Jenna The Great by Dan Tonkin - Short, Comedy, Fantasy, Drama - An idle student freakishly awakens a 21st Century manifestation of Aristotle to pass an exam to get into university. 32 pages - pdf, format

Hey Dan,
    I'm gonna give your second story a shot b/c I kinda liked the first one.  Here goes:

1. top of Page 1, you say is sat, I'd go with sits in a classroom with the rest of her piers.

2.  Try to avoid using is or is (word)ing  (like is going or is walking) etc.  Go with the active verb, not the passive one).

3. handing back a collection of marked essays back to them  YOU USE BACK TWICE.

wow lots of errors in this one.  I hope it gets better.

4.  Jenna (to herself)  should be
Jenna
(to herself) or (V.O)

5.Jenna is stood  should be Jenna stands.

6.  page 3, so she steals a book?  that's an offense that she can get expelled for.

7.  You say is sat an awful lot.  I see that a lot from English as second language.  I think you''re better off just saying she sits.

8  If her attitude is that bad, how the hell did she make it into the college and how is she still in school?  I don't think I've ever met anyone with so bad an attitude.  I think you have it amped up a bit too high.

9.  page 4, you say she see's Aristotle, it should be sees.

10.  I know you have her say a lot of foreign sounding words, but, at no point do you suggest she speaks with an accent.  You want to say that at the beginning, unless I missed it.

11.  SPOILERS
Him showing up was pretty damn funny.  I think you could have carried that out more.  I mean, if he sees a car driving, it might be a dragon to him.  Have fun with that scene, make it classic!

12.  I just realized that she's writing a philosophy paper, I know you said that earlier, then you should say at the beginning that she's in philosophy class.  You do know, it's pretty damn hard to fail that class.  I mean, really hard.  I got an A and I didn't know jack...

13.  ummm you might want to have someone clean up his barf.... just saying....

There are lots of problems, far too many for me to list.  You use the word is as a verb far far far too often.  

Overall, I thought the story was funny.  It was cute, kinda had a Bill and Ted's excellent adventure feel to it.  If you don't know it, google it.

I don't know what her passing philosophy has anything to do with her life, but, perhaps you should show a 10 years later where she is...

Good points, it was funny.  I laughed a few times.

Bad points, the tense issues, very cliched.  How does one fail philosophy?  If she's failing that, I can't imagine she's passing any class.  And he didn't help her in any other classes.

And seriously, who's gonna clean up the puke?  

And how would her mum not know anyone else was in her house?  And why is it Jenna's house, wouldn't it be her mum's house?  Kinda confused by that.

Good luck with it,  I'd read a new fixed up version.

Dan

Dan,

There is no philosophy concerning comments.  Some ring true, some...well handle with care.

I'll make some comments as we go along.

Opening works although I don't know why Jenna has to speak.  Second scene sets the problem  Jenna has one more chance.

Third scene seems to have nothing to do with the problem.

I don't know why Jenna has to be so rude and confrontational.  Just steal the book already.

And it's a magic book.  There is no setup for this payoff.  If yelling will produce results, why not just yell and skip the book.  We need something to make this books special.

And we get a young Aristotle who miraculously knows English and is not so astonished at his accommodations.  And he has seen the future, knows how time is reckoned from the birth of Christ so he can calculate his age?  

Was he dressed in women's clothes?  Because that would be a  nice touch.

I'm losing my interest because Aris seems way too comfortable in the 21st century.  If I were him and made the leap, I'd be scared and worried and completely at sea.  Everything would be incredibly foreign, and I would wonder if I had lost my mind.

When Steph appears you have a nice comic scene.  Milk it.

And inside a few hours, Aris learns how to operate a computer--in English.  And they have a fight.  

We get a lot of chat but no real learning for Aris.  He manages to walk out by himself and find a convenient roof?  

And we find them forming a team to get her through the  test.  Of course, if the can go to the library to get all the books, why did she have to have one that first night?  And when did Aris become familiar with the dewey decimal system?

We get to the test, and Jenna can cheat, but she doesn't.  Did she learn that from Aris?

And Aris has to wait around a month for the results?  Only then, after she passes can he fade back into the book?  

OK, I enjoyed the historical references and the quotes.  Nice touches.  But I have a hard time getting past the obvious problems Aris would have coming from ancient Greece to modern England.  He would be a baby that would have to be taught everything.  Yes, he would learn faster, but he would still burn his fingers on the stove and stick metal into the microwave and pee in the shower.  And it's not that you can't overcome some of this.  Google has a nice translation program.  He speaks Greek, and it comes out English, and he would look like hell for the tiny translator inside the cell phone.  Since he is Aris, he would learn incredibly fast, but he would still need to learn.  And those learning moments, woven into the scenes would provide ample space for comedy.  

Enough.  I think many of the scenes run on too long and the dialogue needs to be pared down.  Also, when she uses slang, how can Aris know what it means?  

Write this one again, and you might have a nice little comedy.

Best
Richard