Omaha Street by Alonzo Anderson (Blackshogun21) - Drama - A teen runaway responsible for the death of a young boy is sentenced to house arrest with the grieving family. 134 pages - pdf, format 8)

Wow! A very nice read. I realy enjoyed the overall story quite a bit.

Here are my issues with the piece.
1) He would have been charged with involuntary vehicular man slaughter for starters. For this crime the judge was way too hard on him. Generally when something like this happens the person, especially a child, would not be put through the ringer the way Kody was. Most likely he would not have even been charged.

2) The dialougue in some parts really bothered me. What is the race of your characters? At first I think I'm reading about a bunch of white people, and then the ghetto slang comes in and I think they're black and then they go back to talking like white people. Just a little inconsistent.

3) At the end Kody asks Amber what Leukemia is. This made no sense to me since Kody was the one who knew about the Boxer Rebellion and classical music. You made Kody a very smart character. He would know what Leukemia was and that it was fatal.

Like I said, I really enjoyed the overall story. I think a few tweakings and you really have a script with some major potential. Good Job!

I liked the description of this story so i read it. A great idea! But there were a few problems.

Right away, it's revealed that (1) Kody doesn't want to live w/ the grieving family... that he'd rather be in jail. And (2) if he makes even just one mistake, he's out of there and headed to jail. So if he doesn't want to be there, why doesn't he just do something wrong?

The premise, like Pants said, seems off. It's difficult to believe... especially when two out of the three family members are against it. Maybe this could be set up just a little differently?

I would've liked to have had the family members ages. I couldn't right away tell the children from the adults. It wasn't until page 102 that I learned that Kody was 16. (I knew he was a teen, but he could've been 14 or 17)

Somethings just seemed to come out of nowhere. There was a point, after a two week jump, when Kody was no longer talking to Melanie. This seemed sudden and on a personal level, saddened me... there interaction was my favorite. Not a big deal. Maybe it was just the two week jump I didn't like?

Also, as Pants said, the leukemia thing came way to late and out of nowhere. I know you set it up that way, but it doesn't, imo, work.

Really tho, what this story is missing is a sense of tension. Other than what might or might not have happened to Kody when he started school, I wasn't on the edge of my seat.

So many dramatic directions this could've taken or explored... all the emotion that could've been brought to the surface. But it was flat. A lot of what the adults had to say to Kody seemed technical. Dry.

More family turmoil.... why does the mom want Kody there? We know the obvious reason. The stated reason. But there must be another, hidden, reason. A kind of subtext. Maybe I missed it?

Also, why are all the adult... and most of the kids, such good people? Doesn't Kody need an antagonist?

okay, you've got an interesting story. I just think you're maybe a draft or two away from a really good story.