Bats Can See by Yuvraj Rajwanshi - Short, Horror - A visually impaired painter with an unusual gift soon discovers that her paintings bear resemblance to a forthcoming mishap.  14 pages - pdf format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

Yuvraj, this has a great premise.

But, things are getting a bit lost in the translation with odd word choices and incorrect tenses.

Your logline first:
A visually impaired painter with an unusual gift soon discovers that her paintings bear resemblance to a forthcoming mishap.

Mishap? More like murder, or homicide victim.
Okay, so you don't want spoilers, but you're downplaying everything by calling it a forthcoming mishap.

tapping her feet in iffy.
Do you mean impatiently?

I liked all the little touches like Gwen's other senses being so finely tuned she can detect aromas right down to the nail polish Nina's wearing.

You got beautiful feet.
You've got beautiful feet. Or: You have beautiful feet.


I thought it will take at
least a week.
I thought it would take at least a week.

Meet you tomorrow. Really excited.
I'll see you tomorrow, then. I'm really excited. Or: I'm so excited Or: I can't wait.

She ganders at the entrance...
glances towards would be more typical in regular usage.

Why is Rose sitting in a park in the dark on her own?
Seems like a convenient setting to create foreboding but without any preamble it comes across as odd.

Tension hovers.
Your use of fragments is not doing you any favours with creating mood.
No offence but tension doesn't hover.
A tense atmosphere prevails, sure.

...makes a VERY SMALL RED SALTIRE on it.
That's poetic but...
So, Gwen's marked an area by painting a red cross on the canvas?

Why did Rose send Mick a photo of Nina?

This odd formality creeps in with your dialogue now and then too:

She attended the class today. After
that we decided to meet for some
late night snacks, but she didn't
turn up. She never does that or at
least informs me if she wouldn't be
able to make it.

She was in class today... We were going to meet up
later for a few drinks but she never showed up.
It's just weird... She would have let me know.

MICK
You called at her home?
ROSE
She's on a student's visa here. I
called at her place. Nothing
useful. The landlady is grumpy as
shit

I'm not convinced the Visa is relevant to the story or the grumpy landlady. It doesn't add anything to plot or come into it at any point later, so I'd delete that.

What era are we in?
No mobile phones?

Standard place with standard furniture. Nothing
ostentatious.
Rose in her formal dress, ready to go to work.


Standard place? I think you could do better than that with description.
Rose is dressed in work clothes?

CORPSE OF NINA
lies within it. All mangled up with blood spluttered around
her.

Nina's body, or Nina's corpse.
Blood doesn't splutter in this context. Splutter means to make a series of short explosive spitting or choking sounds. It's a verb.

You're trying to describe a visual of blood at the scene, I presume - Nina's bloodied body, correct?

NEWS REPORTER
At around five in the morning, one
of the cattle ranchers of the local
community found the bloodied dead
body of a twenty-four-year-old Nina
and immediately informed the
authorities.

Cattle ranchers? Where the heck are we? I got nothing really of a rural setting until this specific reference. A local man would suffice.
'in the local community' not 'at'
'bloodied body'  or just 'body'- dead is superfluous imho.
Discovered perhaps?
And the News Reporter would always announce her full name, not just say: Nina. Or say that her name and identification have yet to be confirmed.

Nina's corpse, loaded in an ambulance, and wheeled away.
Nina's corpse is loaded into...
Don't be afraid of using the word ' is', when needed.

They hasten on
this road a lot

They speed...
Something like:  this stretch of road is notorious for speeding...

ma'am
not mam

Okay, I'll stop there.

The actual story is very good. I like the idea that Gwen's paintings act as omens for what's to come.
To be honest though, the writing needs another few drafts to do justice to a sound idea.

Hey Yuvraj, thanks for sharing this.

Trying not to re-comment on anything LC did. I think she's right - this needs a new run-through for some awkward words and language errors.

Some things -

pg 2  - Rose ganders at the entrance. Entrance to the park? Like the gate? This is hard to imagine on screen. It's possible, but always be more specific.

pg 3 - this line of dialogue "She attended the class today. After
that we decided to meet for some
late night snacks, but she didn't
turn up. She never does that or at
least informs me if she wouldn't be
able to make it."

So awkward! I would just write - "She never showed. And she would always let me know if she can't make it". Or something.

Generally your scene descriptions are good - you rely on your sluglines to set the scene and your little descriptions below that add just enough to establish a shot. Not too much, not too little.

pg 5 - "Do you have any idea as to why she might be here? At this place." I don't think the second sentence is needed.

pg 6 "(which is inaudible to us)." I've done this before but try to avoid taking us out of the script. Just put "Gwen listens to something." If it's not described to us we know we can't hear it

"Drizzle encompasses the area. " - nah. Just say "it's raining". "Rose reaches a cafe" would also suffice.

OK so as LC said - great premise. I think in a re-draft, beyond double checking your language/translations (and if English really is your second language you're doing an amazing job), cut down on some of those more purple-ey lines and awkward dialogues. With this efficient and interesting premise you should come out somewhere around ten pages - you get the good stuff your logline promises without the stuttering or awkwardness. Have a re-read for any scene you think can go without losing the thread of the plot. (I'm also guilty of extraneous scenes in shorts. I'm working on it).

Thanks again for sharing. I enjoyed having a look at this.

EDIT: and of course, I "get" the title, but it's a little...I dunno. on the nose? Have another think. Still use the title to make the promise of your premise but be less direct. I'm not good with titles either.

Hi Yuvraz.

LC & Ben having said... The writing was scrambled ~ It did not flow smoothly enough for me to become invested.  What I'm saying is; To me, it was too poetic with fancy words that made me "wait, let me think about that word/meaning"  Eg: tapping her feet in iffy. Amongst many more.

All the best.

Jmho, but I  don't think Yuvraj is trying to find fancy words, or be clever with word choices, Barry.

I think for anyone for whom English is not their first language it must be at times very difficult to find a parallel word that equates to the same meaning in their native language.

Most of us only have to master one language.

Story is key always and I love this premise and the vibe of this one.

Just saying... Plenty of NESB writers on these boards have had to struggle with the same thing - five of them I've known - Pia, Kham, Alex, Michel, and Matias (to name some) have achieved much success just by keeping at it.

Practice makes perfect.

Yeah, writing scripts in ESL Is hard because you can get by with scene descriptions and slugs etc but it comes through in dialogue which is hard to fake. It sucks that scripts pretty much have to be in English in most cases.

Again, if Yuvraj's first language isn't English this script demonstrates a mastery of it beyond some native speakers.

Thank you to Libby, Ben, and Barry, for reading and commenting. All points were noted.  

As for Barry, I think it is just a personal thing about me. I don't like reading scripts(in fact any reading articles), written in plain words. For me, it always fascinates me to jump back and forth to understand what that one word means and not reading the sentence that articulates the same. I think that's what reflects in my writing.

But still, I feel sorry for making you read something that may have taken much lesser time if it were written with more simplicity. I will keep this in mind from now on. It might take some time though. But I will definitely try it.  

Thanks once again.                        

Yuvraj! Really know!!

I won't re-do the notes above - they've pretty much handled it.

THE STORY - I liked it. Well done. Very clever premise.

Quoted from eldave1 I won't re-do the notes above - they've pretty much handled it. THE STORY - I liked it. Well done. Very clever premise.

Thx Dave, for reading and commenting.