City of Carnivores by Anonymous - Short, Drama - A teenager attempts to save a vegan from being capture in the City of Carnivores. - pdf, format 8)

Yeah, interesting this one. A new take on the theme.
It could've been ramped up more though, to be more effective.

For instance, some scenes showing more of the conflict between the carnies and vegs, maybe done as flashbacks, to show the initial persecution.

Or this could've been taken the other way completely, and done as a full blown comedy.

Anyway, the writing was crisp and economical; no formatting issues. Nice effort

Interesting.  

I was reminded very much of Nazi Germany with this story.  Perhaps this is a play on it?

I enjoyed this script but I had a couple issues with it.  The first was that this was hard to take seriously.  I mean, it was a funny script overall.  Secondly, because it was humorous, it also felt really abrupt when Butch slapped his son.  Two really contrasting tones there.  Thirdly, burning fruits and vegetables?  Again, it's a funny idea albeit unrealistic (cause even us meat eaters need them to live a healthy life).  

So, I did like this script, but not for the drama.  I'll give you a well done anyway.  

Kinda of a Romeo and Juliet thing here.  Montagues and Capulets.  Interesting take on the challenge.  I liked the tiwst where Adam announces he's half vegan.  Other than that there just wasn't enough drama to pull me in.  No "wow factor".
Hard to suspend belief on it, too.  On a positive note, the writing was tight.

Good effort.

It's a very captivating read. A complete story! Very well written too, I think.

It's very visual, the pacing and the flow are just great.

Overall, it's great I think! Just great!

The core idea here is a good one: a dictator rules based on eating preferences. A microcosm of that would be me looking for a place to live and one of the rooms, the girl explicitly asked if I ate meat, so I said, sure. She said, if you want to eat meat here, you will have to go cook it somewhere else. Obviously I declined to live there, as it's wrong to dictate another's decisions based on your own convictions. That's the core message here, for me.

So, while there is a promising set-up, I think the script has been hampered by some poor dialogue and unbelievable character decisions. Butch knows that his son has become something of a traitor within and yet he allows him to speak at the press conference? It seems that we're hand walked through the script at times, and not trusted to draw our own conclusions. In terms of dialogue, the Butch and Adam exchanges lacked any real tension, even when Butch confesses the nexus of his campaign, it was just a bit devoid of emotional punch. Zoe could do with some more characterisation. I know she's a vegan, but that is all I know of her.

The problems I see are likely owing to time restrictions and in general, the writing was crisp. With a rewrite, this could be dramatically improved, which would allow you to more successfully delve into the themes and emotion that potentially lurks within.

Andrew

The main problem I had with this script is there was no explanation whatsoever as to why these vegans were so hated.  Because they like salad?  As Greg commented, it was very hard to take seriously.  And the opening scene of the vegetable bonfire was probably funnier than it was meant to be.

I think it would have helped the script to also show the vegans at the hideout and hear their side of the story.

The story did move, though.  And aside from some clunky dialogue here and there, I liked some of the characters.  This was a good effort, but I think it would work better as a comedy.

This is a tough challenge...tough for me to figure out which scripts are meant to be taken seriously and which are comedies, or just so bad they're great.  Seriously.

This was very well conceived, as well as a very unique take on the challenge, so Kudos for that no matter what this was actually supposed to be.  Some of the dialogue was just terrible as mentioned, but it did add to the humor.

I guess this works for me overall and is probably my favorite of the first 10.

So far the best I have read. Good structure, a real that refers to many dark moments of History. I rather thought about KKK than Nazis.

Not much to say. I'm impressed.

I'm with Cam in that I didn't understand the backstory here or why there was this hatred of vegans. I mean he says they are worthless, sneaky and selfish. But what is this based on and where is the evidence of it? It didn't really make sense.

Writing was good for the most part, few little mistakes here and there. On first page, you don't need a hyphen for the word 'nonsense'.

Not sure about the ending, I would've liked something a bit more. It felt a little sudden. Overall a good effort though, one of the better entries.

Cheers,
Tim.

Quoted from Cam17 The main problem I had with this script is there was no explanation whatsoever as to why these vegans were so hated.  Because they like salad?

Butch alludes to his wife as an example of how bad the vegans supposedly are. From what I gather, that was the leading motivation for his murderous campaign.

Andrew

Doesn't hold together, I think -- Butch and company burn the fruits and vegetables?  That would be funny except that the rest of the script is so leaden.  Could have been about any totalitarian government with carnivore and vegan substituted for the ones In Power and the ones Out Of Power.

The veggie burning reminded me of the book burning in Farenheit 451. Luring vegans with burnt goods doesn't make sense. You'd want a big pile of juicy stuff to bring out the vegans. Or maybe, he didn't trust his own people?

This dictator isn't very smart: Find a field of veggies, find the rebel vegans.

Without veggies and fruits wouldn't the population have scurvy or at least hard bowel movements?

If the dictator could fall for a vegan...

...end of hole poking. Point made.

The drama for this one could have been amped up with Zoe being chased rather than Adam passively protecting her.

The characters needed more character, esp. Zoe. Backstory also needed.

This one has potential though may need more than 15 pages.

Vomiting bit was good where Butch(er) thought Zoe was pregnant

Good work for the OWC.

Of the few I've read so far, this one is my favorite.

The story in itself isn't very new. Been done a zillion times. Two teenagers from opposite groups whether race or religion or politics fall for each other and so on. I bet this is the first time it was between vegans and carnivores though.

The writing was good and the story was pretty well told. I did have a question though.

How come they couldn't find the vegans? After all they were living in modern times. Seemed odd with all the technology that they were able to hide that close to the carnivores.

I have to run off, but I might come back with some more comments later today.  

Good work here.  :)

I think this might be the best one I read so far.  It was a very interesting and unique story.  A rewrite, though, would do wonders for it.  How did the world get to this point? I would imagine that, if one side took over the world, it would've been the vegans. It seems to make better sense.

If you do rewrite it, you should flesh it out.  While I wouldn't think it could be a feature, it could easily be twice as long as it is now.


Phil

I’m going to make notes as I go along..

Pg 1 – “non-sense” – one word.

“Looks down at the crowd. Speaks into the microphone.” – It might be possible to delete this without losing much.

I like the contentious first page.

Pg 3 – You’ve got the story started quickly and moving along well.

One thing that has occurred to me is that you have not given the reason why vegans are persecuted, perhaps it’ll come later.

Pg 5 – “Adam Gilmore. Butch Gilmore’s son.” – The audience knows this already so perhaps it’s dialogue that could be tightened up.

Pg 6 – “No, I am sorry. It’s not your fault.” – Being quite picky I’d say some of your dialogue is a little formal and perhaps on-the-nose. This is an example of it.

Pg 7 – I like the flow of the story.

“She swallows hard.” – The wording of this could be misleading, perhaps you did it deliberately.

Pg 12 – You’ve got me reading quickly along, so that’s good. I’m not totally sure about them having a press conference when so much still seems uncertain.

Pg 14 – The ending is okay, although I could believe this as being the beginning of a much longer story since it feels like it could carry on from there.

Overall this is a well structured effective story that’s thought provoking.

The premise was strange. Original but strange. I'm wondering how diet became such an issue in the first place. One of the better entries so far though. I felt like all the characters behaved as they would if this world were indeed real and there was a general absence of stereotypes I thought. Also the image of torching the fruits and vegetables was pretty intriguing. Not bad.

This read like a weird Saturday Night Live sketch.  It needs a backstory to explain the vegan/carnivore hatred.  Religous reasons, perhaps.

Or maybe have some new form of animal overpopulating its species, and mankind must eat it to keep it in check.  But the vegans fight this plan.

Nice one. Things flowed pretty naturally. Good example of showing, not telling the essential conflict of the vegan/carnivore theme. No talking head syndrome here.

Might like to have seen a little more trickery from Zoe; more likely he would have followed her home, given her feminine charms, and Zoe would have more experience running from the carnie cops...

Liked the suspense build up at the dinner table. The dual dialogue worked very well in that instance.

Ending seemed a bit cliched, but overall an enjoyable read.