Sunday by Cindy L. Keller - Short, Drama - An eleven year old boy participates in an event after a family bar-be-que that makes him realize how much he cares about his pesky little sister.     A July, 2006 One Week Writing Challenge Entry - rtf, format 8)

This one has nothing to do with a barbeque. There is the end of a picnic going on but no mention of what they’re eating (other than potato chips) and nothing else to show their picnic involved barbeque. No mention of a grill or sauce or anything.

Still, as a story all its own, it carries a certain sweetness. I think the writer is perhaps fairly young. The writing is a little raw but it does have plenty of signs of crafting going on. It doesn’t feel totally thrown together. And as I said, it has a certain sweetness.

****SPOILERS****

It’s a simple story of a potential disaster at the beach that facilitates a pivotal moment of awareness for a young man. True, this story doesn’t attempt to tie it all together into a neat package but its unrefined qualities give it a little bit of genuineness. People often do just take a moment in stride at the time and ponder it later rather than instantly, so I wasn’t bothered by the lack of resolution in the fact that the main character never really fully “transforms.”

For what it is, it’s like snapshots from a family album. It’s sweet. Not bittersweet as it could have been. But sweet.

A few small things:

Shreaks - shrieks

Seperating - separating

This was a decent read but I think it could have been better. I think it took too long to get to the main plot, being the disappearance of the little boy. The first couple pages of the story were mostly introducing characters and there was a good amount, which made reading somewhat disorienting. The overal premise was a good one, I think. Simple but engaging.

All in all, not bad.

I thought this was a decent read as well.

I agree with James in that it took a little while before the story got going and that there were one or two characters too many. It got confusing. I think two or three kids for Midge and Charlie would've been plenty.

The woman running around looking for Billy brought back memories of Jaws. I have three kids myself and it's frightening when you can't find one of them.

It was a good read I think even if it was more like a picnic at the lake than a family BBQ.
You did stick to drama though, so good job on that.
:)

This one seemed kind of long -- and seemed to have an awful lot of characters -- for a story where not too much happens.

The "spanking guy" character is one in particular that I would second guess including in this story.  I am not sure if he is supposed to be comical, but as it's written now, he just comes off as really strange.  But maybe that was the author's intent?

The scene where they sweep the water, hand-in-hand, is quite good, though.  Probably the best in the script.  This scene would be very tense and visual.  However, I would recommend including this only once, not twice.  Going all the way through this lengthy process a second time would probably be exasperating to watch.

At the end, this story delivers a very straightforward message.  That isn't a bad thing.  But I question the decision to bring in a generic missing child and another generic nervous mother.  Why not use the characters we already have in place?

This is a nice enough story as you have it now -- but I think the impact of this story might be improved if you replaced the missing child with Lisa herself, and the mother with Midge -- characters we have actually met, and in whom we already have a bit of an investment.

This story had a nice message but I feel you made it much more complex by including way too many characters.  If this the middle of a feature then sure, but it's only 12 pages and there's all these people and it's hard to keep track of them.  That was my main beef with this one.

The message is pretty much realizing what you have and how precious some things are which we take for granted and you do a fine job at expressing that with Art and his sister.  The human chain deal was a nice touch also.  In fact, the thing that this story really demonstrates is human nature at its best, which is always a nice thing to see.

That's why it's so awkward with the spanking guy.  Deliberate or not, it's very strange that this guy yells out to spank the kid and even more strange that people around him are nodding.  If it were a comedy then I'd go with that, but it's not, so it seems out of place.

Overall it was a pretty sweet story.  Nice work

Well I will agree with the others before me. It starts slowly and almost made me give up, but I sympathized with that sweet little girl, Lisa and I continued reading till the end. About the family barbecue, I think you had to mention  all things that there are in a barbecue in the begin, not just in Charlie's first line.

Good work anyway.

JIT, hey, I  wanted to spank that little boy in his ass too. Billy! Billy you almost killed me, boy! Wow!

*JIT means just in time.

My input here would be in echoing Bert's sentiments about the generic lost boy and the generic nervous mother. You created some characters we can potentially care about, but then place the drama in a parallel subplot. The main characters were never in any danger. They just participated in the real drama that we never got any part of. That was the real weakness here. We could have had more emotional involvement and a more realistic realization had the missing child been Lisa and not the unknown Billy.

As other readers mentioned, this family doesn't need to be that big. Two brothers and one of the parents should be enough to tell this tale. The script will benefit big time if you get to the missing child earlier.

The script doesn't fully deliver the message hinted in your logline. If you want to make this tale about Art's growth in loving his sister, then tell the story from his P.O.V. And, like George suggested, make Lisa dissapear.

The human chain visual was the strongest moment of your story, as other readers mentioned.

I know I'm alone on this one but I chuckled when reading the spanking guy complaints. I would only suggest to cut down his dialogue lines a bit. His first comment should be enough for the comedic effect intended; don't make him talk that much.

The elements for a good OWE short are all here, you'll just have to rearrenge them a bit for this to fully work.

This one kinda stretched the theme, it wasn't bad, but it confused me.

I did like the whole "you're going to get crabs" bit.  that made me laugh.

I think the other posts have said what needs to be fixed in order for this to work so I won't bother repeating it.

It was a good effort but I think it fell short.

anyways, Good try :)

Thank you to everyone who took the time to read and comment on this little script.

This was actually a true story that took place one Sunday afternoon after our family bar-be-que at the lake.

Yep, Lisa was me  :B and Art was himself.  :)

This was a lot different than the stuff that I usually write about, but it was still a lot of fun to do.

Cindy

Sweet story. I agree with all critique. Also most of the scenes include more than one of beach/lake/picnic area. I don't see a point in writing 3 locations which are kinda the same. You could just've used Beach for all the story.

Hey Mecir,
Thank you for reading my script.
I guess I could have used lake for the whole thing, but there where passages of time, and I wanted it to be on that location at that time.
I threw this one together quickly for the one week challenge.
Anyway, thank you for taking the time to read it.  :)
Cindy

Lovely story full of pieces of life. You precisely describe everything and I perfectly sighted every detail, every meaning, and every move of little Lisa. The dialogs are good and simple, just as everyday's life. Relationship between Art and Lisa are perfect. Certainly inspired by a real life story. If I may say so, Jean's character is not very useful and rather blank.

Good job. I really liked it.

Michel 8)

Hey michel,
Thanks for reading my script. It was just a blast from the past.
It is only one reason why Lisa sees Art as brave, and a hero. Art also saved her from a cattle stampede on their uncle's farm, and from getting hit by a train when her shoe got stuck in the tracks. He'll always be her number 1 hero.  :) Super Art.  ;D

Cindy