Who's Afraid of A Big Bad Bug by Pat McAnn - Short, Family Horror - A  carefully cautious young girl must conquer her fears if she is to save her friend's soul. - pdf, format

I enjoyed this one.

The set-up felt a little unnecessary and didn’t contribute to the development of the story. It could have been omitted and instead, the focus could have been more on the final conflict.
As it was, the final push felt a little rushed.

In writing action scenes, the key is reversals.
For example: A man jumps out of a plane. He pulls his chute. Rev: It doesn’t open. He pulls his reserve. Rev: It tangles. On and on until he reaches the ground.

I really liked your antagonist and would have liked to know more about her backstory. Carla confronting her felt a little forced also.

Overall, the story was decent, minus some awkward dialogue and description.

- electricsatori

This was a pleasure to read!  who knew a ladybug (boybug?) could be so spooky?  You painted a clear but efficient picture of the festival, and left just enough to the imagination to let the reader fill in the obvious blanks.  Minierva provided the perfect amount of color.

You probably could have done without the parents - they didn't add much to the story.  

All in all  a fun read!

Fun.  I liked the bug boy stuff.  Funny.  You had some space, I would have elaborated on the end a bit.  More visuals, more action...would have spiced it up a bit.  But I enjoyed it.  nice work!

Sorry, but I did not particularly like this.  Yes, it did meet the challenge and that's the good news.

Lots of mistakes, typos, and grammar errors throughout here. Most of your descriptions were flawed with incomplete or just plain old wrong structuring.

I guess my biggest problem here is that this just seemed so juvenile and aimed at a very young crowd, all the way down to the names of the characters, and the goofy way they spoke and interacted.  Very, very unrealistic, and that just took me out of it completely.

Good effort, but defintely not one of my favorites.

I thought this one was okay.

At the start you could show the witch lady doing her ball thingy, but from outside the house. And you hear the scream of a child or something. That would go well with the ending.

The start is mostly about the main character being scared and afraid. I can see what you were going for at the end by her saving the day, but I think there has to be more of her overcoming her problem. At the moment it's not enough. Maybe show her unable to do something at the start because she is scared, and then after she saves the day, she has the courage to do the first thing.

I'm not babbling! Shut up!

It finishes too quickly. There should be some aftermath.

Dialogue was okay, action lines pretty good. Good stuff.

This one is very straightforward, a complete story with all the components. Nice progression of the events - very good flow. easy to read and understand.

I don't think you were consistent with teh VOs. I think if you started with them you should finish with them too. She must say something at the end to culminate.

Other than that, great entry.

This suffered from a great haste to finish by the looks.

Most of it was good and set everything up ok. but the ending all happened very quickly.
The format was alright and some nice descriptions.

8 to go. Wil get back to them tonight.

I think this made the challenge but the ending was way too abrupt.  You really need to make her struggle a bit more with the mantis.  What was there was good but there was far too little of it and the ending left me feeling unsatisfied.

Good job but short.

***OO

I loved the premise, and the characters and the dialog.  The only problem was that it ended too quickly.  This needs more room to breath, you know?

I liked it a lot, but it needs more detail, and a more touch-and-go-ending.  She needs to have to work harder to kill the witch/bug-woman.

I liked this one but it let down after Rube's spirit asked Carla for help. The ending (heard this one enough yet?) was too soon. The remaining pages could have been put to good use developing a more satisfying character arc for our hero. Rube felt like more of a developed character than Carla. The fact that the witch's crystal ball wouldn't work on Carla was cool.

Good effort for this OWC. Ended too soon. Story and character could use some doctoring.

Gary

First, under the show not tell rule, how can Carmen show us her no-nonsense attitude visually? Want to demonstrate this through her actions and dialogue to establish this trait for her character.

How is a Jack O Lantern, in any regard, a prosthetic?

Quite a few grammatical errors through out. For example: You're kidding right.

Might be: You're kidding, right?

Ok in terms of the OWC genre and theme, but rather flat in other aspects.

Spooky Spoilers



I dunno. This is a familiar theme; witch gains youth by stealing it from kids, but stumbles in terms of character. A few words from Rube I don't think are enough to turn Carla the Scaredy Cat into a giant bug kickin' Amazon in two pages. Rube was a pretty shallow character, and her parents, the Teddy Bear & Wonder Woman, disappeared after thier introduction. The witch/fortune teller was stereotypical, entirely by the book, as was her trailer. Why didn't the chrystal ball work on Carla? Did she have no future? Why did she turn into a bug? I know she had the statue there, but that's the only link to that. Seems rushed and ultimately incomplete...A good start, but need some more meat on the bones.

I think the story is one that can be told a number of different ways, and has...but it's always a cool story.  Wicked witch turns youthful by stealing the life from a poor, weak, young soul.  So thoroughly unfair!  

This had some good potential, because there was an aspect to the story dealing with conquering "fear".and Carla did have some of those as we all do...so who can't relate to that?   Kids especially can.

If I were the writer on this, I would take what everyone had to say (that you identify with), and rewrite it when this is all done. (I know I'm sure going to do that with mine )

The other thing is...always proof your work...simple mistakes are annoying to many of our fellow SS writers...even though, we pretty much all have some in every script.   When there's an over abundance...it's a little like eating too much chocolate cake...that cake just loses it's appeal.

Honestly...sometimes our story is bigger than 12 little pages will allow...and there's nothing wrong with that.  We all have to learn to control our characters and the flow of the story...as it is seen...not told.

Good effort though...so keep writing.

Morgan

I felt this fit the theme and genre just fine, i think it is a real good example of family horror.  i thought that carla and rube were well written characters, and the old hag was amusing,  kinda had a Hansel and Gretel thing going for it.  I felt it went a little off the tracks at the end, but I  still think you did a very good job on a tough OWC.  good work!

I thought it was a mess. The idea was OK, but the execution wasn't. It starts off with the dread VO, we see Carla's parents, who then vanish from the story, we have her tell us stuff we should learn through the story...the list goes on.


It wasn't helped by the fact that when the witch woman turned into a mantis I was reminded strongly of a Buffy episode that featured the same kind of monster!

No, definitely one of the weaker efforts for me.