Come Saturday Mourning by Sandra E. Watson - Short, Young Adult, Horror - A greedy salesman falls further under the spell of money when he offers to assume the legacy of a haunted house, but his gold digging has repercussions- for his family and for the town. - pdf, format 8)

I love the aspect of a haunted house...great log line made me want to read it...I'm processing...there was good stuff inthere, but I'm a little lost...it was a bit disconnected for me, so I will appreciate hearing the thoughts of the writer once they can interact with the reviews.

The "simple" part of the screenplay I enjoy...just wish I could connect the dots a bit better.

Yeah, this is definitely "out there"!

There's some talent on display for sure, but I'd say this is a HUGE misfire, as it just doesn't make any sense...or maybe it's just way too much for 13 pages.  I'm pretty much clueless as to what was going through this writer's head.

The writing style comes off as very witty and unique, but I think it's one of those cases where it's style over substance...and meaning.  I couldn't picture anyone in here because of the "odd" descriptions that were used.  Many fragments didn't convey complete thoughts, so what was being said was lost for me, at least.

This didn't work and in no way at all followed the OWC requirements...no hoax whatsoever, no invasion, no warning, no nothing.  Because of this, I'm going to have to give this a very low score.  Sorry.

I think I'm with the others here in that I pretty much missed the hoax and invasion aspect of this, and I was a little unsure over what happened during the last part of it.  With that being said, I think I have a fairly good idea of who wrote this one, definitely more than the others that I've read so far.

The writer definitely knows what they're doing, and I think they took a few more liberties, given this being an OWC.  From a writing standpoint, good.  From a story standpoint, I felt it fell off just a bit in the last 5 pages or so.

I was very excited by your first piece of dialogue because it indicated some interesting story possibilities but then immediately the writing became labored. Which is a shame because I think you have created a good premise.
One of the challenges we have as storytellers is to make what we write seem effortless, as if the words flowed naturally and without exertion. Also, we need to connect with the audience emotionally, not just intellectually. Your screenplay seems to primarily be an intellectual exercise, and maybe that’s your intent. If not, then you need to review your writing style. One of our objectives should be to wholly engross the reader with our story to the extent that our writing style goes totally unnoticed – until they get to FADE OUT, then (hopefully!) they say “This writer sure knows how to tell a good story.”  
Along similar lines you might want to review the dialogue. A lot of it, especially Donald’s and Clarissa’s, comes across as contrived and on-the-nose.

The other issue to consider is structure. It might be instructive to overlay any one of the screenplay structure formats over your story to see how the different plot points align.

A few other suggestions:

•  Either drop or rework the anagram device on page four. In its present state it is obvious that it is an anagram and that it will pay off later but it is more an irritation than anything else.

• Abbreviate the descriptions on page one.

I hope this doesn’t come across as negative because I think you have the basis of a good story and the ability to tell it – love the mislead with Philip and Clarissa wearing a witch’s mask – but believe you need to rework the execution within a workable screenplay structure.

Writing is rewriting… don’t we know it!

Hey Sophia ;-)

I liked the story here, but I do have a gripe... It read like a novel...

With that being said, I did see the invasion: "The ghost", but I didn't see a hoax, so I don't think it met the challenge, but with a rewrite I think you can do that quite easily.

I liked your ghostly scenes: the letters, the ghosts. :-)

A nice Halloween story.

Cindy

Interesting... I was hooked at the beginning but I felt with each page I read I was getting farther away from the story. I don't usually guess the writers since I'm still relatively new to this site but this one reminded me a lot of a story from the last OWC that was far more original than all of the other entries yet was too ambitious for its own good.

Once this challenge ends and you're out of the confines of the 13 page limit, I'd suggest extending this. I think you did a good job laying out the ground work for the legend of the ghost but after that it picked up speed and seemed to go a little too fast to follow with ease. One idea I had was going back and adding a little more of the week between move-in day and Halloween. That way we can meet the creepy old neighbor that may or may not be part of the problem and have some time to question her motives, as well as seeing a little bit more of the father's greed. I'd also like to see a bit more haunting, as a picture frame falling down 3 times in one week along with a chandelier wouldn't be enough to scare me out of a house.

Just a thought, use what you'd like and forget the rest. I really enjoyed this one at the start and really wanted to enjoy it at the end, but I think it tried to do too much without clarification at the end, and that's where it lost me. A nice attempt and you obviously have talent and creativity. Best of luck with this one!

The script has a pair of kids and the final events do occur on Halloween, but otherwise the story doesn't follow the theme. That said, I found the idea intriguing. I don't believe I've come across a story where a house can turn people into instant seniors. However, the fate that befell Reggie seems way out of line with what his father's shortcomings deserved. Just cause a guy is a greedy jerk doesn't mean his son has to pay the ultimate price. Now, if he was a Wall Street banker...

There are a few things I'd work on if I was going to continue working on this one-week exercise:
1. The opening monologue is good, but doesn't make sense unless you've read the whole thing.
2. Eliminate the flashback with Gilbert or move it to present day at the house.
3. The lucky rocks bit went right over my head.

I'm a bit lost. Lucky Rocks - Stepford wives.  I love that you've lost me so completely.  Only one person I know could have written this script.  

I think the basic premise is good and I loved the twitty family.  Ultimately this was too big of a story for the pages because it seem crunched - some things happened too quickly like finding the clipping.  There are a lot of unexplained things in this script that would be better if you let us in on them (like the lucky rocks)  

I like this idea but it's the kind that needs to be expanded into a much larger script.  As it is right now it seems jumpy and awkard and it confuses me at many parts.  What's with the black mist only they can see?  

I'm with Cindy here, this reads more like a novel then a script, and a very confusing novel. By this I mean it's a little hard to follow and as a result I nearly gave up on this. It's a bit too wordy, if that makes sense, making some of the story read like gibberish at times.

I thought there was going to be a ghost story in here and there might have been but I missed it somewhere? There's no doubt the writing was strong but maybe you tried too hard which is why it came out like this. This was one of the longest 15 page reads I had here, it was a real trudge at times. My conclusion is...I'm not sure cos I don't really feel confident I got the story at all, sorry but I didn't like this as a result.

Well this one was certainly interesting.  The writing style here was quite strange, not that makes it a bad thing, just different, but that's okay sometimes, it did make it kind of difficult to follow the story so I think it needs to be cleaned up just a tad.  

I did find it entertaining and liked it for the most part.  There was a lot of creativity here.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to read this!

Some notes:

Bob, I was thinking the same thing about the "scare" factor. I just didn't have enough time and moved the story ahead in time- hence the picture crashing. But yes, I knew we were deficient here.

I took liberties with the length of descriptions and asides I know. I was interested in drawing up another Death of a Salesman character (the reference to Willy Loman) but in this script, I wanted him to live and to have learn to "not to care about money" in one of the hardest ways possible, by watching his son be destroyed by a disease.

I hinted at the fact that Reggie loved his father so much, that he wanted to help him along in making this discernment by taking on "the disease". This disease will bring them closer when Willy realizes that what's really important in life- his son; not all his attempts at being the "big man" making big money.

The challenge posed to Reggie by Rupert Fontaine was supposed to happen where he's approached by Rupert Fontaine's whisper, in the backyard out by the birdbath and the bench. When he asks Reggie if he loved his father.

Now that was far too subtle, I know. Like I'm expecting people to read minds- but then I was fighting the space issue.

Essentially, I had this idea that the road represented "the hard road travelled" in life and the house represented the negativity that helps people to change, grow and develop it. I wanted to show it in a bit of a positive light.

Again, too subtle and too implied, but there were supposed to be two twins who lived this very same fate already. Rupert Fontaine and his brother, who we only know as "The Photographer" in the beginning.

What I'm trying to suggest is very veiled, but that Rupert's brother is trying to remember to come back and bring his brother out of there- so he can move on in a reincarnation cycle, but in order for that to happen- another person suffering as a victim to money's spell has to come and live this experience: that's Donald. Strangely, as fate has it- destined to repeat itself, Donald brings with him his bad character traits and the innocence of his two young sons who will get caught by this same destiny that bechanced the last two twins and their father.

The hoax too was completely veiled in Donald's dialogue when he sucked people in and sold fake Shaman's rocks for what was it? A nickel a crack?

When he did this, it changed things in the town. The people didn't believe that old story ever again. So they thought when Philip and his mother were trying to give them the rocks- it was all just a hoax. The irony lies in the fact that they couldn't even give them away when they would have helped them, but when they were useless things, they'd be willing to pay.

I liked the idea of having Rupert Fontaine- be a trouble brewing in the back yard and that people were blind to the trouble, even though it was so close to them. I think in reality, we are often that way- blind to the trouble in our own backyards.

I wanted to show Rupert as being completely anonymous in black and we only get to see his diseased form inside the opened grave, until the end, when he walks down out of that sorry street with his brother. We still don't know for sure what he looks like, but we DO know what the photographer looks like and they're twins: so we can guess he's very handsome indeed.

I was playing with metaphors in this thing- taking liberties, but I really did enjoy writing this one.

Thanks to everyone again!

Sandra

If anyone wants to have at 'er with a rewrite here: go for it.

I'm too swamped to work on this right/write now! :)

Sandra