Radio Silence by An Apologetic Canadian - Short, Drama - A father and daughter struggle to survive in the winter, while they radio for any survivors. - pdf format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

um, my humble opinion, etc. Just a couple of casual comments.  It's not bad, not a big fan of those types of endings.  Good overall.  You've clearly showed the dynamic between the two -- father and daughter.  My favorite part.  

Being picky, I would give them a name. EDIT: Ok, I can see why you didn't. Fair enough.-A

So you seem to have managed to get almost every one of the criteria in here... not sure it works for the skeleton, but not an issue as you have multiples in.

As a script I think the writing is solid, reads well and formatting all fine.

I just struggled to engage with the lead characters a little, this may be because they're unnamed or because they felt a little cliche.

But overall I liked it.

Quoted Text A DAUGHTER, 9 or 10 ,

Just pick one

Quoted Text She finally slides off his shoulders and to the ground. She accidentally knocks over a ship in a bottle on an table. It smashes on the floor. DAUGHTER Uh oh, I wrecked it.

If the above is to meet the criteria of shipwreck - ain't going to do it for me.

Quoted Text VOICE I know you’re in there. I’ve been watchin’ you for the past hour or so. So best not to act like you’re not home.

Should be formatted as a V.O. Also - tells us at least if this is a man or woman's voice.

Quoted Text The front door jerks open a bid, but the lock keeps it shut and safe.

bid or bit?

Quoted Text The burnt woman screams in agony while thrashing at the father. A pair of hands pull her off of him. It’s MENDAX, covered head to toe in human skeleton remains.

WTF?? How is someone covered in skeleton remains???

Okay - now I see ...this looks like another writer that thought all of the elements, rather than just one from each category had to be included, --- noble effort I guess, but it diminishes the story.

Story did not do it for me. Sorry - just not my thing.  The dialogue was fine/natural and most of the action handled well.

Hey there,

I like the writing, the formatting - not gonna complain here.

I like the father/daughter stuff in the beginning the most. I would have liked to see even more of that, but I know there was a page limit.

A few things:

The father jumps on top of Mendax and they wrestle. Mendax reaches under his skeleton armour and pulls out a knife.
He stabs the father in the side. Stinging PAIN shoots up his side. He immediately jerks up as he feels the coldness of the blade pierce his skin and blood stains his shirt.
Mendax pulls the knife out and stabs him again.
He stops fighting.
The daughter runs over to them with a shovel in her hand. She plunges in towards Mendax’s throat. It nearly slices his head off.
- Not sure if it's just me, but I have read this more than once and still have a hard time picturing it - when are they on the floor, when do they get up, when do they fall again? - It reads as if they move quite a lot here.

Tears hit his face, not his tears, but hers.
- Good stuff

You have more criteria in here than needed - not all of them are necessary or serve a real purpose, but enough of them do. It was fun to see them pop up one after another
I think some of them could have had more of an impact, though. The radio voice at the end could have introduced itself as "Jake" (like the daughter's rubber snake) after a moment and thereby gain the daughter's interest and get her to walk over to the mircophone - I dunno, just an example.

Overall, an enjoyable read

This is alright until the action starts, then the writing kinda takes a dive. Lots of awkward action.

Like on page 6, you have the Father and Mendax just casually walk inside together, even though they are the middle of a fight to the death.

Dialog is solid, though I think the daughter may be a bit too old.

Solid effort for a week, but it's not really for me.

In this setting, FATHER and DAUGHTER would have proper names. This is also noticable on p5 where Father asks Mandax about his odd name. (and Mandax is still "The Voice")   Buto ne of my pet peeves has reared its head. That's where, when it comes to dialog. the writer tells me (and the actor) how to speak and intentionally misspell words to get said effect. (p3)  Also, DAUGHTER is 9 or 10? Choose one. And some of the banter feels like filler. What else did you do today?

Also,is there more than one snowstorm? And what has happened outside were survivors are deformed burned up mutants? Like Mandax said, why was Father trying to communicate if he didn't want strangers around?

Overall, not a bad effort,but nothing much to hang a hat on.

Good stuck-in-the-snow tense storytelling, like THE THING. Character names were intriguing and actions were believable. A real sense of claustrophobia and dread. Loglines rarely do i for me, and I'm not saying yours is bad, but title made me want to take a read. Not sure if this was supposed to be a science fiction or straight drama but it appears to work with either genre.

As I go:

- Father's radio dialogue seems unnecessarily complex -- he just wants to hear a voice at this point. Elaborating seems pointless and also, maybe, a little scary for the kid. We should see that he's hiding the gravity of the situation from her.
- You gotta give us a little more on the VOICE than that! Man, woman, threatening, reasonable? This is withholding information that would be available in the film.
- The daughter with the gun needed a setup -- has she used these guns before? What does she know about the world? What does she know about life/death stakes?

Thoughts:

- So, a stark little post-apocalyptic home invasion. Bad guys with no particular motive or character; good guys with nothing to learn.
- Big thing missing here is the setup: what does daughter learn/how does she grow through the story? Sometimes the knock on the door is bad, maybe sometimes it's good. But what does it mean for her to learn this?
- The violence is fun but feels arbitrary without some framing device. How brutal has the world been? What have they encountered before? How does dad think about strangers generally? Etc. This story lacks context.
- Well written.

Chris

I enjoyed this. It’s a great few scenes which suggests something much larger, like Mad Max but set in an icy environment.

The banter between Father and Daughter was excellent, it really helped me care about the character and bond with them but I would give them names to help the reader form that bond easier. Likewise, I’d give the VOICE the name Mendex as soon as it is established it is his name.

The ending just drifts off into nothing which is why I see this as several scenes rather than a story. But this was solid and well written, great job.  

-Mark

Hola!

VOICE should have changed to MENDAX as soon as he told us what his name was.

Not bad at all - tension built up nicely with the introduction of Mendax and then the reveal that he is not alone, heightened it nicely.

Some predictable fighting happens, good guys win but it comes at a price, then we end of a note of hope.
Not bad at all.

I really want to know what has happened though, what has stricken the world they are in? They are not simply trying to survive a run-of-the-mill winter - society seems to have been eradicated, crazies are running around, and these guys have built themselves a survival home.
(your logline is misleading btw, doesn't seem like they are struggling to survive the winter at all, they have shelter, power and food)
Another one that comes across as a snippet to a larger story - a preview - with not enough to make this stand alone as a short.

Valient effort though

Hi writer,

Curious tale of… ?

I would truly like to provide some feedback in a sense, but it may be somewhat difficult when there’s not much to go on.

I’m not really sure what to make of it. I get the sense, obviously, that a father and daughter were in a cabin somewhere in a cold, perhaps bitterly cold environment, desperately (perhaps not desperately cause father only placed one call over the radio) trying to contact other survivors of…?

Help me, help you, friend. Help me…… Help you. No?

The radio works, we know this for sure, unfortunately father hailed some goblins of such, and one who was actually on fire – I can’t even imagine the pain that woman has to go through on a daily basis. I can only assume this was a tribe of survivors from whatever disaster or apocalyptic event that transpired that forced father and daughter to either escape to seclusion or were at the cabin when the event was triggered.

I have a theory, but it’s a long stretch...  cough*ahem*cough, ok;

Jane Roberts: who claimed to channel an energy personality who called himself "Seth." Wrote a series of texts - the publications which would come to be known as the Seth Material. In one of the texts: Seth, states (and I’m paraphrasing here): “Several years in the future, after an apocalyptic event has destroyed humanity, mutants will rise from the ashes… mutants by who’s standards?”

Okay, I actually didn’t just paraphrase that, I most likely butchered the shit out of the original statement, but the notion still stands. If there is an apocalyptic event that kills humanity, is there a potential for a mutated form of those effected to rise from the ashes, completely unhinged and possessed to hunt - either to murder or convert - the surviving humans into whatever mutated freaks they have become? And now, Father, having only the best interest of his daughter in mind, has inadvertently sealed their fate by broadcasting into the ether their existence.

That idea could make it somewhat functional on my end. As well, it allows me to properly process the tale and gives me the much needed closer required to rest at night… even though I’m probably dead wrong.

Won’t lie… the ending tugged at my craggy old heartstrings a bit. Writing’s good IMO, but the story seemed to be captured from a larger piece. What that larger piece is, well… is entirely up to you. Best of luck.

Excellent. Poignant. But the Daughter needs a big dog to keep her company.

Hey,

some hard stuff I would say. The pages flew by, so, well done. I like your 'simple and sharp' style.

I enjoyed the whole scenario. It's quite a fresh version of a home invasion.

Great characters.

A very good entry.

Any survivors of what?  A winter?  Something missing in the logline that could help cue the reader as to your concept.

Better to pick a specific age for your younger characters.

Pinned to his ears?  Not sure what I would be seeing there.

The Father has a toque, scarf, etc. - ‘wears’ or ‘dressed in’ would make a better visual.  What you intend in the above examples isn’t what we’d be seeing.  Do it too often and it trips the reader up when we should otherwise be getting into the flow of your story.  

I don’t necessarily need the details of how the world got this way, but some idea of the situation they face would help us understand the stakes here.  Is the world full of Mendax types or is this an anomaly?   If the former then would they not take more precautions?  It all feels very surface level with no time given to build a sense of tension/dread and that’s where ideas like this can really work to pull the reader in.

I do like an apocalyptic survival scenario but it’s certainly a crowded field and a popular device for a short.  If you come back to this, I'd consider working more tension into the build-up.  Maybe streamlining the character count to just a single adversary.  Something subtler that could be picked up.

By no means a bad script, but the story just didn’t resonate for me.

Good luck.