Hey Mark,

I thought I would give this a read, and I was glad I did. A very good narrative, well written, good dialogue, I like how you end it.

It is hard to answer all and connect every detail to make it 100% full proof story in a short script format, I mean not even feature length scripts can fill all the plot holes, and personally I didn't think you needed to say the disease was aids in the pond, which you don't in the script, but do on the thread, could the HIV strain survive in a pond anyway? Regardless, all things don't need to be explained. I think you covered every thing that needed to be covered to tell the story.

---- *SPOILER ALERT*-----
All this being said, my only thought was I would like to have seen you set up a bit more why the "Flowery" girl would want to suck his... well you know. It feels a bit forced at the moment just so you can have Armand's action come back and bite him on the d*#k.
----*SPOILER ALERT END*-------

But I really liked the story and the writing a lot.

Cheers

Hey Col.

Thank you for taking a read and your suggestions.  Yeah, for me, I'm always looking to brush up dialogue, so thanks for your thoughts on how those lines sound.  It sounds good when I read it in my head in the accent, but I don't think it made it to the page quite like I wanted to.

While I don't have any plans on taking the story and making it into a feature, it'll always be in the back of my head in case a studio's looking for a somewhat sci-fi history idea.  I think it would be interesting, but with everything I have going on right now, I don't think I'll be able to get to it anytime soon.

Thank you again, Col.



Hey James.

Quoted from jwent If you would've gotten this in on time, you may have taken out the undefeated champ Ryan.

:-)  Thanks for the compliment.  Actually, I did get the story to Michael on time, (even earlier if I remember correctly because I had to work that day), but Michael decided to just keep it between the main two in the competition that time, then he posted the other stories he got after the voting was done.  (I think Gary Rademan entered one, too.)

No, I never went with anyone head to head.  I didn't even plan on writing a story for that one, actually.  But once I saw the logline, about an hour later, the dialogue popped into my head and I finished it in about an hour, I think.

Thanks for taking a read, Cleveland.  Hope you've been doing good.

- Mark

Hey Kevin.

Thanks for the compliment.  No, I don't think HIV can survive in ponds, (don't quote me... I'm not an expert), but I figured since the story had to do with the fountain of youth anyway, I took a little license into stretching the laws of physics with this one.

:-)  Yeah, I know that last scene was a little forced.  I only had five pages to write this in, so I had to get in and get out as quick as I could.  I guess now that there are no confines of a challenge involved, I could've gone deeper and deeper into motives and what-not, but still don't want to stretch it out too far.  I do still want to keep it a quick story.

Thank you very much for the read, Kevin.

Hey Mark,

I decided to check this one out as I was impressed by Thistles. Indeed, I wasn't disappointed; I found this script intriguing, well written, and full of flavor.

I've since read it a second time and unfortunately, I found little I could say that hasn't been said already, as is often the curse with Short threads over two pages long. In any case, I concur with the issues raised in regards to Margaret's dialogue, the Creoles' vocabulary (I've never been a fan of phonetically-written dialogue either), the disease in the water being AIDS, and the vagueness of the history and time period (though I was got a general idea after a page or so).

The AIDS angle particularly bugged me. You essentially go from a "fountain of youth" scenario that is purely fantastical to a scenario that takes something realistic and makes it unrealistic, i.e. making the AIDS virus transmissible through water. I mean the latter is implausible as is but going from a fantasy that people are immediately willing to accept in a fictional story to something based in reality that people are less willing to accept is just plain aggravating and frankly, takes away from the impact of Armand's trickery. You see what I'm getting at here?

I'd consider using another disease, in short. Also, if you were going to use AIDS in this or some other context, could you not have any characters say the words "immune" or "deficiency," like, at all? Especially not one following the other. On the nose like a motherfucker, not to mention neither would be words seem copacetic with the vocab.

I see Margaret's situation is one you're trying to clarify at this point but there's not much on the page that indicates what you've written in your logline nor does there seem to be any particular reason why she's here watching the slaves get rounded up. I'd continue efforts to make these things more apparent.

Finally, my biggest gripe with your script that stuck out like a sore thumb to me but that nobody has brought up yet... Etienne is a boy's name. It's the French equivalent of Steven. I Googled this just to be sure and read a few comments claiming it to be a girl's name but I think a good chunk of those posters don't know what they're talking about, especially if they're citing the feminine "ienne." Not that I'm French or know the history of the name but I lived in Paris for six months and the Etiennes I did meet were exclusively men; had I met a woman with that name, I'd probably have thought it weird.

Anyway, I thought this was a pretty strong script overall. Hope this helps and hope to read some more from you in the future.

Hey James!

Thanks a bunch for the read and the thoughts.

Wow.  I never knew 'Etienne' was a masculine name.  I forgot when I wrote this, it was well over a year and a half ago for a head-to-head challenge that Michael puts on sometimes, but I can't remember where for the life of me I came across the name and wanted to use it for a girl.  I do remember seeing at the time that it was the equivalent of 'Stephanie', but you're right, everything does claim it as a masculine name.  I should've did a little more research when I came across it than just assuming.

And yeah, I should've given a little more time for brushing up the dialogue in this one.

As for the aids angle, even though I know it's not how the disease started, I think I just wanted to roll with the abnormal plot of the story, since I very rarely tend to ever trod into supernatural territory.

And sorry I was so on the nose with 'immune' and 'deficiency'.  Believe it or not, and I'm sorry to admit it, I was trying to figure out how to get the word 'auto' in there, too.  At least I left that one out.

And I am guilty of letting the logline tell the backstory for this one.  Since I was no longer in the constraints of the challenge, I should've let loose a little bit and expanded on what exactly was going on.  I might come back to this story and work it over again, but it might not be for a little while, as I've got so much on my plate right now as it is.

Thank you very much for your thoughts again, James.  Have you submitted or worked on anything recently?  I haven't come across anything and I've been on the lookout, but it still could've slipped by me.  Let me know.

Thanks again.

- Mark

Happy to help.

As it happens (or rather as it doesn't happen), I haven't posted anything new in forever and probably won't for a good while. I'm currently developing a vampire feature that is easily the hardest thing I've ever worked on since I started writing. Since the last two scripts I wrote on spec both took around two years to develop, I'd expect this one might stretch over a similar timeline, if not longer.

I am trying to revise Left Hand Paths though, so as to keep busy. That'd be most likely the next thing to pop up from me around these parts.

Hey, Mark. I remember this from another challenge - it was write a story on a logline in two days or something - is that right?

I'll read it again and write what I think.

I liked it.

I wish you didn't call them creole. I used to live in Louisiana and to them creole is French/spanish descend, or someone who speaks English in creole lingo or something, not slaves, and not black slaves. Maybe there's more to "creole" and maybe the word stands exactly who you described in your short but that's first what comes to my mind and I think that would be the first thing that comes to the mind of anyone who lives/used to live in Louisiana.

I really liked the twist. I wish there was a visual way to approach though. I had hard time to believe they'll be talking to each other (young white girl and slaves) for such a long time. Maybe try cutting some of the dialog. The girl is too rude, I wish she showed her rudeness not in dialog but by doing something. Or at first she seems good, then we learn she's bad. She's especially bad to slaves when she tells to punish them for something small. And then we see them tell her how good the waters are to them and so forth. Just a suggestion. This way the twist would be especially unexpected.

Hey Mark.

I thought I'd check out a short from an SS vet for a change.  Looking at Khamanna's comment, I do agree with the way Margaret carried herself.  I read through it once and Margaret really comes off as a cunning girl towards the end.  At least when she's bored and looking for a thrill.  I think you could show that in her early dialogue with the slaves rather than making her dialogue seem so blunt IMO.  From her actions in the field, she does seem like an exploitive, manipulative person rather than a blunt, rude person at the start.

Etienne's dialogue read a bit strange to me after Armand mentioned the pool.  She wants that disease to die in that pond and if so, her bickering with Armand doesn't seem too smart IMO.  It's almost like she's egging them on with the secret.  Perhaps low warnings through clinched teeth would clear that up.  Or perhaps sharp stares as that would cut down on some of the dialogue which kinda ran on for me.

I don't really care about what disease was in the water.  To me it's not important.  Overall it was a great read for me.  That ending certainly caught me off guard.  Great job.

Hey Khamanna.

Yeah, this one was written for that 5-page heads-up competition quite a while ago.

I wish I would've found a way to be a little more visual with this one too, without having to inflate the page count to get the story across.  So I did rely a little too heavily on dialogue and the log-line to get the story across.  That was probably a no-no.

You do bring up a good point about making Margaret more dislikable with her actions, rather than her dialogue.  I should delve into that more.

You also bring up a good point about the origin of the tribe being caught for slavery.  I do see how that made the story a little more confusing.  (Especially when I describe them being more dark-skinned than light-skinned.)  I wanted to portray them more as a nomadic dark-skinned Creole tribe that broke away from the early settlers and went off on their own.  Of course, that tribe is totally fictitious.  I was just too caught up in all the fantasy of the story, I didn't worry about expanding the history of who they actually were.

If I ever come back to this one and want to expand it, you certainly gave me something I can work on.

Thank you very much for the read, Khamanna.

Hey Regular John,

Yeah.  This one could definitely use some brushing up, probably all around.  The more and more talk I'm hearing about it, I just might come back again to this one in the not-too-distant future and work it out a little better.

Thanks for the read, John.

Nice story, well told. I did see the twist coming but as it is a short, by the time I realised it was almost over. I genuinely enjoyed reading it. Nice work.

Hey Dustin.

I appreciate the read and your thoughts.  I'm glad you enjoyed it.

I had this one hidden away in a drawer for a while and when I pulled it out a little while ago, I rather enjoyed it, so I posted it.  However, I still cringe a little every time when I see someone reply to it, because I know it's not my strongest writing on display.  I'm waiting to get bashed for it for some reason, but I don't know why.  :-)

Thanks again for taking a look.