Poetry Corner by Anthony Cawood (writing as: Don "The Matador" Everest) - Short, Horror - Four school friends dare each other to take on an urban legend and prove that there's nothing to be scared of... could there be though?  - pdf, format

Poetry corner

Logline doesn't wow me, but I really can't talk on loglines !

First page - a handful of characters introduced. Did you need so many?

At times I found the banter etc a bit distracting, but I did like the Siri element, clever angle on it, with the sense that Siri now wanted to get its own back.

With a few changes this could be filmed.

I still think it needs some work, like everyone script does, but the modernisation part works well.

All the best

As I go...

Opening Slug is poor - absolutely no reason for "DUSTY" in a Slug.  Reads goofy.

Very awkward in your phrasings.  I don't even know what you're referring to with "whiff of the rodent about of him" - absolutely clueless.

Too many characters intro'd all together and nothing going on in this scene.  All dialogue for the opening 4 pages not the way to go.  The dialogue itself is weak, wooden, and unrealistic.

Page 3 - "...punches Dale on the arm..." - Oh boy...a HUGE pet peeve of mine.  Maybe this is a regional thing, but here in the states, it's "in the arm".  Just reads like the writer has no idea how to punch someone, which may well be the case...

A few instances of "makes to" - this just doesn't read well again, but maybe this is another regional thing.  It doesn't work for me at all, and I'm about to bail...

Page 4 - "BOY'S BEDROOM" - Really?  It appears to be Dale's Bedroom...no?

This one's just not going anywhere, or maybe it's just taking way to long to get to wherever it's going to go.  I'm out.  Sorry.

Too many characters introduced too quickly, with very little to distinguish one from the other.   The first four and a half pages was nothing but talking head expo.  I understand the legend itself has to be laid down to the reader, but I think this could have been done in a single page with maybe two characters.  I think we needed to see Dale's fate, instead of just hearing about it from the teacher the next day.  Very little impact because of the way that was handled.  

This isn't a bad idea, a cursed poem being spoken out loud by Siri, but too much of this tale was told through dialogue.  Very little happened in front of us.  A good revision would tighten this up a lot.

Having Siri read the death poem could’ve lead to some interesting tangents. Missed opportunity I think.

“Dale’s dead... An accident, horrible, really horrible.” Welcome Miss Zerkovski, your teacher of the year.

I suppose it’s to be expected, but this feels incomplete. There’s a lot of talking in the beginning and it turns out two of the characters aren’t really needed for this version of the story. I do think there’s something in having the poem “possess” Siri and the phone. An ancient passive evil being made active and interconnected with modern technology could work like Stephen King’s The Cell meets Final Destination, but right now the story’s a ways off from meeting that potential IMO.

Damn, reading the first page, I don't think I can get through this if I tried.

A few pages in, what are these kids talking about? Really struggling to understand anything.

Good old Goggle.com, I bought some goggles the other day.

"MISS ZERKOVSKI
An accident, horrible, really
horrible." Damn, Miss Zerkovski doesn't like her job, does she?

This could've been something had it not been so dense. There's a lot of talking, a lot of talking where they react about events, and a lot of talking where there should be action. Needs some work.

This wasn't all bad.

Unlike others, I didn't have a problem understanding all the characters. You created a nice tone. It felt like a J-Horror type story.

Unfortunately like every other script I've read...it's just the same old story. Taking a well-known legend and retelling it over a longer page count.

I found this difficult to get through. It dragged on and on and by the time I got to the end, I'd lost all interest in what the story was actually about. I'm still not quite sure what happened.

A mixed bag on this one for me.  

On the plus side: I LOVED the concept.  It's positively killer (pun intended).  I'd never heard of Tomino before, so this one was an interesting learning experience.  BTW: this site has the creepiest picture: http://www.scaryforkids.com/tomino/  

And incorporating Siri?  Also masterful!  :)

Cons: For me, the back and forth with the kids *seriously* dragged.  The gem of this story is definitely, definitely there - but I'd suggest reworking this one from bottom to top.  Tighten it.  Get more atmospheric details in.  Get to the creepy stuff WAY earlier.

So - it's got major potential, but needs work IMHO.

I like your use of Siri. (I try to avoid her. I always feel as if she's watching me.)

I thought the kid talk was handled fairly well. You used dialogue to move the story without loading in exposition. Yes, probably could be trimmed some.

Too many characters?  Not really. The two boys had names starting D, so maybe this confused some people. I suppose you could get rid of Lee.

Was intrigued by the poem but didn't get enough of it to grasp the threat.

Henry

This one works as far as it goes.  Although killing off Siri might be a real twist.  Or killing off the phone.  can inanimate objects be killed?  In any case, I sorta liked the idea of this, the challenge.  Kids do that.  The dying might be a bit more descriptive.  Something clever that could be the poem or could be an accident might work too.

Best
Richard

I like the idea here but I agree that it drags. I think the reason is, all the characters sound the same. You have 4 kids but I didn't feel any of them had an individual voice or personality. And for a short, maybe too many characters with too much going on.

Give us some identifiable qualities in your characters. And make us connect to them. I think that's tough in a short, but you can at least make us interested in them.

So cool story idea but it needed a better execution, IMO.

The Dead Poets Society meets Bloody Mary/Candyman. Sorry to say, but this didn't work at all for me. Interesting concept, boring execution.

I agree that you introduced too many characters in the opening scene. They all talk and act the same; you could switch everybody's dialogue and I'd never bat an eye. A black hole of monotony, unfortunately.

Another script with bold slugs?  :X Bold and italics are not industry standard, never have been.

Also, explain this:

Quoted Text SIRI ------>        <-------- They serve as hellish signposts for sweet little Tomino.

What's with the space? I'm guessing you meant to put a parenthetical there, but forgot. Also, try to use parentheticals only when necessary -- and even then, use them sparingly.

I found a few orphans in action lines, e.g.:

Quoted Text Olivia wipes a tear from her eye and puts the laptop back down.

Quoted Text A loose connection shorts, sends an arc of electricity shooting up Olivia’s arm, wracking her body with deadly spasms.

Add or delete a word to make it read better, e.g.:

Quoted Text She falls to the floor, energy still coursing through her, otherwise lifeless.

You could try:

Quoted Text Olivia wipes a tear from her eye. She puts the laptop back down.

Quoted Text A loose connection shorts, send[ing] an arc of electricity shooting up Olivia’s arm. Her body spasms.

Also, don't underline the title page.

Nothing really works. Sorry.

I think this is a great idea, and I really liked the idea of incorporating Siri into it.  Also, good use of the urban legend in telling the story.

The problem for me was it was probably four pages too long because of all the unnecessary dialogue back and forth between the kids.  You can easily eliminate big chunks of that and not affect the story in the least. Would make it much more compact and readable.

Still, the concept is a good one -- tackle this in a rewrite and you'll have very good piece here.

Gary

I didn't mind so much all the characters but the dialogue goes on and on taking me out of the read. May've been better possibly to have one kid telling the story and instead of in a school room, maybe around a camp fire or something then you wouldn't have had to name/intro so many characters yet we know there is a group of kids.

Decent little concept overall. I think it needs reworking...cut down on some dialogue will make it easier to read. It was an original take...so I like this.

When my phone is plugged into the mains and charging, SIRI will sometimes think I'm speaking to her and answer questions I never asked. Spooky though too, sometimes...

There's a lot of dialogue in this one, even for me. I know this is a lot of kids jabbering, but probably needs to be a little less back and forth. There were also a couple of times where I thought a kid wouldn't actually say that..."What drivel" for example. If a kid had said that at age 12 in my school, they'd have been turned upside down and left in the toilet bowl.

I really liked the idea of SIRI being involved though. Nice touch.

“crowd round” round or around? I think the latter sounds better but maybe that’s just me.

Some awkward writing to start isn’t giving me a great first impression.

“She digs Darren in the ribs.” Digs?

“considered opinion.” A considered opinion from a 12 year old – how adult. A lot of characters to start off with – hope they all play a part later.

Having Dale and Darren might confuse the reader – I just had to re-read their dialogue to check I’d got it right – just a thought.

How do you get the phone credit? Is there a way transfer phone credit to different phones?

“Did you miss the bit about dying?” I did! I’m still playing catch up with this story.

“Darren rounds on Dale.” Some odd phrasing. Is he circling him?

“bit KFC.” And the sponsor of this story is…

The dialogue needs work – it doesn’t read well IMO. On the other hand, they are supposed to be 12 so maybe it’s more realistic than I give it credit for.  I don’t speak to many 12 year olds – the point being that the dialogue isn’t helping me keep track of the story – it actually hinders it and confuses the reader which isn’t a good thing.

“BOY’S BEDROOM” No biggie but this could have been DALE’S BEDROOM.

goggle.com That’s unforgivable really.

“What drivel.” Drivel – seems an odd word for a 12 year old to say. I’m not liking this scene in the bedroom but at least you’re giving us exposition through visuals, rather than on the nose dialogue.

“Looks for his place.” This kinda thing has really hurt the story – you mean his place on the page, right?

“tapping away.” Typing away.

“starts tapping on it.” Yeah, this one works but it’s repetitive because it’s exactly the same line.

So I’m guessing that the school is abandoned? Only because you call it “dusty” school. It could literally be their school, and they take classes there – could be clearer.

“Darren goes to kick him.” What happened? Did he kick Lee, or miss?

“You aren’t allowed it in school.” So it is their actual school – someone needs to get the dust buster out.

No way is the teacher breaking this news to them. And definitely not individually or in little groups. The fact the teacher had to ask if they were friends isn’t right either.

“She grabs a file and hurries out of the office.” I know why you’re doing this but… this isn’t a hospital or police department – I can’t imagine that something would be that important that secretary had to rush from the office like Superman.

Be consistent with your slugs.

What happened with FADE OUT?

Riddled with problems that did hurt the read for me unfortunately. A classic tale of kids who get in over their heads and feel the consequences… literally.

The opening wasn’t great – we’re are just thrown into the story which is sometimes a good thing but here, it meant the reader was playing catch up and it made it confusing. You didn’t establish the characters and world. Why are they doing this? What’s the motivation other than phone credit – how did they get on the subject suddenly.

On the same note, and although cliché as hell, I think it would have worked better if these kids were a little older especially has you have Olivia dying on screen. This needs a good polish and some more thinking over the plot - give the characters more motivation or reason to be doing this. I think the opening is the biggest issue, if the characters and plot is better set-up than this would be a lot better for it.

Several items I liked here - the general legend, the Siri reading, the challenge of bravado among the kids. Fairly well written IMO.

I did have a couple of issues:

I was lost in the beginning – would have cut to the chase (i.e, reading the poem can cause death) much quicker. That would have brought me in right away.

Some of the dialogue was - forced (a bit unrealistic). This passage here:

Quoted Text MISS ZERKOVSKI Hi kids, you were friends with Dale Banks, right? DARREN Besties miss. MISS ZERKOVSKI Indeed, er, well... OLIVIA What’s wrong, Miss? MISS ZERKOVSKI I don’t really know how to say this kids... but, Dale’s dead. DARREN/LEE NO! OLIVIA How? MISS ZERKOVSKI An accident, horrible, really horrible.

For me, this dialogue did not seem natural and was a bit lumbering. I think she could have just walked up with a look of concern/anxiety on her face. One of the kids ask her what's wrong - she responds - there's been a horrible accident - Dale.

A couple of minor typos

Quoted Text DALE Stay out of it. Olivia, what were you thinking.

Question mark?

I really enjoyed the ending.

oo i actually quite liked this. It has some pretty cool elements to it. The start didn't grab me though, I think that could be touched up a bit, add some more tension and cut some of the talk out.  but as soon as it went to Dale's house it picked up.
The ending was good, I like that.

POETRY CORNER

Good overview concerning characters. It starts vivid.

"...Dale’s dead.

DARREN/LEE
NO!

OLIVIA
How?"

Olivia gives an odd reaction here when she's, first, keeping it so short, and secondly, it comes across as if she also refers to the curse; is the "fear" in case of the curse already settled within her subconsciousness??? I think her usual intuition is still master about her and should shock her as if she loses a friend, as it was for Darren and Lee.

Okay a nice kill with the shocks that must look great on screen. I honor your approach of doing something with so many kids. I liked how you developed the first scene with getting in late, somehow it wasn't enough in the end for me. A rewrite could help here.

A quick read but also an uninteresting one.

The main problem for me was the dialogue. There's way too much of it and all of the characters sound the same. I think the first 4 pages could easily be cut down to 1.

The scene in Dale's bedroom held my interest a little longer but it was short lived and then back to more pages of kids talking. The ending was OK, but didn't make up for what came before it.

Sublimely interesting story.
I appreciate how “inferred” much of it is, nothing cartoonishly vulgar.
This would make a fair short film that begs for gore but benefits from its subtlety.

Writing style:
Good.

Dialogue:
The talking heads scene stretched a bit too long. But the lines sounded real to me and natural.

Character:
You haven't made much effort to show us what kind of kids they are. So I didn't care for them.

Story:
I'd try to avoid introducing so many characters in that manner. Take it slowly. One by one. And make the introduction tell us more about their personality.

The atmosphere was spot on. I was afraid to look up the urban legend on google. I even didn't want to read the poem lines from the script. *shivers* well done. The opening scene did the trick. They were talking about a subject unknown to me, and bit by bit I got to understand what they were talking about. It was well paced in my humble opinion.

I wished for a twist or a surprise. I expected Olivia to get into trouble even that she didn't read it herself, so I wanted you to do something I couldn't expect.

Overall:
If I was a producer and was given this script, I would turn it down, but I would ask to read your other horror scripts. You got your way with the genre and I liked it.

Good luck and well done

Thanks to all for the reads and comments, my new version is much tighter, a bit shorter and improved overall.

This was my first OWC so was an interesting exxpereience all round.

I went a little further afield for my UL - http://creepypasta.wikia.com/wiki/Tomino%27s_Hell/JA

RayW - thanks man, I tried to infer more than show on purpose as that tends to be the way with J Horror...

Looking forward to the next OWC already but would like to suggest that only those who can be arsed writing something should comment and vote.

Anthony

I haven't read the revsied version, but as I said the Siri inclusion has real potential. As Simon Cowell would say, it's current.

Hope it goes well

Thanks Reef - wasn't sure what happened after the OWC with scripts and re-submission, but I've taken on board a lot of the feedback look forward to seeing what people think of the new version when I submit it.

Good work on Teeth too mate.

Anthony