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Poultice by Anthony Cawood (AnthonyCawood) writing as John Anglicus - Short, Western - A desperate mother-to-be must make a dark trade with the Native American wise woman that her family wronged. 9 pages - pdf, format
It's well written, save for a few minor typos, and the dialog is pretty good. The pacing was good too.
The problem is that it seemed to be building up to a big climax and then... nothing. It just stops. Where is the ending? This feel incomplete as it is.
This screenplay just appears really spare to me. As if a lot of atmosphere you could have infused it with is missing. Lots of white space, yes, but the essence of the characters and in particular the setting, is missing for me.
The most visual part was the description of the poultice.
Dialogue is not bad, but the Pauwau character read as a male character to me - not sure the name helped either.
Dialogue was okay in part. But, sorry to say I got the impression the interaction was between a male chief and a helpless but feisty female. (Make her more feisty btw).
I really didn't know so many writers had so much trouble writing in the opposite gender. Jmho, of course.
The 'er' and the 'that you are not' dialogue was a bit jarring considering the wild west setting. UK or Irish writer, I'm guessing. 'that you are not' would work perfectly if the setting was a Dublin maternity hospital.
Where's your FADE OUT. ? It ended really abruptly. I gather the father of the child is a native and that's the ironic/shock element but it doesn't come through well. I thought the 'ashen' appearance of the midwife suggested this baby died in childbirth too, for a minute.
Good story idea, just needed more oomph! And more of the descriptive factor.
This story felt like it was written on the spot. And then time ran out. Or the story ending went east and the writer went south. I kind of liked what was developing, at least I was in the game. Then it seemed to meander. Oh well, at least I didn't bail. Maybe the story behind 'what happened to this script' is better than what's on the page.
It's a very, very simple story, and it doesn't particularly surprise.
That being said, simplicity isn't always a criticism, just an observation, but in this case I think you needed a bit more. I didn't dislike it, and the ending was a good twist, but could have been nailed a bit better on the dialogue front.
Oh man, Western was a category? I didn’t even know that.
I don’t know what “dappled” means, but again, I’m dumb.
Man, this is some rapid fire dialogue. It reads quickly, so I’m not really complaining.
Dirge, Hessian sack, drainer… either I’m even dumber than I thought or you dug up some authentic period appropriate vocabulary words.
The baby is a boy? Isn’t that against the rules? I’m not snitching, just asking.
Legit thought Annie was gonna die in childbirth and Pauwau was going to take the baby. That seemed like a perfect ending to me… but I may just be expecting a twist in every script. Shorts always seem to have twists. Not sure Annie giving birth to a Native (right?) baby was a twist.
Read well, writing was solid, but not my favorite. Western is a tough draw.
I'd list my "work" here, but I don't know how to hyperlink.
"Career" Highlights -2, count em, 2 credits on my IMDB page. -One time a fairly prominent producer e-mailed me back. -I have made more than $1000 with my writing! -I've won 2 mugs... and a thong. (polaroids of me in thong available for $10 through PM)
Not bad, but I think I was expecting too much from the ending. I'm still not sure what to think of it. One, it doesn't really work without seeing her presumably white husband. Two, there's a lot of questions about what happens when he does see it. But most importantly, it's hard to know how to feel about it. She seems happy. Should I be? I think I needed a better feel for the implications here. Without it, I can't really hang a feeling on the twist, even if those feelings are mixed.
Overall, I liked this one. It had me til the ending, but sorta lost me there too.
I see this one was well written, I don't quite get the ending. I see that she's happy for having the baby in that it's perfect, but did she like sell her soul for it, or is it an alien that the midwife is a little surprised to see? I don't know.
Overall this one had potential but I didn't quite get the ending. I think if it was a little longer with more detail, I think it would make for an improved story. I wanted to know more about this Pauwau.
Unsure about the title re: genre Logline does work very well with me although it reads very hard on drama
P5 good choice to end on that question
Ahh, the ending hurts.
This is perfectly executed, dialogues, description, authenticity. There's just one problem: importance. The ironic ending shows there's a lack of self-awareness what story this is.
A perfect execution - just nothing that owns me as a story.
Nice little tale you weaved. Very good writing, good flow and tension that kept the pages turning - good work on all counts. Except the ending. Wasn't really sure what I was expecting, but it did feel sort of anti-climactic. Guess I was expecting more than what I got. Still, an excellent job of writing and that goes a ways AFAIC. Good job!
Look, this has potential that wasn't quite fulfilled on. The Pauwau char definitely needs to be labelled as a female (its funny how some of these scripts you forget about the opposite gender ban lol).
Anyway it was written ok - i like the sparseness of the dialogue and action. Makes for a clean read.