The Lake by The One That Got Away - The annual family fishing trip becomes a choice between the past and present when a mysterious object falls from the sky. Location: Body of water. Object: Item of advanced or electronic technology.   Short, Sci Fi

Good story but a little prosy and dense. If edited/revised, you could gain enough lines to make the ending make a bit more sense (at least for me). I don't quite understand the 6 year jump to 5 year old Jefferey and the immediate 6 year jump to the memorial plaque. There has got to be some significance that I missed. Takeaway: Good story, writer.

Nice!

You managed to fit quite a bit into that, especially the last couple of pages. Decent writing, interesting story, and not really what I expected.

Really good job.

This was okay for me. Apparently, whatever fell from the sky made Mike and his Dad go back in time 20 years? I don't understand how they knew how to bring Mike back to the present simply by touching the debris.

I think with an extra three or four pages, the emotional stuff would resonate better. Here, it feels rushed and the sentimental parts felt cheap a little bit. Just kinda shoehorned in there because there wasn't a scene with Mike and his Dad reminiscing. Mike instead talks to Erin about how they've been coming here for so many years.

The weakness here is the dialogue. The exposition stands out:

ERIN
I can’t believe you guys have been
coming out here for almost thirty
years.

MIKE
Such great memories from our annual
Lake Edson fishing trips, quite the
Breton family tradition.

Sounds very forced. Reminded me of that bit from The Simpsons.



It was a nice effort, though. Again, like I said, with some extra pages to let the story breathe and give Mike and  his Dad more time to bond about the past, the end result will have more of an emotional punch. And the dialogue definitely needs a polish.

-- Michael

Not sure I quite follow the time skipping but I could just be too tired. It's a cool idea, plenty of potential here. Has a fun Twilight Zone vibe to it. If you're gonna revisit I would try to really get the father/son dynamic strong so his sacrifice is powerful. Maybe there's conflict between them, they've been distant. And it's this event that brings them together, if only momentarily.

The first two pages are some excellent writing, one typo aside (bitin', not bittin').

The rest isn't as solid. The pace is slow, the detail lacking, and what should have an emotional impact just doesn't. It's all a bit too matter of fact, there really isn't a story in what happens. Dad is killed, son miraculously goes back in time with him, and what should be a dilemma is steamrolled with the dad's immediate leap to the conclusion that the son has to go back, and when he does we see him happy with his family years later but there isn't even any emotion in that.

Maybe timing got rushed, maybe it's just too big for four pages. It has all the right ingredients for something with a lot of heart in it, it just isn't on the page.

This feels like it should hit harder than it actually does. Though, it also feels pretty close.

Maybe a couple of passes to clean things up and add some depth to the dialogue, and this might shine.

I think I know what you mean for the super. The whole last bit is 6 years later. But, by putting it several lines into the scene, the reader can mistake it for a second jump in time, which I don't think you intend. Much better to lead with it in the scene, to eliminate any confusion. On-screen, it will appear the way you picture it.

Quoted Text MIKE, 35, ruggedly handsome with a beard that would be the envy of any man...

Maybe it's just me - but I have never envied another man's beard. Now, their hair - that is another story.

The dialogue is really OTN - expositional between Erin and Mike right here:

Quoted Text MIKE Such great memories from our annual Lake Edson fishing trips, quite the Breton family tradition. Mike and Geoff share a knowing glance, Mike’s eyes well with tears, he shakes his head. Geoff

Man - Mike and Pop figured out what happened and what they needed to do to get back really quickly. How did they know an embrace would send them back?

I don't know - I am a sucker for these kinds of tales so I should have been your audience. I have a feeling you would have really gotten me if we didn't need that object from the sky and this was just a tale of the dude remembering his Dad.

Sorry - I wanted to love it

Packed a lot in for the 4 pages.
The written is excellent.

Got a little lost, but the Father and son time traveled then the son traveled back alone.
He got back to a time where his child is already 5 and his father is dead!
Why not keep going until he brings his Dad back.

Maybe it's getting late for me and this is the last one for tonight..

Good job on entering though..

This one didn't really hit me emotionally, which is a shame, since that seems to be what should be the strength of the script. With more pages to work with, that can easily be fixed though, giving a little more weight to the dad's sacrifice. As it stands now though, it just seems like really bizarre things happen out of nowhere, and it's all pushed aside for the dad to sacrifice his life in what should've been a touching moment. A couple more pages will hopefully help make it not seem so random as well.

You spend a lot of time setting this up, so you don't really have the time this story deserves to finish it off. So we get a thing exploding in the sky, then a thing causing several time jumps in quick succession and I'm not sure what's going on!

Lots of potential here so keep at it.

Obviously, this going the melodramatic route with father-son relationship, but it didn't hit me. Maybe coz all of that happening too fast, which is also obvious since you only have 4 pages to write. So it felt too much with time jumps as well. That been said, the writing was good. Decent effort.  

Good story. Geoff makes the noble decision not to re-live his life so that Mike could be with his pregnant wife in the future. However, anyone given the chance to be young(er) again and remake their life, would think about it for longer than Geoff did. Especially as Mike would still be able to start another family, maybe even with the same woman.

Not a bad premise, just too big an idea for the constraints.  Dialogue’s a little too on the nose to take seriously.  This needs time to breathe - to set up the rules of your device and get to know the characters for that father/son goodbye to resonate.  

Writer,

I liked this. You had nice descriptions, visualized well. You did everything you could to get some emotion out of these four pages, and it's a shame you didn't have more to work with to flesh this out a bit. Needs a little work, but this was a fine effort.

Steve