Body Horror by Daniel Silman - Short, Young Adult, Horror - It is October 31st and a community is being invaded, however everyone thinks it's a hoax. Two kids know the real truth...  - doc, format 8)

I don't think it really fit the originated theme, as contructed by dear old Don, but then again, hardly anybody did. I felt the narrative (action) could have been slimmed down, and could have used a little bit more suspense; maybe add in some '--' cut-ins, illustrating a sudden, abrupt, action.

As I read the first two pages, I immediately recalled scenes from Zodiac; two teenagers in a car, then a sudden beam of light -- could it be the cops? Nonetheless, it was an alright read with some spelling errors, and campy dialogue.

The writing is pretty good here. There are a bunch of mistakes, but the vast majority of these OWC's are also filled with them.

I don't think this meets the requirements of the OWC either, but the story is original, and filled with horror and gore...probably way too much for the YA theme.

Good effort though...I enjoyed the read, didn't know where it was going, and that's saying something.

Tried to find something I liked about this one but couldn’t. Actions seem all wrong, dialogue inconsistent and didn’t drive the story forward, nor did it help the characters cause.  Sort of a B grade blood and cuts slasher story. Didn’t stick to the criteria for OWC. - Walford

Not sure about this one yet...still thinking about it actually...there are parts that I liked, but a few things don't work well at least for me.  

If there were more time to develop it, there is some originality and the characters have potential.

This was pretty over the top and rather disjointed. The gore was a bit too much for a YA horror, this would clearly be an 18 if released, which takes out half of your target market.

I felt the attacks and transformations were very random and the dialogue was probably the thing that troubled me the most. It seemed like you didn't put any thought into your secondary characters and they just said whatever came into your head first.

Challenge-wise, I don't think it hit the YA genre, it hit the horror part and had the invasion. I'm not so sure about the hoax part, I think that was a little weak.

I can't say I was hapy with this one.  The descriptions ran way too long and described things incorrectly.

Quoted Text Teenagers MIKE SHOLE and LIZZIE TEMPINO are getting it on. Mike is wearing blue jeans and a white t-shirt. Lizzie is wearing white jeans and a blue t-shirt. They’re already at the color coding stage of the relationship but Lizzie pulls back.

could be better written as:

Quoted Text MIKE SHOLES and LIZZIE TEMPINO (both 17) make out in a car.

Details like what they're wearing and where they are in their relationship is unimportant.  Just describe things as the camera can record them.  This short would be a page shorter.

The dialogue seemed very disjointed, as other have mentioned.  You need to learn how people really talk.  It's much different than how they write.  Read your dialog aloud and see if it sounds right.  A great way to learn dialog is to record people when they talk and then transcribe it on people.

The story, itself, was interesting.  I like how you made the teens both the enemy as well as the victims that no one listened to.  Very original.


Phil

I thought this was way too violent for a young adult script.  Maybe for the very older end of things but definitely too much for the younger. Also the invasion aspect was light.  Were they invading?  It didn't quite sound like they were based upon the vision in the beginning - though maybe they were.  

I thought this story had  potential and that it was well written but I wasn't so fond of the end.  If these creatures were so bent on getting to the dance and doing their thing then they would have had mechanisms in place to prevent the two kids from doing them harm.  The creatures were able to control them to some extent.  It was far too easy for them to do themselves in.  

And as a little nit, why did you feel it necessary to tell us what they were wearing?  

This one was a little weird, it felt like a hard-R slasher. I wasn't able to discern any reason why they would change from werewolf to human, so that part of the script remains unexplained. Also the deaths were rather graphic for being a "young adult" script.

I would suggest going into more depth about the invasion, who/what is it, why it affects the teens in the way it does and build up the tension and fear a little more so that we actually care about what's happening/will happen to the characters. As it stands right now everything is very well described, but the story doesn't have much substance. I'd expand this to focus more on the story & character development.

Body Horror

This wasn't a young adult genre.

Things to keep in mind:

Work on developing the characters. I never learned to care about Lizzie and Mike because they were stock teenage characters.

When you write things like:

Lizzie and Mike realize where they are.

It isn't a visual representation for screen.


Sandra