The Lost Ghost by Gregory J. Baldwin (Greg) - Short, Gothic Horror - They say a dog is a man's best friend, but how far would someone go to be with their canine companion?

Dogglebe's Halloween Writing Exercise entrant - pdf, format 8)

The format, and the use of language, are very competent -- but at the same time, they are somehow foreign and unfamiliar.  I am almost certain that I have not read anything by this author before.  Hmm...

(SPOILERS)

*  The boys are great.  Obviously written by someone who actually knows a few kids.  You can always tell.
*  Great conversation between Sid and Jason during the chess game.  And Sid gets his ass kicked.  That's good, too.
*   A chupacabra?  Now wait a minute.  Wasn't this a movie on the SciFi network a few weeks ago?  I thought it sounded like a Taco Bell menu item then, too.  Seems kinda weird that Chuck is such an expert.
*  I do like where you go with this angle, though.  Very much.  But once we hit the museum, Chuck is starting to sound a bit like an encyclopedia.

And it ends well.  The kind where you smile.  Ain't nothing wrong with that.  Nice work on this one.  Very well written, with characters that I grew to like -- particularly the brothers.  I'll be very curious to see who this story belongs to.  

As with almost all of these shorts, the characters are really quite good.  This has a nice slow rise to a satisfying conclusion, and it's the kind of thing that would leave you with that creepy feeling watching it alone at night.

I thought this was solid.

Whoever wrote this is very good with dialogue and character interaction.  Chuck and Jason were written in a very natural way and were extremely believeable as brothers.

Your narrative needs a little bit of work.  Several times, you describe things in ways that can't be shown on film.  Examples of this include describing the brothers as 'hyper, outgoing and altogether troublemaking boys.'  We really can't see this when they're sitting in the van.  On page thirteen, you wrote, 'Jason gets offensive.'  I don't know what that means.  Everything should be described visually.

A problem I had with the story concerned....

SPOILER SPACE

...bringing up Chupacabra.  Are you telling me that no one knows what a dead dog looks like?  Even after all these years, anyone seeing Serenity on display wouldn't go,  "Isn't that a dog?"  Wouldn't Nanny, as a girl have seen or heard about it.  She read thte newspaper article.  Wouldn't she look at the photo.  You described it as the splitting image of Serenity.

I think if you fix this problem and tighten up the narrative, you'd have a really good story on yours hands.


Phil

Isn't Chupacabra Spanish for 'goat sucker'. Anyway, I agree with Phil that it's a little strange that they wouldn't recognise it as a dog. I also thought it was weird that they had a museum in such a small town.

All that stuff aside, I enjoyed this. The characters were well drawn, especially the kids. Their interaction is very natural and entertaining. The story as a whole worked well for me although you possible spent a little too long setting things up.

Overall, good characters, good dialogue and a satisfying conclusion.

I'm getting a "page not found" when I try to open this. If I successfully open it later, I'll replace this post with a review.

A chupacabra is a little mythical beast in Latin America.  If you do an image search, you'll get a good picture of what they look like.  And yes, it was used for a very bad movie on the sci-fi channel.

Thanks all

This is one that went into my pile and got buried. Sorry for the delay.

Overall, I like it. It’s very well written and I particularly like the family aspect of it. I enjoyed spying on the boys and their adventures. I think this author would be very good at writing a family flick or an adventure centering around kids.

The only real liability in my opinion was the chupacabra thing. I, for the life of me, simply could not accept the notion that people would mistake a dog (or dog bones) for the legendary Latin American beast blamed for countless goat deaths.

I also could not understand why Nanny would not have, during her lifetime, pointed out that it was Serenity in the museum.

Other than that one thing, which I would consider to be a crippling plot hole, I thoroughly enjoyed this writer’s style.

There has been much written at this site about how many poorly written scripts there are and, in my opinion, not enough about the quality ones. Personally, I would like to see more of the poor scripts by non-serious writers go ignored and the better written ones receive more attention.

This script has only a few minor things to be addressed and is otherwise very well done.

Breanne

This is a new draft to the script I submitted for the Halloween writing thingy.  Fixed up some things, added a line here and there, and altered the chupacabra bit.  Enjoy.  By next  week I hope that my barrage of work will be over and I can get back to reading on a consistent basis.

This was a pretty enjoyable read. You have a nice touch for writing kids. You convey their obnoxiousness very well but still manage to make them seem real and not like charicatures. Nice. The ghostly bits were very well done also. Very subtle as suiting for gothic horror. Very few problems here except for on page 4, you say Jason was named after a dog named Jessie. You mean Jason, I think. Also, Chuck talks Jason into breaking the glass pretty easily. I think Jason'd have more sense in that. Chuck could be a little more persuasive but it's not a big deal. All in all, a nice little ghost story. Good job.

Hey Greg, you´ve managed to come up with a decent storyline based on a very challenging premise: gothic horror at a dog-run if I recall correctly.

Your strongest point was characterization; all your characters felt real people. Specially the two brothers, those two had me chuckling a couple of times.

My only problem was with the progression of the story; I found it was a bit forced in some parts. In  the chess scene, Jason makes some strange questions to Sid. His lines felt more like the writer moving the story forward than a kid speaking naturally. I felt the same in the dog run scene after Chuck finds the newspaper; suddenly Chuck seemed to know too much.

Another part that felt a little bit forced was LIL´s 'It started getting foggy right before she died.' Why would she link a relative´s death to a weather change? I would, because I´m reading an horror script. But she isn't.

Format was great except for a couple of minor details:

You can perfectly tell this story without any camera directions; I guess you know that the inclusion of these scream 'amateur'. The reader will only 'see' what you describe, nothing else; including INSERT and BACK TO SCENE is a waste of space.

Is up to the director to decide which scene transitions (CUT, DISSOLVE, etc) to include, so you don't need the FADE OUT in the middle of the script.

Stick to present tense. 'Exiting the van is MIRANDA CARPENTER (33)' can easily become 'MIRANDA CARPENTER (33) exits the van'

Don't repeat information. In the first page you've got a SUPER to establish location followed by an INSERT of a road sign which basically gives the same information. You can keep the sign and loose the SUPER.

It's ok to give relevant information, like establishing this is a small town with low population. But it doesn't seem relevant  to know that this town is located '100 miles south of Monterrey' Maybe it was in the previous draft which I didn't read? If it is still relevant, I missed it.

Overall, and despite the previous comments, this was a good read for me. Well done.

Hey Greg,
I just read this one.
I have a couple nit picking things... the "ing". I noticed a couple of them... The boys are washing their hands, Jason is now standing in the center of the room. Easy fix, the boys wash their hands, Jason stands in the center of the room.

I liked the boys. My favorite line was one by Chuck when his brother told him he saw his great grandmother's ghost. Chuck came back with, "Cool. Did she give you money?" LOL Cute!

Now about the "mysterious bones". I agree with the others that people would know what dog bones looks like...

Suggestion:
You describe the coast, and the house being next close to it. Also the next town is very far away...
Why don't you play off of the coast. Turn these young boys into adventurers who scope the area, and find the dog bones hidden within the rocks somewhere. Maybe have the grandmother guide them toward the discovery, and when they find the bones. She could show them what happened, take them to that exact moment of when the dog is in trouble, and her yelling for the dog in the distance.
Maybe the great grandmother had a neighbor who didn't like their dog and did something to it, either threw a ball over the cliff, and the dog followed it over or maybe the neighbor was a trapper, and caught the dog in a trap somewhere.
The newspaper that the grandmother kept could be about the neighbor dying. That's why the grandma kept it... She hated the creep.

I liked the ending when the fog was lifted.
All in all an enjoyable read.
Cindy

Hey Cindy, thanks for the words!  I do like your suggestion alot.  There's alot of detail about the coast and the ocean and fog and stuff so working off that would probably move the story along alot smoother.  I'll definitely consider that!

Mr. Z, sorry! I just noticed your review here.  Thank you for your words as well.  I think I'm going to start eliminating the INSERTS from my writing.  Using quotes helps things flow better I think.

Anyway, thank you both!

Hey,

Beside a few spelling errors you have great formatting and your character's have awesome dialogue.

Chuck and Jason finally figure out that the dog's bones had to be buried. I like the story. There's not much wrong with it. Your actions seemed to be very visual.

Are you going to write any more ghost stories? This was good.

Dan

Greg,

this was a pretty good short, I thought it flowed nicley,and you wrote the kids quite well, but I think Chuck agrees with Jason a little to quickly near the end, through out the script he is always bugging and teasing him about how Nanny's ghost is just make believe, but then in a line or two he's like, okay I beleive you, I think there needs to be a little more to convince him.

there are no page numbers, but near the end Jason says "no, I mean, what if the master still looks for them" didn't sound right to me, maybe "no, I mean, what if the master is still looking for them"  

in the end this was a solid read, especially considering this was one of those 1 week thingys(when are we gonna have another one of those, they were pretty cool)

good work :)

Hey Jordan, thanks for checking this out.  I see your criticisms and I thank you for pointing them out.  I don't know if I'll do another rewrite but I probably should seeing as I want to film this one day.  Hmmm...Harmony is relatively close too.  All sorts of gnarley possibilities  :X

Thanks again for reading and I promise that I'll get to your stuff soon enough.  Promise

Greg, I really enjoyed this.

you did a great job with Chuck and james and their little banter.  It worked really well, and held extremely true to life.

Other than that, this was a nice little ghost story.  You did well with the whole one week prompt thing.  However, the ending felt a bit rushed.  I felt as though James and Chuck should have definetely said something as they barried the dog.  The endng though, with the voice over with sid and James worked really well, I could totally see that working as well as the visual with the fog breaking revealing the sun onceagian.  This would be more powerful though, if every time you cut to a sene you keep the fog in the description.  I kind of forgot it was their until it was cleared.

One other thing that kind of threw me off was when James asked about the dog, the grandma gave a response, and the mom said "he was just asking", as iff the Grandma was bitter about, however, i sensed no bitterness.  Should their be bitterness?

That's it.  Good job.

-Tyler

*Spoilers*

Okay, I promised recently that I'd read something a little more representative than Ass Spider.  

Decided to pick the Lost Ghost - I'm a sucker for dog stories, so it seemed a natural fit.

Overall, I did like it.  But I think there's much more that could be done with it...this story's got the potential to make a lasting impression as a gothic piece, and pack much more of an emotional punch than it currently does.

A few nit-picking formatting/typo issues (just to get them out of the way):

We never get the ages for Sid and Lil - they're just described as two folks in their twilight years.

On page 5, Miranda walks over "a" window.  ("to" is missing.)  

On page 16, Jason makes the comment "Is the mysterious creature you I wonder?"  Kind of awkward and unclear - though I know what you were getting at.  

Not big stuff at all, but figured I'd point them out, in the event of a planned rewrite.

As for the story:  

It's strange, because in places it seemed too drawn out (when you're developing the boy's interaction and sibling banter) and then suddenly too short.  The existence of "the mysterious creature" is revealed too close to the end.  As a result, the boys' understanding of what happened to Serenity, and the subsequent theft of her remains seem rushed.  (It also seems terribly convenient that the remains have been stored in a museum all these years--and that it's never been recognized as a dog-- but I don't think there's any way around that one...)  Also, how exactly does Jodi's seizure fit into the ghost story?  Is it a coincidence, or does Nanny cause it for some malevolent reason?  And why the heck didn't Nanny tell everyone it was Serenity, when she clearly knew?

That aside, I think the story would work better with more even development.  Less with the kids fighting, a little more with the backstory.  Maybe even a flashback to Nanny and Serenity during happier times, to really get the audience invested in their emotional bond (which after all, has even transcended death.)  FWIT, Sid's a great character.  Use him more, too.  And he's got the best line in the whole script (Well, then they're a devoted person.)  BTW - I really like Cindy's suggestions (back in 2006) regarding changes to the plot.  IE: Serenity being killed by a neighbor, and Nanny guiding the boys to her bones for proper burial.  That would sidestep all these other issues - and really, really work well with the setting of the story.

But cheers, re: the script.  A fun read.  Put more emotion into it, and it's something that could stick with me.  (IMHO.)

Hi Janet,

Thanks for your read and review on this.  Admittingly I haven't reworked much of the script's story since its 2006 posting, just a few format gaffes.  To answer a few of your questions for what I was thinking:

Quoted from wonkavite (It also seems terribly convenient that the remains have been stored in a museum all these years--and that it's never been recognized as a dog-- but I don't think there's any way around that one...)  Also, how exactly does Jodi's seizure fit into the ghost story?  Is it a coincidence, or does Nanny cause it for some malevolent reason?  And why the heck didn't Nanny tell everyone it was Serenity, when she clearly knew?

Actually in the first posting of this the townspeople thought the "mysterious corpse" was a chupacabra.  I know, what the hell, right?  What I was trying to do was create this thing that was so badly decomposed that no one could tell exactly what it was --- even with the bone structure featured in the town museum.  And it being 100 years ago in a tiny town, people may be more susceptible to believing odd things...like the Loch Ness monster for example (though it would be really awesome if Nessie is real).  

Nanny not telling anyone; that was again my attempt at going for a close-minded tiny town feel where something is found as fact and there's no other way to believe, especially since she was just a little girl at the time.  The story kinda parallels Jason's ordeal of seeing the ghost but no one believing him at first and then he takes it upon himself to solve the riddle.

Jodie's seizure - quasi-malevolent in the sense that the ghost wanted to get attention and Jason was the best person for that.  Something to add to the story may be to give the ghost some anger over the situation which, I think, would lead that to making more sense.

Thanks again for taking the time to look at this!  Much appreciated.

Greg