Hungry Boy by Tom Musinguzi - Short, Drama, Family - Abandoned boy in a grim Ugandan orphanage leaves fights against insurmountable odds just to get an education. 11 pages - pdf, format 8)

Tom - I read it, so there was enough there to turn pages - but man. I just didn't get it. The ending seems entirely disconnected from the thread of the story.

Tom,

Comments are generally for the educated.

This story doesn't work because the ending leaves the audience down.  Not that down endings are always bad, but generally, an up ending in a story like this is preferred.  You have a young man with the gumption to strike out on his own, and he succeeds, only to end up a broken body in the road.  Not much karma there.

the dialogue is far too on the nose and too formal.  If William has been in the orphanage for 10 years, he no longer speaks in complete sentences.  Think of the slang and shortcuts people take when they become familiar.  

Best

Richard

I thought the writing was very descriptive. However, a poor boy trying to turn his life around, isn't particularly original. I didn't think the quote 'It’s not about luck, it’s about wanting something so, so bad,' needed to be said. It's kind of obvious he wants work so much. 'A very pissed off Auntie P'? I didn't think that fitted with the overall tone of the story, but maybe that's just me. 'Auntie P rolls her eyes' twice? Maybe should would do that, but I think write  'again' for the second time. On the whole I thought it was pretty good.

Tom,

An error in the logline.

Abandoned boy in a grim Ugandan orphanage leaves fights against insurmountable odds just to get an education.

The script read to me more like a precise set of instructions of exactly how the scenes should look and actors should act. Less is more as they say. I'd suggest concentrating more on the story and let the others in the production worry about their roles.  

-Mark