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SimplyScripts Screenwriting Discussion Board    One Week Challenge    October, 2009 One Week Challenge  ›  OWC - Wesley Moderators: Administrator
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  Author    OWC - Wesley  (currently 3500 views)
Don
Posted: October 18th, 2009, 11:44am Report to Moderator
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So, what are you writing?

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Wesley by Anita Bath - Short, Family Horror - An autistic boy breaks his life-long silence with a warning -- something bad is going to happen at the Halloween Festival. - pdf, format


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dogglebe
Posted: October 18th, 2009, 4:17pm Report to Moderator
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This story is definitely interesting, but I don't think the writer delivered.  Using an autistic boy as the focal character worked, but you didn't explain how he did what he did in the story.  Sometimes an explanation isn't needed in supernatural stories, but this story needed the explanation.

Your ending made no sense to me and was completely out of left field.

My biggest question is why a town Halloween festival would include the Leaning Tower of Pisa.  I can't, for the life of me, figure this out.


Phil
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stevie
Posted: October 18th, 2009, 4:32pm Report to Moderator
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POSSIBLE SPOILERS




Ok, first of all, I liked the concept behind this. Up until the ending, it was well written and there was a real sense of it building up to a good payoff.
But, like Phil ablove, I couldn't see the point of the ending. Did the writer run out of pages or time? Ok, we know there's an unseen presence lurking behind it all but the appearance at the end doesn't tie things up.

The subject matter itself is defintely not family horror. Sure, older kids could read it but there is no comedy at all( people will argue that the theme isn't exactly comedic for this OWC but I'll argue back that family horror should have some fun bits).
So in that regard, you didn't really fulfill the requirements.
But i liked the actual writing and format is good too. this would work a stand alone short, with some revision.
Cheers

PS do we vote on these ones, Don? I can't see the rating stars?





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electricsatori
Posted: October 18th, 2009, 7:30pm Report to Moderator
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This feels like a mixture of The Grudge and The Ring. The little autistic (creepy) boy and his invisible friend. The invisible friend reminded me of the boy from the grudge.

I didn’t feel as though the backstory w/the boy, his mom, and the cop were developed. The cop should have been the boy’s father, but reluctant to be in the boy’s life because he is autistic.

The kid’s prophecy did not come true and was not explained how it really related to anything.

As it was, if felt like the story was loose and unconnected.

However, it did creep me out a little bit, which is tough to do.
I really think this could be better, much much better. You have some nice creepy undertones, you just need to connect them. Make sense out of the characters’ actions and give this a strong plot and you have an awesome story.

-electricsatori


DUST AND ROSES - (Western) 7 Pages

SUNDAY IS THE WORST DAY TO DIE OF THE PLAGUE - (Drama) 12 Pages

THE GHOST OF JOHN (Horror) 94 Pages
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Dreamscale
Posted: October 19th, 2009, 1:43am Report to Moderator
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This is very, very odd.  It's indeed set at a Halloween festival, but I don't know about the family horror...maybe, maybe not.

But, let's get to the Italian themed Halloween festival...WTF?  Why?  Only thing I can think of is that the story already had this element in it and some things were changed to make it fit the challenge.  Like Phil said, there just isn't any other explanation.

A few problems...big blocks of text.  Most of your passages are 4 lines long.  4 lines is fine, but you've gone overboard here, making it a clunky read.  You've also got a number of 5 liners, which are too long, and starting things off this way is a bad way to begin.

Naming the cop Officer Braun is a mistake, as it reads very clunky again.  We know his name is Connor, so you should have used this name instead, as writing "Officer Braun" (and reading it) over and over, didn't work.

Story-wise, it's not bad, but it ends so lamely, that it's a real downer.  By "ends" I mean both the finale at the festival as well as the final shot.

Good effort, but needs some serious work and an explanation about the Italian festival...I'm dying to hear this...

Revision History (2 edits; 1 reasons shown)
Dreamscale  -  October 20th, 2009, 9:34pm
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khamanna
Posted: October 19th, 2009, 8:59am Report to Moderator
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I gulped down your story in five minutes. Needless to say I loved it.
Since I understood it so well I feel like it deserves the explanation... since I know you can't go explaining yourself.

This all does not happen in Italy - they replicated Eithel tower, Tower of Piza.... the way they did in Disneyland/Epcot.

The boy Wesley sees in the end (the same boy the little girl saw on the Tower of Piza) is perhaps DEATH. Which came for officer Braun. Whatever it is, it made me think... Thinking lead to liking, actually loving.

Very creepy! Congrats on that! And scary, very scary...
Reminds Shining, which is a good thing.

The premise is very original, I think.

I haven't even missed the comedy, not that I think it's necessary to have a comedy elements, but when the entry is dry and not gripping as much you want some laughs... to reimburse for the time ... - anyway, didn't even miss the comedy in this one.
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Dreamscale
Posted: October 19th, 2009, 10:45am Report to Moderator
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I understand that it doesn't actaully take place in Italy, but why in the world would a little local Halloween festival build replicas of The Tower of Pisa and the Eiffel Tower (which is in Paris, France, BTW)? How are those things Halloween themed, and what place do they serve in here?

Why is some ghost boy coming for Officer Braun?  Oficer Braun is only there to save Wesley, right?

Back to the towers...how big were they?  What did they weigh?  The big issue is that even though the leaning tower of Pisa did in fact lean all the way over, it didn't even do any damage, even though it landed on someone.  This equates to anti-climatic, in a big way.

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Dreamscale  -  October 20th, 2009, 9:37pm
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khamanna
Posted: October 19th, 2009, 11:04am Report to Moderator
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Hi Jeff,

If you're asking me - I don't know the answers, really, I haven't written this one. I promise you that. I just really liked this one.

I would imagine people were not standing close to those if the tower have not smashed a whole lot. Perhaps there were protective signs or something. Wesley got close...

But I see why you have those questions. I don't, though. didn't take me long to visualise, actually.
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Dreamscale
Posted: October 19th, 2009, 11:14am Report to Moderator
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Sorry, Khamanna, in your post, you said, "since I understood it so well...".  I took this to mean that you either wrote it or had inside info from the actual writer.

I don't mean to tear this down, I was just really curious about the towers.

Take care.
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Blakkwolfe
Posted: October 19th, 2009, 4:35pm Report to Moderator
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Huh? I don't get the kid with the black eyes at the ending. Is he like a Damien character? Some of the descriptions are way overblown and don't do anything to bring the story forward; such as the munching on halloween candy. We know it's halloween from the festival and the pumpkin carving.  If the LITTLE GIRL on pg 10 is Clover, as hinted in the dialogue, suggest introducing her as such, especially since she has already been mentioned as a playmate for Wesley. Story is OK, but have no idea what made the Tower collapse...Was it mind power? Is that how he got the bowl of candy down from the refridgerator? Was it that boy that Clover saw (in which case he would need to be introduced as a character at that point?) Was he the same boy that was standing next to the hospital bed? A bit confusing, but the core of the story I think is good.

The idea of an autistic kid as some sort of medium or harbinger of doom has been done before, and it does seem like you did some research on the condition (the blocks lining up, etc.)...In the US, this neurological disability affects 1 in 91 children in varying degrees from mild (Aspberger's Syndrome and the like) to the extreme (non-verbal and incapacitated). Suggest looking at http://www.nationalautismassociation.org or pm me if anyone would like more information.

Agree with other reviewers about the towers...Perhaps it was an International Halloween Festival? That's the impression I got.


Quoted from electricsatori
The cop should have been the boy’s father, but reluctant to be in the boy’s life because he is autistic.


Sad, but true. A lot of men bolt when their kid's get the diagnosis, as it not only affects the child, but the course of life for the entire family as well. Agree with Electric that having Braun being involved with Wesley would add a deeper dimension to the story and the characters.



Failure is only the opportunity to begin again more intelligently - Dove Chocolate Wrapper

Revision History (1 edits)
Blakkwolfe  -  October 19th, 2009, 4:51pm
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screen_dreamer
Posted: October 20th, 2009, 9:27pm Report to Moderator
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I don't really get where the Leaning Tower came from, either.  But overall, I thought it was a good read.  A little comedy may have lightened it up a bit.  It would have read a little smoother if the writer had used the officer's first name.  Good effort.
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grademan
Posted: October 21st, 2009, 11:13am Report to Moderator
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I liked this one. The bits where Wesley was playing with his invisible friend were good. The tic-tac-toe game was esp. cool. One description was kind of funny Dr. Tanaka.., slight Asian man.., as opposed to a full Asian man?

I suspect that the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Eiffel Tower were supposed to the towers Wesley was building in the beginning of the story? Weird.

Gary
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Coding Herman
Posted: October 21st, 2009, 9:12pm Report to Moderator
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Hey, I really liked this story. It's creepy with things suddenly appearing and disappearing, kinda like The Sixth Sense.

The pacing is good throughout. I can feel the tension about the Pisa Tower going to fall down. The writing is clear as well.

One thing that I am not too crazy about is the ending. I mean, it does provides some closure that there is actually a ghost doing the deed, but then what happens? This feels more like the beginning of something else.

But overall, I really enjoyed it. Thanks.


FEATURE:

Memwipe
- Sci-Fi, Action, Thriller (114 pages) - In a world where memories can be erased by request, a Memory Erasing Specialist desperately searches for the culprit when his wife becomes a target for erasure -- with his former colleagues hot on his trail.
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steven8
Posted: October 21st, 2009, 10:59pm Report to Moderator
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Autism is one of the least understood maladies there is.  People can hypothesize al lthey want about what goes on in the mind of an autistic person, but no one really knows.  That in itself lays a good foundation for a good creepy Halloween tale, and you take full advantage of it.  Very good story.  Very good.


...in no particular order
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Split Second
Posted: October 22nd, 2009, 2:08am Report to Moderator
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Sorry, but I couldn't get into this one. One of the main problems I found were your descriptions. You had big blocks of text for nearly every description and I found it hard to read and it clogs up the whole page. I thought the characters you made were decent and that the story was fairly okay; but I just wasn't getting into, and maybe that's not your fault.

I'll join the camp in saying that I really, really don't get the ending. It seemed so random and I don't think it really fitted the story.

There were some promises of something good here, but I think the descriptions definitely need a bit of work. Good luck in your future projects, I'm looking forward to seeing how they turn out.
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