Dark by Steve McDonell (stevie) - Short, Horror - A father and son camp out in their backyard. The dark surrounds them...7 pages - pdf, format 8)

Thanks Don!

This was a second entrant for OWC i didn't get done in time. It's my first attempt at this genre and is heavily influenced by Stephen King.

Cheers stevie

Stevie,

I see this was intended for the OWC. If it had been entered I would have commented that kids and animals were supposed to be avoided.

I thought this was a cute story. It took place at night so it took place in the dark. The story itself was just a tad to cute for me to fit in with the Dark theme. Don't let that bother you. Obviously you and I write completely different types of stories which is fine.

I think your story here would have been perfect for a family friendly Halloween OWC. The story wasn't bad at all, just a little too PG for my taste.

Btw, I didn't really see what was heavily influenced by King...

Pia  :)

Stevie,

I'm not a family movies kind of guy to be honest.  This was alright despite the lack of horror or a dark theme IMO.  I can't fault your writing.  7 pages, quick read and a breeze... so good job nevertheless.

Keep up the good work

Ghostwriter

Hey, Stevie. I also could not make the deadline in time. I'm still getting used to the whole working college student thing -- LOL.

I kind of liked this. Personally, this reminded me of R.L. Stine, the young people writer, more than King. But it was a good effort.

Notes: Don't use underscores in your scripts. You used them twice here. Just stick to dashes. And try to capitalize your title.

Keep it up!  

--Julio

Thanks for the read, guys!

Pia - yeah, I knew about the kid ban; I think there were a number of scripts in the OWC that ignored some of the limts.  Animal? Where's the animal in this one?
I agree it is sort of family though has the potential to be nastier. I guess cos it was my try at wriiting horror it came out sort of 'friendly'. By King's influence, I mean the way some of his older short stories have that flavour rooted in home values, then the horor kicks in; does that make sense?

Ghost(not sure of your real name) - cheers man, for the kind words. I'm a little surprised you think there's not much 'dark' in it - it hints at the classic childhood fears, and there's a dark mystery of what's in the bushes. I agree there isn't much horror though.

Julio - thanks buddy. Have heard of Stine but haven't read him. I could've got this in before my parody one but that was priority. Then I was sick th elast 2 days of the challenge and writing wasn't possible!
Just on your technical stuff: I went under the guidelines(from the class on SS) to use underscores when dialogue is interrupted, and ellipses(...) when dialogue is paused. Maybe someone will give us more info on it?
Oh, and the title is meant to be lowercase!  as in 'dark'. I used that in the submission but don must've thought it was a typo! i wanted something different so its' 'dark' - no uppercase, no full stop.

Oh, one more thing - Wade's childhhod story is based on my experiences grwoing up in small country town. I had to light the heater each night, in the OUTSIDE laundry, and i used to be shit scared!

Cheers all, stevie

Stevie, This was just okay for me. You really nail the father and son realtionship though. You have room for a flashback here. Showing Wade turning off the lights as A child. Something dark coming for him when he turns back because he forgot one.

To me, it's very creepy when A child realizes his own father, his hero,  is petrified about something. The ending could be changed for a little dose of that IMO. A little darker.

Nice work and congrats on the OWC. Your scripts are always enjoyable to read. Probably cuz they're not dark...

Hi James, thanks for the read. And congrats again for you for your OWC script!

Yeah, i made my missus read this(she never reads my stuff- whinges about trying to read on a screen...typical) and she mentioned she thought i was gonna have Wade say he saw something behind him, when he was a kid.

I dunno; i had the idea for this and I just kind of wrote it. The main inspiration was from remembering my own fear of the dark as a kid(which still lingers on occaisons). Also I wanted to see how I went trying something new.
i had another idea for a third entry(!). It was about a mysterius new rock band called The Dark, who come from nowhere and their music storms the charts. The whole world seems to go crazy over them(sounds familiar). The end was gonna have them to be an advance party for an alien invasion, the alien race being called the Dark.

Cheers again James. There's no Beatle reference in this either! I thought it might be time to grow the fuck up! Also i couldn't be bothered...

BTW, where is the armpit where you live? Cleveland?

Quoted from stevie BTW, where is the armpit where you live? Cleveland?

Very perceptive for an aussie. We were just voted most miserable city in America... Based on weather, sports teams, dwindling population and the like. Plan your next holiday here? Highly recommended.

Off to shovel snow.

Stevie,

I agree with most everything that's been said. The dialogue is pretty cute and natural, so kudos on that.

I would watch lines like "He reaches out an unseen hand"; it's phrased a bit awkwardly and, though we suspect it's the father's hand, it's not abundantly clear.

Anthony

I thought this was a cute story, an adolescent horror piece.

My big gripe over it is that it needs a lot of tightening.  Cut back on the banter between Ben and Wade.  You won't lose anything and the script will read that much faster.

You should continue the conversation between your characters when you show the shadow creature outside.  It's very lopsided when Wade and Ben are going on and on... and then you have silence outside the tent... and then Wade and Ben talking some more.  


Phil

Hi Anthony and Phil, thanks for the read and comments!

Yeah, good points about the length of the conversation. I knew it was getting away from me a bit. Because I was reminiscing about my youth for Wade's story, it got longer.
Great idea, Phil, about having them talk for the EXT scenes! I like it.

Anthony, am still working through GA. Will try and finish asap. cheers

PS- Phil, you were almost mute on the radio show! Were you totally blind drunk?! But it was an engrossing interview with Johnny the reader, so i guess we can forgive you!

I wasn't drinking at all that night.  And I don't think you know me well enough to make comments like this.


Phil

My apologies, Phil.

I liked this stevie - a father and son's creepy night in a tent.  

But some the dialogue did strike me like it was out of the Andy Griffith show, not that there's anything wrong with that.

Also, I would have liked a bit more of mythos about this shadow.   Somehow the ending seemed a bit Deus Ex Machina to me.

Not bad for your first go at horror.

Michael

Hi Michael, thanks for the read and review.

Agrred, some of the dialogue is a tad off. Most of my scripts are set in the US (don't ask me why - maybe cos most of the SS crew are American?), but it's hard to keep it from being distilled with my Aussie psyche. So  sometimes my dialogue comes out as a hybrid.
I wasn't sure what to do about the creature, so deliberately left it as unknown. Who knows, it could be a person, malformed and twisted.

The deam bit might seem convenient, I guess. I didn't plan it that way! I thought it would be somethig different! Guess I haven't seen enough horror films; certainly none of the recent crop.

Cheers stevie

Hey stevie,

I have to say I didn't really get into the story all that much. I think the major problem is all these talks about the dark and then the ending just comes out of nowhere.

Some of the dialogue sound unnatural to me, especially Ben's. Sometimes he doesn't seem like talking to his dad. "I bet she's up there now, taking up all of your bed"

I was actually interested in Wade's bedtime story about him going to the toilet and had to turn off each of the lights when he comes back. But then his story is not that important to the overall script. Even without that story, the shadow will still hunt them down, right?

Some tightenings can be done on the first two pages. It was just Ben and Wade bantering about whether to go back inside or not. The true story didn't start until Wade talks about the dark.

I didn't get the ending about the killing shadows. It's not like Wade had encountered this when he was going to the toilet when he was a kid.

It's okay, but not too memorable. Just my two cents.


Herman

Stevie

I see this is your first jab at horror.

Not too bad, a pretty formulaic story stops this being anything more than average, in my opinion. This type of scare has been done many times before, from the unamed evil presence (seen to us, unseen to the characters) to the ill-fated camping experience to the dream device right before the protagonist's fears are confirmed thus pulling the rug out from under the audience.

But to be fair, this did seem aimed at a younger age group and that should be taken into account when assessing it.

Well written, prose-wise, short, concise although the dialogue, (particularly from Ben) suffered from on-the-nose(itis) I dunno, you have kids, I don't, so you would know first hand how a kid interacts with his father but Ben did not act or sound like a 8 year old...but as I said, you know more about this then I do.  

On the plus side, I liked the story Wade told his son, innocent and relatively light weight but it felt natural, like something you tell your own children.

Col.

Hi Col and Herman, thanks for the read.

Yeah, this was my first jab at a sort of horror. I would've entered it in the Dark challenge but didn't get it done in time.

The story of lighting the heater is all based on my childhood experiences, being shit scared of the dark!
Ben's dialogue is a bit odd, I suppose. Even though the setting is probably in the US, my characters still 'act' as Aussies I guess. Sometimes the mix in my scripts doesn't quite gel.

In the future I hope to write a really full on horror script, with all sorts of mayhem.

Cheers stevie