Sweep by Catherine Hall (cmhall) - Short, Gothic Horror - What wreckage is formed in the crossed paths of human lives... how can we ever know? 12 pages, 6 characters, PG Rating - pdf, format

Hello Franklin,

Melancholy. That sums this up, well until the last part.

In truth I found this a heavy read. It has depth, I thought well written in part and if I may guess, has an Irish tone( most of the time my guesses are wildly wrong!)

A few things;

You forgot copyright at the front
Not sure about the montage
P6 branching darkness??? Not sure what this is?
In general I found this a bit over worded, for a script.
No fade out.

I think you have depth. You have an eye for intensity. The key issue arising to me is balancing this up with something the average reader wants to read and enjoy.

All the best.

I think there's a good story in here and would be interested to hear from the author but this was very hard to read.  Very overwritten, slow, and dragged quite a bit.  Honestly, I couldn't tell you what was going on as it just didn't grab me at all.

Sorry.

Greg

Man this was THICK!

Seeing the bee's pollinating the vines actually cheered me up.

Over all a decent enough story but very mired down in description and tone.

Congrats on the OWC submission.

Shawn.....><

It had a lot of atmosphere and the dialogue worked very well at times. But then, at another times I had no clue what was going on. Overly reliant on description, it slipped to the land of prose quite often. Some of the parts I had extreme difficulty visualizing.

The ending was very nice indeed and gave new life to a story that seemed to be on predictable rails. But I would've liked that the connection between the ghost and the bees would've been set up. Now it just happens.

A heavy read indeed and hard for me to wade through, had to re-read a few passages as I got lost by the next one.
It is well written in terms of language but lacked flow and pace (albeit a sedate pace).
Good premise and different to the usual fare.

Evocative but overwrought downtrodden atmosphere.
The multi page ghostly discussion doesn’t progress the story.
Mortimer came out of nowhere, are we flashing back here?
Had a hard time figuring out what happened in this one.
Your protag was more of a witness than a participant.
Novelistic prose slows down the story.
Some good atmospheric elements, but a pretty inert tale overall.
Thanks for playing OWC.

Regards,
E.D.

Finally, a perambulating skeleton.  I've been waiting for one of those.  The story was pure Gothic with the dreary cliffside manor and morose history of the doomed female ghost.  As other have already commented, the going was a bit slow at times, and I occasionally lost track of what was happening, especially toward the end.

Clever use of bees to show the rebirth of life at the old place.  

Although plodding at times, I did enjoy most of the story and the effort you made to create atmosphere.

I'm of two minds of this one.

On one hand, a very gothic atmosphere - from the setting to the background to the characters themselves.

Kudos, too, on both the visuals and the underlying emotion on this one.  You have an interesting feel for evocative visuals and colors.  And there's obviously been alot of thought put into really creating a connection between William and Coleen (and between Mortimer and his lost lady.)

For some reason, the end didn't gell for me.  In thinking about it, I *think* it's because the story needs to be a little more streamlined, crisper and straightforward.  With perhaps a bit more back story on Mortimer himself, and a clearer understanding of how everything ties into the village's blight.  

Do that, and this one could be very evocative!!

I'm sorry, but page 3 and I'm out.  No clue what's going on...probably cause very little is going on, other than heavy handed writing, that's tough to keep up with.

Visually, this seems pretty cool out of the gate, but you've got to hook us somehow and what's on the page isn't doing that.

Very slow... Very weighty.  I said it about only one other script you all have written so far.  It's written well enough, and I'm sure it has a broader scope that's just lost on me at this point.  It meets all the criteria, except holding me captive till the end.  I did finish it, of course, but i feel little after doing so.  Again, good set peices, decent dialect... Bang on atmosphere... Just no real excitement to be found in such a low page count.  

It seems like it was a tough challenge...

Would the pastor really introduce a 20 year old girl by her last name?

Pastor Walker’s mention of blackberry preserves seems inconsistent with his earlier desire to get out of there as quickly as possible.

Time passes? Days pass? Wasted space.

A lot of description made this drag a little and sometimes I got a little lost in it. But the story was compelling enough to keep reading.

Overall, I liked it. Needs some cleaning up but it’s a good effort.


Breanne

I definitely got a Gothic vibe from this but the writing just bogged the story down for me. It was tough to get into.
Things started to clear up a little about halfway through but it then went back to sounding like a novel. It was difficult to finish but I did, although I'm none the wiser as to what happened.
I did enjoy the visuals and general feel seemed strong, its a shame I just couldn't get a handle on the story.
With a clean up, I would check this out again.

In some ways the description works, but at the same time it is vague. I think what the problem is:

IS that on the first page, you are providing description yes, but not context.

Let's consider the first piece of dialogue:

>PASTOR WALKER
Not much farther, girl.

On screen, how can we even know her name if the pastor calls her Girl?

And it IS important because she is "the sweeper" I will call her and here I must say, I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THIS IDEA...

I can really feel it and so it's a shame that the execution of this piece lacks. It really hurts me because this is one of THE MOST SUBTLE BUT ENERGETIC SCRIPTS I'VE READ.  

I'm really feeling worn and I wish I could devote more time to this one, but I'll say this:

Please consider introducing Colleen without so much banter between Pastor Walker and Louise. Try and ISOLATE Colleen. Place her front and center and maybe make their conversations as whispers in the background. That might be a suggestion.

This story loses itself because it doesn't concentrate on Colleen. There's too much conversation, I think, for its own good.

The visual with the bees and nothing to pollinate but brown leaf is excellent!

Really really really... I hope you come back to this one. The sweeping... oh the sweeping and scrubbing...

And how:

LOUISE
Most sound is painful for him. So,
when something is pleasant he's... almost tipsy...

It's so beautiful. I don't want to call it a "beautiful line" because to me, (and I could go into a big long story right now, but I'll spare you) is not a line at all but REAL. I love that so much.

This is a script with marked potential. It's beautiful at its core.

Sandra

Slow, wordy and a bit overwritten.

You seem to know how you want to paint the picture, but you take too long to paint it. If that makes any sense. Over descriptions tend to bore people and they will stop reading.

I like where you WANTED to take the story. The tone and atmosphere were all there. Just how it was presented was a bit wonky. In my opinion.