House Proud by Richard Buckley (cathead) - Short, Gothic Horror - Moving in can be scary… 10 pages, 6 characters, PG-13 Rating - pdf, format

Hello,

I found this to be a pleasant story, nothing too new but all the same understandable.

A few comments;

# mis understood ghost, yes, gothic??
# I am not a format guru but I think a few of the veterans will have a few issues starting with fade in on the right
# character talking to the camera, some may not like this. Further the speech was long, but it did kind of work.
#  continued's  after each page may bother some
# i found some short fast scenes to be disrupting and didn't serve much purpose. I often find I can cut out a few minor scenes without any affect, maybe this applies here.
# p5 "a smiles" ??
# p8 I was a bit confused as to what andy wanted to say
# p8 I think you will find that when you have a scene that continues but runs into different locations you should use continuous in the slug as a forewarning. Then when you do keep consistent.

Overall, I did like something about your writing so keep going.

All the best.
#

I think this one's got potential.  A good ole fashioned haunted house story - and Agnes has all the necessary traits to be a great, fun character.  Another plus - there were flashes of nice turns of phrases in this story...it'll be interesting to see how this writer sounds, a few months from now.  (For instance, "a smile that could seen from Mars" stands out for me.)

I *didn't* feel that the writer pulled the story off as-is, however.  When the house comes to life, it got cartoony much too fast.  And the premise left me muddled.  The house just wanted to be improved?  Thought that was what Andy was doing, in the first place...

Still - enjoyed Agnes as a character - and memorable characters are what one wants, in this biz...  

Maybe it's me?  I don't know, but less than 1/2 a page in and I'm running for the door.

The  opening passage was way over written.  And the ghost materializing and speaking into the camera dooms this instantly.  Not horror.  Definitely not Gothic horror.  Sorry.

Congrats on completing an entry for the October OWC.

Yeah, um... very wordy opening here.  It was a chore to read the 1st passage, so I skipped it.  Really, I did.  And I laughed about it for a second when I did it... but then thought, why did I do that... now I don't know who Agnes is - and then I find out I didn't really need to know who she was because she didn't have but two speaking bits in the whole script.  But to be fair, she sure chewed the scene up when she was speaking.

Anyways, I know I've been gone for 6 months or so and I might not be "as relevant", but  I hate (continued) at the tip top of every page and deep bottom of the next one.  Just knock that off.

"The light bulb flickers furiously" could be "The light bulb flickers "  The LY's are usually always bad.

Some of the things you describe sould be broken down into sublets.  Like...for instance towards the end:

"The banister and then the curtains begin to release their
grip. Alice is then freed. They all embrace at the bottom of
the stairs. They know what they have to do..."

Really?  Seriously... Are you gonna let that fly?  I know it's a 7 day work, but even still people write features in 7 days and they don't jiv jive like this.

How are we suppose to know, as the audience not the reader, that they know what they have to do?  I don't get it.  If I were writing this...

"The banister - The curtains loosen their grip.
Alice is set free.
They embrace eachother at the bottom of the stairs in unision."

Or something of this nature -- Reason being:

1. The banister is seperate from the curtains to show we see them first and then we see the curtains and the action that follows.

2. Alice is set free already.  She doesn't need to be set free because we've already established above that she was.

3. They gather and embrace eachother  in unison.  That tells us they're now united by their actions, not because you're telling me they are.

Anyways, hope it helps.  I finished it and didn't outwardly hate it or like it.  I'd watch it on tv probably.

2 down... Lots to go.

This was more like Gothic comedy.  Actually, scratch the Gothic part.  This was like a G-rated haunted house story for kids.  The writing lacked clarity, and I really wasn't too sure what was going on until i figured out the old ghost was preventing the house from attacking the family.  Did I get that right?  I don't know.

"His wife is now being strangled by a curtain, Joshua struggles with the banister."

That's pretty damn funny, but I don't think it was meant to be.  And then:

He spreads the varnish lovingly upon the stairs.

ANDY
There, there house, in need of some
attention, huh?

Giving the house a rubdown?  I thought the staircase was about to have a happy ending right there.  Not sure what you were going for, but it definitely came off as comedy.  

I loved the little girl, and was glad to see a scene where she is talking to her dolls while someone watches in horror!
Maybe it's because of the page limitation but the medium seemed to be just thrown in for no reason, not really needed.
Tehn, the house animated and attacked them...
Hated this, when the bannister attacked Joshua I had this image of a really bad CGI or rubber effect holding Joshua up by his ankle.
And giving the house a makeover is what ends this "nightmare" sorry.
I expected Ty Pennington to come running out at the end "Lets move in some furniture!"
Sorry if I sound sarcastic I am trying to be light hearted, not cruel.
Keep writing.

After a thick half page of novel prose, the read thins out.
You may want to reconsider such a dense opener.
I see you’re breaking the fourth wall here, bold move.
Joshua fell? When did that happen on the page? I missed it.
Parents taking a child at their word about ghosts, that’s new.
Little to no gothic feel here, some whacky visuals.
I’m pretty unclear as to the ghostly motivations.
Thanks for playing OWC.

Regards,
E.D.

hated the first page. simply despised it. breaking 4th wall barely works and IMO it didn't work here. plus the monologue is way too long and comes across as rambling. now, onto the story...

misspelled "your" on p1

"you feel lucky...house?" i'm groaning right now

finished the story. i hate to repeat myself, but this comes across as a comedy. i hope it was it intentional but i doubt it.

then again, you might be onto something here. spooky houses that communicate with children are very overdone these days. maybe you could spoof it. i dunno, maybe Andy can "wax the banister" and please the house...if you get my drift

There’s no need to tell us the image was previously unseen.

Some grammar errors. Things like your instead of you’re are bad signs for a writer. And you do it over and over. If you’re serious about being a writer, you should get yourself a grammar reference program or a book to keep at your desk.

Seemingly random swing? Slumped upon a mountain of unwashed clothes? Alice jabs an arm out? There are quite a few awkward phrases in here.

We should see things like the area where Josh is injured.

Some of the dialogue is on the nose, things like the medium literally referring to them as family.

The house relaxing at the idea of being fixed up seemed to contradict its earlier mood. Andy was trying to fix it up from the beginning. That really didn’t make sense to me.

Overall, it’s like a lighthearted Poltergeist. Not too bad but definitely needs more work and a lot of tightening up.

Good luck.


Breanne

This is cute but it seemed like too many shortcuts were taken (the family suddenly invites a medium into the house) and no real interest was generated for me.  Outside of the page limits from the OWC, the characters could be developed, there's great potential there.

Yeah, I thought this was more of a comedy, too, mostly because of the scene with the medium and the dad with the neckbrace coming right after he falls off the roof. Babz would be proud that you told the story in the cut, but I think it's conveying the wrong message.

ETA: I'm not sure you need Agnes - I don't think she really adds anything to the story.

I think it's got good potential with a few rewrites Good job!

Typos, typos, typos.  Proofread.

Pretty basic, had its moments, but needs a good revision to make it better.  As of now it's a haunted house with a climax that's more humorous than horrific.  I don't know if that's what you were going for but when the banister came alive and the curtains started strangling people I couldn't help but think this was a comedy.  It was "cute" for what it was with the house in need of a renovation but it needs something more.  More zing, more oomf.  

Read fast enough.  Nice job.

Greg

A nice overall feel with this one. I like the idea of a house begging for love. Oh my Lord, my fellow scripters would hate me if I started going off on a story about:

The Bump in the Road... My "No Love Story"... and so I won't. Want to. But won't.

Anyways, I want to say that I love the title and love Agnes.

I noticed that The Medium just APPEARS! They're just all of a sudden sitting holding hands around the dining room table.

I think you need to get more creative. Make these characters POP more. Who says they need to sit round a table?

This here:

>His eyes now in the back of his head, the Medium trembles with rage

Confused me.

I think that you can "center" your writing more. Bring us in close to a subject, identifying it more closely, lingering upon it.

I think a story like this would benefit from such lingering. I feel that this kind of progresses too fast. The cat being injured for example...

It was written, but I was never really drawn in. To really care about that cat. It was more like "an event" in the story rather than a true feeling. Again, I'll use the words:

Skim's the surface of real-- I think many writers think that if they write plot and dot their i's and cross their t's everything will be fine. That's not the case.

This one is not gothic. It feels more to me like a nice Family Entertainment piece. BUT...

With this:

ROSE
Just use your goddamn hands!

It fails that.

Who is your audience for this one?

Sandra

Lose the (continues) first off. If someone else mentioned it, then sorry.

The story itself reminds me of the black lady in the movie "The Stand" for some reason.

When she said...

feel...But it does, it certainly
does. This ol’ place has a lot of
feelin’ in her

I remembered...

Now it's time to take...

The Stand...

Sorry, I was running on there.

It's not a bad story though but it was just kind of Meh.

Nothing really caught me and held on.

Shawn.....><