The Devil Made Me Do It by Greg Magellan - Short, Horror - After a heated argument with his girlfriend, Bobby is greeted by the Devil, who makes him a disturbing offer. - pdf, format

This reads like a piece that was not written specifically for this challenge.  I am not sure that Lucifer counts.  

THE GOOD:  Lucifer is treated well, as an intriguing character, and much of the dialogue you give to him does sound quite devilish.  The story is easy to follow, leading to a conclusion that makes sense.  

THE BAD:  Unfortunately, much of this is really dull.  Going into the kitchen and cooking a bagel takes half a page.  The pages are dense with text that fail to move the story.  Work on tightening things up, focusing on the details that truly matter.      

bert's grade:  C    

I think you have a Marcy where there should be a Susan, made a confusing opening.

There's a lot of extraneous action in his house, makes for a rather dry read round pages 2 and 3. Get rid of it.

Good bit of misogynistic, Devilish dialogue. Enjoyable.

It's a bit obvious for a complete story. There needs to be something more. Another twist, ot a deeper examination of Bobby's soul...something. I still quite liked it, but it's just too simple at present.

No clues in the nom de plume. Logline suggests that this isn't a classic monster story.

Heavily overwritten. So much so that I'm struggling through this. Must be a new writer. This dialogue from Lucifer is quite bad:

Code LUCIFER Shame. On the phone you said particularly terrible things to her. You used specific words that carry a certain weight which attracted me. Tell me, did you mean those things you said to her?

In particular: You used specific words that
carry a certain weight which
attracted me.

Reads very awkwardly. Would Satan get tongue-tied? Might be fun if he did have a lisp, like  a snake.

A very simple tale, straightforward and not a classic monster in sight. The story is worth a 5 out of 10, but gets less because it doesn't fit the criteria. It could have been written at any time and uploaded now.

1 out of 10.

Linear and predictable.  I kept waiting for the irony or plot twist.

I'm with Dustin here. heavily overwritten and I struggled to get through it. I know this is going to seem harsh, but I think you can use a chainsaw to trim this. Focus only on what's important to the story and characters. Break-up the action paragraphs shot by shot as you would imagine it as film.

It is also a very visually dull story. Low budget for sure, but our eyes need something interesting to look at. I failed to see a classic monster as described by Don in the OWC assignment.

You have a base for something here, but it needs quite a bit of work. Trim, trim, trim. Add visuals.

This one was good, but also pretty basic. It’s the classic deal with the devil story, but it lacks a twist. Usually the offer seems too good to pass up, but comes with unforeseen consequences. Here, it’s not hard to see the downside of murdering someone with your bare hands in your own apartment. It’s destined fail, especially when the neighbor has already heard you yelling at the murder victim.

A twist that’s in reach of this story would be something like… Lucifer “arranges” to have Marcy killed on her way over, thereby keeping Bobby’s hands clean, and the twist is that she was pregnant and it was his. I guess I feel like this version of the devil needs to have something to offer that Bobby can’t otherwise have. If Bobby is satisfied with murdering his cheating girlfriend in the most easily deducted manner possible, then did he really need Lucifer to get him there?

Dude (or Dudette), this was intense.  Made me a bit uncomfortable, but maybe I'm a wimp.

PROS: Interesting concept with the Devil conversation.  I liked the setup.

CONS: Weak dialogue (unrealistic), and the payoff was kinda weak, more gore than interesting.  The Devil just has him stab her with the knife.  I think I had trouble with the payoff and the neighbor sounded like an idiot stating the obvious.

This one stuck with me a bit, due to the intensity of the dialogue and the gore bits.  Maybe it isn't my cup of tea.  The dialogue was very monologue like.  Work out that and the pacing with a more interesting murder and you might have something here.

My opinions are just that, and have been known to be wrong!

Picky bits:-
1) Tad over written and there are some elements that could be edited down (but see 1) in Good bits), all about the right balance.
2) He seems very quick to jump to the conclusion he's Lucifer
3) This seems a little too linear and by the numbers

Good bits:-
1) Some good and descriptive details, e.g. toaster timer being broken, makes these scenes live a little.
2) Some decent back an forth on the dialogue

Rules
I don't think the Devil is a classic monster

Overall I thought this was okay, but not anything we've not seen before.

Anthony

Hmm, I don’t think Lucifer counts as a classic monster, even though you give him fangs.

This is overly written, a lot of long dialogue and bulky blocks of text takes up too much white space and makes it hard to read.

I think if you trimmed this back, wrote it leaner it would read a lot better.

Saying all that, I did find Lucifer quite persuasive. He had a charm and grace about him. Not quite sure he could talk Bobby into murdering someone but it was a very decent effort.

Predictable ending but it is low budget.

-Mark

I know I said not to talk chiefly about format, but I'm going to make an exception here. You have a natural skillset - an understanding of a good image, and an ear for dialogue - that your writing skills don't yet match.

There's good stuff going on here - the blood pouring from the kettle, for instance - but your writing makes it heavy going as a read. You're guilty of a few things that can be easily avoided: stating things we can't know onscreen, passive verbs where active ones will do, and overly-long action blocks.

Eg page 2: 'The sound of footsteps moving away from the door can be heard.' Not technically wrong, but something like 'Sandra's FOOTSTEPS fade as she walks away.' might be better? Good rule of thumb is to avoid '-ing' words where you can have an active verb instead. That's not a set in stone rule, just something useful to bear in mind. Also things like 'can be heard', 'can be seen' - paint the picture, tell the story. Don't describe the effect on us, make it happen in the script. Delete all the 'cans' and rewrite those sentences.

I'm also going to just briefly mention that another good rule of thumb is to never let your action blocks be longer than four lines. If that means turning one block into two, so be it - it will help the read. You have two five-line blocks on page 1 alone.

(One other, tiny point: if this is written in Celtx, switch off the Mores and Continueds. They're in Format Options in the PDF - you don't need them. Just more clutter.)

Story-wise it's all very basic. Really, really violent at the end, but that doesn't make up for the lack of complexity, in fact it just compounds it. A horrific murder doesn't is a bit boring when we're expecting it, I'm afraid, no matter how much blood you put in. I wondered if Bobby might end up being the one who was killed, but no. And Lucifer seems to suggest he'll be using Bobby again, but in the end he's left to get arrested? It was a bit of an anticlimax, eight pages of build-up just for an explosion of violence.

Is Lucifer a classic movie monster? I guess as monsters go he's as classic as you get, being from the dawn of time and all... His dialogue is good, by the way.

My main impression - you have a couple of things it can take ages to learn, and some people always struggle with - an understanding of an interesting visual, and dialogue that sounds like an actor could actually deliver it. That's the good news. You just need to improve your craft to let that shine through. The important thing here is that you can work on your writing, so you're actually in a good position. Practice, practice, practice. Learn and revise the basics, apply them (they'll keep you in good shape), but don't be afraid to find your own voice. Story-wise, go deeper, explore other angles, think 'what could I do that they won't expect? What's the most interesting direction I can take this in?' Good luck!

The Devil Made Me Do It

Those happenings around the oven feel unnecessary complicated somehow.

Lucifer's description is good but I think there must be something told about his facial or hair features before his first line of dialogue, because that's how they face. Then his eyes of course could have a piercing moment or he makes a devilish grin whatever later...

I see I'm nitpicky here, sorry.

Serving Lucifer a cup of tea, I bet he's a slave to the evil from now on.

"Lucifer is inches away from him" – noticeable good shock moment

Lol the devil spits misogynic lines like a gangster rapper (not meant serious of me)

For my taste your script is a bit too easy connected. Marcy (probably) cheated on Bobby, the devil approaches and makes him rip her.

Especially the ending, at least to me, shows that this could need a bit more twists here, a non-linear way of telling perhaps.

Otherwise it's creepy and brutal. The dialogues are two long. Don't know if it's original enough to let him murder her for that betrayal plot plus the devil

Writer,

Way overwritten. Once I saw your action blocks I immediately began to skim and still gained all the information I needed without having to read all the unnecessary details. This story was told with your dialogue anyway, so that's what I focused on.

And in between everything was a decent story. Just could have been handled differently, possibly by letting Lucifer have the last line of the story saying "You're mine now. " that way it would have been absolutely clear Booby had been deceived.

Overall, not bad but needs work to be more readable.

Steve

Greg Magellan,

I don't know, is Lucifer considered a classic monster?

Right at the start, you put Marcy's name where Sandra should be.

The story itself is not bad. Pretty straight forward. As soon as Lucifer shows up I knew how it'd end. How you got there was a little boring at times. Long, unnecessary action blocks that made getting through this one quite tough.

I got there though and I liked the ending, with Sandra at the door again and Bobby screwed.

Not bad, needs a cleaning up.

Best of luck.

Glenn.

Most has been said already

Over written- yes. It would flow much better if trimmed

Classic film Monster - not in my book, but if the story were goodie let that pass

Twist and plot - simple can be good, if you have complicated motivations and choices. This didn't . It needed more

Budget - low and with some angles the drama of a cheated husband, a devils voice and hard decisions can lead to tense drama

Best of luck