The Butcher's Daughter by Anonymous - Short, Drama - A butcher's daughter falls in love with a vegan. - pdf, format 8)

Now this is more like it. Very strong in the drama category and tweaks the nipples of the theme much like the fellow did for Freedomworks.

Thought the dialogue was good, the character development was good and the conflict seemed real on several points.

I do think, however, that Bernard's reaction was a bit over the top. He takes this very personally. Why? Her decision doesn't really affect him all that much, other than not eating the steak sandwich. He came off a bit stereotypical. I half expected him to be cool with it in breaking of that stereotype...

I can understand, however, the altercation Bernard and Trevor after Trevor made the comment about Sandra's mom. That was low on his part, and deserved getting smacked.

The ending? I dunno- I can understand the wake up call for his character's journey, but to make such a drastic change in lively hood? I think him accepting Trevor and Sandra's lifestyle choice and maybe ordering something tofu related would be a more likely outcome.

Like my wife like's her steak; well done.

This was good.  A couple things stood out to me:

I was having trouble buying that Bernard couldn't figure out that Sandra wasn't eating meat...and she lives under his roof.  Likewise, I also had trouble buying Bernard's disdain about the veganism.  Maybe I've lived in a fantasy world all my life or something, but it just seemed odd that he would reject Trevor because of his diet.  I guess in that sense it's kind of like a satire of life.  Happy ending, though the ultimate diet makeover seemed very sudden, but I guess when you have such a close brush with death then that could change you quite a bit.

Overall I liked this.  Nice job.

This was just an overall solid story.  To whoever wrote it, I'm slightly jealous.  
You got skills.  I imagined the British actor Ray Winstone as Bernard and it really, really worked.

Bravo.


I'll be curious to find out who wrote this.  I definitely wanna read more of your scripts.  

Finally, a feel-good story.  After reading all the tales of dog-chomping and apocalyptic futures, this provided a much needed break.  That said, I felt this was good, not great.  No surprises whatsoever.  I did find Bernard's instant hatred of Trevor a bit over the top.

But I found the formatting was on the money.  And the script was refreshingly free of the back and forth on the points of veg vs carn.  I appreciated not having to slog through yet another endless debate.

Well done for an OWC.

This was well written, faithful to to the theme and genre, but...well, it seemed very cliched. It had all the key scenes of a typical TV drama. Nothing wrong with that but it seemed too ordered, I guess is the word I'm after. Maybe conveninet would be better.

The doctor's little lecture seemed banal and the ending a trite cozy.

Hey, i'm not slamming the script! It just didn't go out of it's comfort zone, that's all.

Good effort!

A tongue-in-cheek tone added to life and death drama is a difficult mix and in this case, for me, it doesn't work.  The scenes are colorful and lively but the emotion is forced.  

Well written, well conceived, well done!

Like Greg, I don't think it's great, because there are obviously some leaps in logic here, but for what it is, it's a great effort.

Nicely done!!

Too the writer...

Definitely well written and clearly, another writer who took the challenge seriously.  No surprises, basic concept, played out the way you intended.  Stories like this, usually too cute for my taste... but I liked this one.

Ghostwriter

Definitely one of the better entries, a good solid effort. Very well written, no complaints there. The only thing I didn't like was the ending seemed a bit too forced and convenient. Maybe something less out of character would have worked better and been more realistic. But other than that I really enjoyed this one. Good job.

Cheers,
Tim.

I liked it! Had no trouble following it. Kudos.

The imagery of Bernard standing in the hospital alone was very moving and did help sell the bigger than needed ending.

It's a good story and structurally it's sound to for me though I do think pacing is perhaps a little off. It's somehow leaves an impression of too fast too soon.

At first Sandra is not a vegan, then she became a vegan (probably a matter of opinion but somehow too quick for me) and decides to tell her dad about Trevor and her being together and about her becoming a vegan - a bit cluttered here, I think.
Another way is to have tell her by herself and then have Trevor and her dad have a talk? But maybe you tried that route and it doesn't read perfect...
--just an opinion, of course.

Here vegan seems out of place, the best for the story would be her becoming a vegetarian. A vegan - makes it a bit complicated.

But still a very nice idea, and well written too.

Then her dad accepts...

Maybe it needs more than just 15 pages and I imagine would be a slow read but that's the way these kind of dramas read. Maybe...

I like the story for the most part, but Trevor's comment about Sandra's mother should have been the straw that broke the father's back, not just the vegan lifestyle.

I can see why the father changed livelihoods.  He's too tempted to eat the meat in his store given his weight problem.  While this doesn't mean that he becomes a vegan, he would be more likely to eat salads for lunch.

Nice to see that love can conquer disputes over diets.

This was a solid entry.  Good structure, decent ending.   I think it drifted toward melodrama when the father attacked Trevor.  I  had a hard time buying the father's attitude just because Trevor was a vegan.   It would seem he'd want his daughter to be happy.  I don't know, he just seemed a little too old fashioned for me.

But in the end, you tied it together nicely.

Awww....that's so sweet at the end. But it came to it a bit easy, don't you think?

I liked the flow of the story. A good setup, middle, and a resolution.

The introduction to Bernard was well-done. Gave me a mental picture of him straightaway.

The thing I don't understand is why Bernard is so against vegan. I thought vegan cannot eat meat, that's understandable. But why carnivores don't eat vegetables? And it's not like Bernard had to be vegan.

The conflict between Bernard and Trevor sound kinda soap opera-ish. Could've tighten up a bit to get a more tenser feel.

Overall, I quite enjoyed this. This is one of the better entries, which is quite rare in this OWC. Well done.

Over al, I liked it.

Writing was good. Characters were nice. Story was good.

What needs work IMHO is that Bernard reacted too strongly to Sandra and Trevor only eating vegetables. I can see the comment about Sandra's mother getting him mad, but not for just eating vegetables.

I also thought that Bernard turning his butcher shop into a greengrocer was just a little too cute. Happened a little too fast to feel realistic.

Glad to have read another serious effort in this OWC. I had seriously bad luck picking them yesterday.

And...the vegans win again. I would just like to say there are benefits to meat.

Anyway, it was a nice, sweet story with the obligatory yelling that accompanies far too many dramas. You did trip up once though. Trevor is holding a pot in his hands while he managed to shake Bernard's hand. Good trick.

I get that you were going for polar opposites, and I could totally see a butcher's daughter going anti-animal. It seemed a bit much though. But maybe it was just how fast it all had to happen. I dunno.

Part of me wants to say it was a solid entry. Another part just thinks it was so over the top that it was completely unbelievable.

Thanks for the read everyone, sorry I haven't read as many as I would have normally but I'm at my parents looking after their dog and my dad's computer is the slowest thing on the planet - so slow that I'm actually preferring to use my mobile phone to get on the internet mostly.

Fair points about the drama possibly getting a bit too close to melodrama at times. I think the story really needed more space to get things feeling more natural. I struggled with what to do for the ending and decided to go with the happy ever after approach - possibly should have toned it down a tad though.

Pleased the majority seemed to enjoy it - personally, I thought it was a little boring but I went to meet the challenge and I think I did that with a half-decent script. Screenrider - you can find a link to some of my other scripts in my sig ;) thanks for your kind words.

Ste