Havoc Encounter by Lisa Clark (fuzzylovin) - Short, Young Adult, Horror - Mac and Louise the town trouble makers, experience first hand an alien invation set to take over there town. The only problem is no one will believe them and they are the only two that can save the day - 13 pages. - rtf, format 8)

Your script is the first OWC script I read, Huey...if that is your real name.  I had a lot of problems reading it.  I'm going to guess that English is not your first language as a lot of what you wrote was hard to understand.  I'm not going to list the misspellings and typos, as they're not the important thing here.

Formatting problems were there from the get-go.  

Quoted Text EXT.HILL TOP.EARLY MORNING Early morning, day just breaking, another year passed as the day of the dead creeps it's self up yet again. October 31st - house's of decorated spooks ready for the raise of the candy eating children once more.

Your first descriptive scene is more emmotional than it is visual or auditory.  And things should not be described this way.  You should describe things in way that can be recorded by the camera; that's all.  Camera cannot record feelings, only what they see and hear.

Your descriptions could be a little more detailed.  You kept describing the space ship as a giant soda can, which I found to be distracting.  I kept picturing 'Diet Pepsi' to be along the side of it.  Did you mean to describe it as cylindrical?

Now, onto the story....

I thought the story was very rushed.  While I know that the rules say twelve pages in length, and you only had a week to write it, I would like to have seen this a little longer.  There is a good story, here.  It just needs a little bit of nurturing.

Hope this helps.


Phil

Okay...here we go...initially the story starts and I think it is going to go somewhere...then it turns in a different direction...

Spelling is a big issue, fractured sentences....but I got what you were trying to get across...

The first half was okay...then it got completely silly...so many disconnects on time frame. Example: the boys are at one place and then the the next...everyone is at a town meeting...it just didn't connect for me.

A good effort on concept, but it needs a bit of work on execution...

~m~

OK, not to be harsh or mean, but this is pretty bad.  It comes off as a complete comedy, and I doubt that was the intent.  There are so many mistakes on every page, it's almost as if you purposely wrote it this way.  Worst mistake, over and over is the use of '.  As someone else said, maybe English isn't your first language...if that's the case, I understand.

Read more scripts and try to use some sort of spellcheck.

Havoc is right!


Actually, I thought it was kind of cute.  It was naive and the style it was written in and the dialogue sort of reminded me of a Windsor Mc Cay comic, just sort of.   The novelty wore off rather fast though and I found myself struggling to get through the rest of the pages.  

You made lots of typos, your dialogue pressed against my nose so hard I could hardly breathe, but I did think you had a story there and I did like some of the images you conjured up - especially at the end.

About the only thing I can suggest to you is to keep writing.  And read scripts, see how other people format their scripts and how they write dialogue and actions.  With writing, practice does make perfect (well not always perfect but close enough).  

I agree with the others. Two positives you might be able to take from this is that formatting software is easy to get (even for free) and it dramatically changes how things appear. The other one is that if you are new to screenwriting everybody has big problems when they first start. The conventions take time to learn and just when you think you have them another one turns up to shoot you down!

very descriptive...try using more dialogue than direction to get your message across...fix your formatting issues and you'll be on your way!!  try getting your hands on a copy of final draft, or download celtix and practice, practice, practice...you've got the imagination...good luck...see you at the next owc

peace,
db

p.s. don't forget to CAPITALIZE the name of a speaking character in your screenplay the first time he/she appears in your story...

I like your description of the alien ship looking like a large soda can.

What is it that these aliens want anyways? They're not killing people, but caging them. Hmmm...

Try and be more detailed than just: green alien creatures. When Mac first encounters them, work on their picture-- detailed, but as concise as possible and also work on Mac's reaction: How Mac reacts tells us about him as a character.

In short, as I often say, work on character.

You've made a good effort here.

Sandra