has more impact.

Hope this helps,
Gabe

Yep, have to agree with Ryan and Gabe - not seeing or knowing who this Helen is, makes her demise come across as flatline.

Although this was a realistic look at a sad situation, it didn't have much impact on me for some reason.  Mary didn't have any qualities or personality that I could attach myself to.  Barbara's dialogue came off as very unrealistic early on.

2 big problems writing-wise I'm going to bring up...

1)  You have a tendency to "transition" into your dialogue, using a colon, which you don't need or want to be doing.

2)  The dreaded and ridiculous ad-lib rears it's oh so ugly head.  I just can't stand when I see this in a script.  Such lazy writing that completely takes me out of the read.

Congrats on completing an OWC script.

I got confused about who’s who. Why is Beth mentioned at all? She doesn’t appear to have anything to do with the story. Or is Beth Helen and you missed changing it a couple of times? In any event, it’s very confusing.

They ad lib the argument? I would be careful with this type of thing. It can make a writer look lazy.

Alice makes to speak? Awkward phrase.

Overall, the twist at the end didn’t really grab me because I wasn’t all that invested in the characters. More character development is needed to engage the reader.

Good luck.


Breanne

A promising story until (sigh) an unclear ending dilutes the setup. Why a bed sore? Emotions are hard to hide even from old people.

I'm 99% sure I know who wrote this one.

I wasn't confused at all and IMO it felt real. My only question is, do doctors really put in catheters? That's usually a nurse job.

I agree with the Beth thing. Cut her out and develop the Helen and Mary relationship more.

Good work.  

I might have to let this one settle in my mind and come back to it for more comment. I had no problems at all with the writing. I also did not have a problem with the fact that we never met Helen. Of course, you couldn't do that with only 4 characters, but the questions is, should you bring in Helen on rewrite? I am going to go the opposite of general opinion and say no. As it stands, we assume early on that Helen is one of those many people who is too selfish or too cowardly to be there at a time like this. Very common in reality, as we all know. But then we find out this was not the case, that Helen is dead herself. I nice curve ball. Barbara initially comes off as the cold hearted bitch, but she ends up allowing Mary to engage in her end of life fantasy so she can have peace. So I would say I have warmed to this story as a write this review. Nice work.

This script happened so fast that I didn't have time to get drawn into it.  It was just too short.  I didn't feel for the grandmother.  Perhaps if you spent less time with the bedpan and more with the family the ending might have some significance.

Otherwise, I thought the writing was pretty tight and clear.


Phil

This wasn't bad.  I would have liked to know more about the characters than what was here.  I think I get what you were going for with the bedpan, which was to make Mary come off as vulnerable and in a weakened state.  I felt for her when they told her of Helen's passing.  But I think there could have been so much more added to this.  Maybe just focus on one of the girls and create more development that way.  

This was good, though.  

Nice job.

Greg

Started out real nice until I got to the "ad-lib" part. I'm thinking, let's see, a six-page script and you could have gone up to twelve. Hmmm....maybe I'd rearrange it a bit to read like:

Quoted Text Mary looks out the window, tears stream down her face. BARBARA I don�t care if they happen all the time! They shouldn't! Nothing but incompetence and excuses...

See? Much better than "ad-libbing". You could even have Barbara OS at this point if you like. The "..." has her trail off as you close the scene. Either this way, or actually write a few extra lines of dialog between Barbara and the Doctor, But I agree with the others "ad -libbing" on the page is a no-no. Yes, actors do it sometimes, but it shouldn't actually be a direction in the script.

I note a few folks are having a hissfit over a semi-colon or two before a character speaks. I agree that it isn't needed. Just have the character speak. Does it wreck the script? I think it's a minor issue that will take you one, two seconds tops to correct. If it was a full length script and you put that in once or twice nobody would give a rat's tail. But it's more noticeable in a short, and, again, it isn't needed.

Did the short follow the OWC guideline? Yes.
Is it a low budget? Yes.
Is it filmmable? Yes.
Do we need Helen? Only in spirit.
Given a little polish it could tug on a few heartstrings.

Just as long as nobody's winging it...good job. Might be on a list.

This one certainly fits the OWC criteria.
At times it feels almost too lean on the page.
The colon leading into dialogue is new to me.
The bittersweet end worked, a good closer.
A little more action in the room would’ve helped the read.
Overall, a decent effort with some natural dialogue.

Regards,
E.D.

i'm going to echo what's already been said here. i didn't feel like i was emotionally invested in the characters so the ending fell flat for me. however its hard to feel connected to the characters when you only have a few pages to develop them. so its not completely your fault.

on the plus side, the writing was decent. the story was rooted in reality (as ryan1 stated). last but not least, it fit the the guidelines.

going with a B- on this one.

That was pretty sad...I've been to a nursing home before, and you really captured that depressing and grim feeling there.

I noticed a few mistakes, but I think everyone already covered it.

Well this one fit the challenge and it was written well. I think it should have been a bit longer, this just happened too fast. I got a little confused at the ending and had to re read it. Still a pretty good solid effort. Goon work on the OWC.

I'll keep this fairly short, as my comments are just going to echo what others have already said (lose Beth, lose the ad-lib). You definitely need to show the Mary/Helen relationship more, as this will provide the emotional impact that is currently lacking. Even if we were to just see Mary looking at photos of her and Helen together, it would create some kind of bond between them that doesn't exist at present.

In the past I've visited both my grandmothers in nursing homes before they passed on, and you certainly captured the sad and depressing felling that they create.

Congratulations on a solid effort.

My thoughts;

# I think it has potential and would echo others that this could be longer, whereas many posted so far could have been shorter!
# I would remove the bed pan scene. After reading this, I was trying to relate it back to the core story.
# otherwise well written

All the best.

Read it.

Flowed nice, seems like the writer knows what their doing.

Story wise like some others here Im a bit confused (Could be cause Im tired from working all night lol). But it captures the depressed mood those places can have.

I assume she got the bed sore from being on the bed pan so long?

Either way good job on getting it done.

First of all, doctors don't hang out in hospitals much. It's the truth. Except emergency room doctors and then there's the doctors just doing their morning rounds, but once that's over, you'd be hard pressed to find one.

It's likely that a nurse would drain the bed sore although I didn't think that was necessary at all for this.

I was confused by the introduction of the name Helen. Helen? Who's she? I had to do some re-reading to piece it together.

This can be a well done piece with some tweaking.

Sandra

Sorry couldn't read this but felt it only fair to tell you why - the first page was a bit close to home and couldn't clear the memory.
Daz

Like Pia, I'm 99% sure I know who wrote this one.  

Like others have said, you could get rid of Barbara... or I think you could keep her in and have everyone know that Helen was the mother's favorite and Barbara was always standing in her shadow.

Anyway, I think this one was done quickly, but I think it could be a really good piece after taking time for a rewrite.

I felt bad for the grandmother on page 2 with the bed pan and sore.

I'd like to see her happy though. Maybe from old memories, a piece of jewelery from Helen, something.

Good job for the OWC. Just needs some tweaking.

Cindy

While it was certainly the most realistic OWC I have read so far (not very difficult after scripts about people swapping bodies and being killed with dildos), but while it had this grounding in reality, it failed to do much for me. I didn't feel anything for the characters, they were just names on a sheet of paper.

And the end just left me confused. I read it three times, and still am not sure what's supposed to have been going on! I felt I was missing something, some vital piece of information that would have made it make sense.

Maybe it's because I am tired?

As I go:

Page 3:  Barbara comes off a little TOO unreasonable to me, which impedes the drama of this scene to a certain extent.
I'm hoping a point emerges soon and we're not just wallowing in melodrama.

Thoughts:

Nah.  Writing's fine, characters are reasonable.  Drama's toothless, though.  There's no arc to this story and no action from its protagonist.  It's a steady downward -- well, slip -- and those aren't fun in real life.  Nor, it seems, are they fun when summed up for film.

The idea is to say something about the tragedy, not just show it.  It's the tapestry of the story and its meaning that's gonna make the sadness hit home, not the bedpan business.

Don't mean to sound overly critical here as the writing is strong and clear.

Thanks for the good read!

Good job, on this one, but in my opinion, the logline gives away the plot.

The characters are very interesting although there might be too many of them .

What I really like are Mary's reactions, everything about Mary is done so well, I encourage you to write more stories with the same kind of setting and characters.

The writing was pretty good here. I am also dumbfounded by its ending. Didn't get who Helen was. Will look forward to the writer's explanation. 99% of the time, if a writer has to explain to his audience, they've not written their script clearly enough. Expect this to be in that percentile.

James

Hmm, not really sure what I think about this one. One thing, tho, my mom used to work in a hospital and I know for a fact that a doctor wouldn't insert a catheter.

Good effort, tho

I liked the deliberate pace of this and the overall feel. However, the story seemed to lack focus. It seems like it's about the loneliness and abysmal existence of being an old person in a hospital, but then it turns out it's about a death in the family. In the end, I didn't think either one of them resonated because of that.

Not bad at all, but couldn't get a proper grip on it.

It seemed a little heavy-handed to me. The emotion inherent in the story was never really teased out. This would've worked better as one flowing scene, IMO. You can cover the range of emotions with a tense single scene. By changing it up and introducing the doctor, you were losing any sense of pacing. What are the core elements of this story? What will make people invest in it? Giving a bit more thought over a rewrite will help bring these elements to the fore.

Whilst you touched on the motivations for withholding the information, it's never imbued via the actions and that's why you left me indifferent to what could be a touching story.

Okay, so now that the reveal's been made, I can clarify my script The idea was to show how both the loss of Mary's dignity and her daughter triggered the onset of Alzheimers. Of course, I need to work on this to get it up to scratch, but all your comments have really helped me know what to do, so thanks

Anyway, this was my second short and the result of a last minute idea, 3 hours of writing time, and 4 screaming kids in the background. And as you could probably guess from my earlier comment, I realized pretty quickly after submitting it some of the mistakes that have been mentioned.

Thanks again! I'll rewrite and resubmit

Nice work, Rebekah. Seemed like a veteran writer to me! But then, I'm a newb too. I like your writing style.

Ah, thank you! I was pretty stoked to see people guessing that Pia or Cindy wrote it And re my writing, I tend to favor the less is more theory, which makes it almost too lean as someone mentioned. Some people like it and some don't, so thanks

Poignant. Tough subject to deal with and this is nicely done. Even with the subject matter, there should be a story to it with the main elements of any story: like beginning, middle, end.

Hehe, good point. Thanks for the read