S.H.E. Frankenstein by Mary Godwin - Short, Horror - When a woman enlists in a medical trial, she finds herself a disposable test subject. - pdf, format 8)

Interesting dark Sc-Fi tone.

It was reasonably well-written.

Didn't really buy the idea that they'd use a young, medical trialist for something like this. Didn't really "get" the focus on the relationship between Amhet and Fran. Maybe if Ahmet was the original Doctor and he kept her because he found her so attractive it would be a stronger piece..a story about obsession. It would also make the end stronger.

As it is, it all feels a little pointless.

Cover sheet
Many guide books discourage such fonts.

Pg 1
rted from the room by a
"SURGICAL TECH, mask, gloves, gown." Nice exposition.
"She cannot move her head" is implied by the last three words of the previous paragraph.  No need to say it twice.
"large needed guided into" is passive voice.  You can make it active voice by putting it in the Tech's hands.
More passive voice: "her pants are cut"  Have the pervy Tech do it, or why wouldn't she simple disrobe?
You open the blood ports twice.

Pg 2
The PRELAP at the top of the page may annoy some professional readers.  It's directing.
We HOME in...
The under-ear tattoo keeps me interested.
Amhet's opening dialogue is forced exhibition.
"...colorful wires spiderweb..." Nice verb.
"by the beauty OF his creation"
A nit: centimeters is linear measurement; you may want volume (cubic centimeters)?  Two is an insignificant number. Consider a hundred or thousand cc’s?

Pg 3
"...in front of our eyes." is prolix.  EVERYTHING on the screen is in front of our eyes, by definition.  Omit needless words.
Same comment for "jelly-like" All goo is jelly-like.
When we change the POV to Fran143, we need a SLUGLINE

Pg 4
Wow, six lines of dialoge in 30 seconds, and this one is the "best."  That's a fast evaluation.
He nods without words.  We know this because dialogue is formatted differently. You can omit "without words."  "He nods" is enough.

Pg 6
"They are all over but seem intact." -> The seem intact.  Omit needless words.
Why is the silence awkward?  It seems natural between these two at this point.

Pg 7
You explain the heart's possible location here, but she puts her hand over her heart on Pg 6.  This is unnecessary exposition.
The SLUGLINE should be BACK ALLEY
Why the confused look.  She asked to be rescued and this is it.  Hopeful look?

Pg 7
"...stares out the window through the glass."  Prolix. The last three words are not needed.  I'll stop doing noting these, but they’re a wet blanket over your script.

Pg 9
Great ironic ending.

= = = = = = = = = =
Please use active voice more.  You have great ideas that are disapprovingly under-expressed.
You tend to say the same thing in adjacent paragraphs.  Once is enough.
Some the SOUNDS need upper-case
What does Fran look like?  One of the requirements was a great makeup scene.  Is she hot?
As noted, please omit needless words.  You have cool ideas that can and should be expressed more crisply. Fewer words in active voice will propel your great plot points forward.

Kept me intrigued the entire time.

PROS: The setting was interesting, as well as, the choices made while updating Frankenstein.  I liked that they were creating a female Franken soldier.  Special Agent Stephens was wooden, but probably intended that way.  I would change SPECIAL AGENT STEPHENS to STEPHENS in the dialogue parts.  That's just me.  I like the ending and the final shot.

CONS:  The tone from the tub and "terminate her" part was inconsistent to me while reading.  At first it seemed very serious, and then fluctuated a lot.  Make the tone through that clearer.

This is bold and tries to cover a complex emotional relationship between a scientist and his test subject in a short period of time. It didn’t quite work for me simply because I think the relationship needed longer to feel natural with more backstory for the characters and also about the experiment itself.

As it was I didn’t buy the experiment using medical students who get paid and sign a contract to allow themselves to be lobotomised and turned into a cyborg.

I almost bought Ahmet falling for Fran but like the movie Ex Machina it needed longer for that relationship to grow to the point Ahmet was willing to risk all for her.

Speaking of Ex Machina, the ending reminded me of the ending in that movie as well.

It was a good read, I did enjoy it and I think this could work really well outside the confines of this challenge.

Great job and a solid attempt.
-Mark

Writer,

Decent story here. Was overly descriptive in places and could use tightening. I liked how the doctor was Indian -- kinda gives an up to date version here. Nice touch. Pretty standard stuff though, and not particularly horrifying in any spots. You could have used your space to have created some tension, as this has potential to be scary if you had chosen to go this way.

What you did well was give us very good balance if emotion with Fran. She was a very sympathetic character, not just be her actions and dialogue, but more by the way Ahmet reacted to her.

The twist was predictable, but not sure it was necessary. You Gould revisit this when alls said and done.

Good job.

Steve

Mary Godwin,

This one reminds me of Ex Machina. I see Mark has said that already. But as I was reading that's exactly what I was thinking. I love that movie.

So, yeah, I like this. It is quite obvious early on what's gonna happen in the end. Maybe with more time you could rework that. The writing is good most of the time. A few typos and misspellings, bit other than that, it's pretty good. Nice job.

Best of luck.

Glenn.

I liked that a lot. THis is my favorite so far and I read about 10. Maybe more I don't know for sure. But this one is a fully fleshed story and I liked her being half robot half human - that's new.
The story is not new but it's very well written and the dialog is very good. The twist is predictable but these movies often are. Great job on this IMO.

The good news...

Seems like the early reviews are relatively positive.

The not so good news...

Writing is not very good, to the point where I struggled to continue.

Passages are not broken up remotely correctly and it makes the read a real chore.

Things happen way, way too fast. By the end of page 1, it's shocking how much has happened, but I don't buy into any of it.

The bad news...

I stopped at the end of Page 1.  I didn't like anything about what I saw on the first page, including the logline, the title page, the Slugs, the writing, the characters, the most importantly, the setup.

Which leads me to a grade of...

D- (based on Page 1, but I had no interest to read any further)

I wish Jeff had read on. I liked it. I liked the relationship between Fran and Ahmet and super loved the "friend" dialogue from the original Frankenstein movie. Probably a little to expensive to shove a car off a cliff, but I liked that she had to kill him to be free.

Good job!

A young woman signs a contract, and then has an undisclosed amount of money dumped into her account...

I'm gonna' go out on a limb here and say Meagan has agreed to be a Guinea pig for the  government?

Must be quite a bit o' dough going into that account!

I feel Meagan needs a prime catalyst stated here as to why she would do this IMO. Perhaps a loved one somewhere requiring copious amounts of cash in order to have a surgery, or the release of a political prisoner from some ungodly gulag somewhere.  Those two examples have been done to death of course, but  you get the idea... just a thought.

The draining of her life physically and metaphorically is clever and gruesome, and the gauze holding her together, stapled in place, is a disturbing visual. She is now reborn as something less human.

Ahmet, at only 20 years, might come off as a little young to be so engrossed in such radical (genetic) design, mind you, most geniuses are known to write their doctrine thesis at the age of 24-ish... so perhaps it's plausible.

I might say the immediate connection between the doctor and patient is over the top, but after 142 other (failed Fran) attempts, I could see Ahmet suffering a mild catharsis, especially if his intense psychological labour has finally come to fruition.

Not sure why Fran143 killed the one who resurrected her?

Good use of theme, solid writing, and great visuals.

My opinions are just that, and have been known to be wrong!

Picky bits:-
1) Pet peev, 'plain but pretty'
2) If someone has consented to the procedure why are they cutting her clothes?
3) Not convinced by Ahmet, seems he's fallen for her before anything happens
4) The ending didn't really work for me, too similar to Ex Machina
5) If such an experiment was done by the government I'd expect more people to be involved

Good bits:-
1) Well written, good pacing
2) Liked the interplay between the characters
3) Dark SciFi is always good!

Rules
Budget might be a stretch, not really a classic monster

Overall this was good though, I liked it a lot

Anthony

Spoilers:

Okay.  Overall, a good... definitely a solid and legitimate entry. Pros, cons and suggestions (IMHO) to follow:

Pros - GREAT title. Generally a good concept to riff off of - and it follows the rules of the challenge.  Plus, the banter between the Special Agent and Ahmed is pretty neat.  'You're creeping me out' and 'he didn't mean that' are stand out, in fact.

Cons: This *does* need streamlining - though the reasons for it are of course excusable due to the OWC deadline.  The descriptions are overwritten (for instance, do you have to say Meghan's immobilized completely, THEN she can't move her head?  Um, redundant.  Any passive writing should be killed (ie: no this IS.  It's got to be active.)  And on page one, there's some repetiition that should be mixed up, too.  For instance, you describe the paperwork as a 'contract' in two adjoining sentences.  Say something else.  Document. Paperwork.  Forms.  Etc.  And no camera directions, either.  WE don't 'hone in on the sound'.  You can just describe the sound directly.  Mind you, these are all just stylistic things that can be polished and should be smoothed out (IMO).

Typo: Page 5 - Lower your core (period)

General musing: just a *bit* expensive to shoot, though that's not a deal killer.

Story recommendations: A few things I think need to be tweaked to realize all the potential it has.  More poignant bonding between Fran and Ahmed to justify HIS actions.  What the heck happened to Meghan?  And finally - you have to clarify why Fran does what she does at the end!

My five cents.  But a story that IS worthy of the polishing!  :)

Love the title. Can tell the author of this one loved Ex Machina. :)

Surprised some bailed on the first page...thought it was written pretty well and felt at least there was some relationship between the characters in this story.

Good job. Writer.

Mary Godwin (Shelley). I do wonder what the S.H.E stands for in the title. The logline is complete shite. She finds herself a test subject? So what? Who is this test subject, what is the point to their existence. It's all well and good being found, but there must be a point to it.

BTW, I've deliberately misinterpreted your logline to show you how easily it can be misinterpreted because of the way it is written. I'm not holding out much hope for your story now.

Code A hand guides a pen as a contract is signed. MEAGAN FLOWERS, 20’s, plain but pretty, slides the contract across the table to a DOCTOR sitting across from her.

It's not a terrible first action block, but it is bad. So, I get the poor logline and now a poor first action block. The first sentence is bad. A hand guides a pen as a contract is signed. Is it a man's hand? A woman? A midget? A creature from the black lagoon?

Plain but pretty, but of course she is. So plain, her hand could even be that of a man's. No difference.

The word 'across' used twice. The second one could easily have been switched out for 'opposite'.

How many times are you going to tell me that she's paralysed? 3 times so far in 3 action blocks.

Code AHMET She has two centimeters more brain matter from the host. I believe she is the one.

What is that supposed to mean? When talking about brain, wouldn't volume measurements be used? Centimetres are used to measure length. Also, centimetres? Couldn't you research something more scientific?

Where does the second sentence come from? What does it matter what 'he believes'? He's supposed to be a scientist.

At page 3 and tempted to put this down. I thought Deus Ex Machina was OK, but a mere poor copy of The Island of Dr Moreau. I see you prefer the former so much you want to mimic it. Bad choice.

Code Ahmet rushes over and restrains her best he can.

Restrains her best he can. What's a best he can? Can anyone own a best he can? Even if I do put in your missing word for you, you should still explain exactly what he does in a visual way. Telling us he restrains her isn't good enough.

Code Her eyes fling open. Her view fills with Ahmet’s worried face. She relaxes.

Bad sentence structure again.

Page 3... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I really want to put this shit down. I can't stand reading this blatant rip off.

Code He is taken aback. Pauses not sure what to say then chuckles anxiously nodding. A tear of joy rolls down his face.

That's it. I'm done.

2 out of 10.

Like most I'm old fashioned. I like flares and sitting by the fire with the dog. I also like title pages to not have fancy fonts on them. It just puts the heckles up of dusty old tossers like me who should get out more.

Interesting start. One of the best starts in this OWC that I've so far read. Apart from mine, of course.

I quite enjoyed this. There's the odd typo, but they're few and far between, thankfully.

It reminded me a bit too much of Ex Machina.

Good end though. Didn't quite get the Frankie angle. But I don't care. So there.

Kept a tension going throughout. Quite enjoyable.

R

Had I not just watched Ex Machina I might have been a little more delighted with the ending.

Not sure that you needed the opening with the internist - maybe I just got confused, but the story would play out just as well without the first two pages.

Some parts were solid and well paced, others left me wanting to move forward.

Fran, not Frankenstein.

THE GOOD:  The opening scene actually had me a bit queasy, but then, it didn't seem to be all that important later.  The main story is affecting, even if the cheese is layered on a bit thick with some of the dialogue.  I did buy into the affection between these two, however, which made for an effective conclusion to this story.    

THE BAD:  This really could have been proofed better.  The numerous errors are a disservice to your story. Special Agent Stephens -- is it really necessary to type his full name every time -- makes for a pretty lame bad guy.  Always wanting to "Terminate!" for no particular reason that I could discern.  Give him some actual motivations for his opinions, introduce some gray area, and the story will be improved -- particularly because Stephens' suspicions are justified in the end.  That's what I would do, anyway.      

bert's grade:  B  

The reason this stands out from some is that it had relationship and emotion.

A triangle with stephens added to the conflict and tension. A good basis.

When they left The clinic I would have put money on a similar ending. I think you need to find a more ironic or interesting twist, like she takes over and burns the place down, stopping more of them etc

Writing needs a polish, but so do many.

For budget purposes, I would keep in the clinic and find an angle on the relationship.

Sound effort.

Ha. I don’t know what’s going on in the first scene, but it’s sketchy as hell :)

There’s a lack of tension or building of suspense in the next scene. If you didn’t mention her reactions, I would think this was exactly what she signed up for. What did she think would happen? Also, those pills work really fast.

It seems nitpicky, but the more I think about it the more trouble I have with Agent Stephenson ordering immediate termination. How easy is Fran to make that you wouldn’t try to save the one already made versus starting from scratch? Maybe the real issue is I have no idea what they’re doing? What’s the test and how do we know it’s failed?

Pretty good story here. I wonder if the question of whether or not Fran can feel real emotions could be set-up earlier. I suppose it’s elluded to in the whole ‘robot vs. SHE’ exchange, but it should maybe have a finer point since the twist revolves around it.

Overall, a pretty good entry in the challenge.

S.H.E. FRANKENSTEIN

One of my favorite titles.

P1 The way you describe extensively here comes around very literary, even if you got a lot short sentences. In the second scene, there you have a lot of paragraphs where you go just with He or Her. Try to break that up and call their names too because you drag me closer to the characters as I should be imo. Her arms, her eyes, her this and her that. I usually stay with the shot I visualize the scene in my head, but you drag me closer with that style, as in a book.

I see that you changed that from p2 on. Reads a lot better and produces clearer pictures, and with that, visual impressions.

"He google searches on his iPhone. Glances up at her."

This topic is off imo; better leave it out

A bit of 5th element vibe – great

BAM! CRASH! BOOM! ;-)

I'm not sure if this script doesn't deserve a better ending. Even though I find it cool in some ways as it is now.

Also, I'm not sure if the scientific stuff that changes her is displayed in an intriguing way (yet) that justifies the screening entirely

plus her motive money didn't felt believable (maybe think about to get in later and let her be a lab rat without any Background, and flesh out why Ahmet needs that relationship instead)

the tale itself, of a man saving a test object felt very well thought out and articulated.

Good job. Keep it going.

Not bad. A more sci-fi take on the challenge, where's the horror?

Your dialogue is all a bit stiff. I know it's an unnatural situation, but I never quite got a handle on the way Fran143 spoke. She's up and running with complete sentences pretty much immediately, but you pitch it unsteadily between 'regular' talk and 'look I'm not a normal person' talk. This line, for instance:

Quoted Text FRAN143 I'm crying. But there are no tears. However, it still hurts so much.

It's just not quite working for me. Needs another look. The same is true of Ahmet's dialogue, for instance:

Quoted Text AHMET Well, yes, but I could lose my job. Even be imprisoned. This is government, you are government...

I always feel nervous doing this as it's usually not the case, but am I right in guessing the writer isn't a native English speaker? That might explain why the dialogue doesn't quite flow yet... just something to keep an eye on.

Characters were ok but not really developed. Meagan is generic 'opening sequence' fodder, which is fine but might have made sense to have a few more lines setting up why she's there, etc - you have the space. Otherwise she's just too fleeting to care about. I never quite got a sense of who Ahmet WAS - why did he fall for Fran143 so quickly? Was he there in the lab out of choice, and what was he hoping to achieve from the project? Stephens is a stock 'government suit', I got no sense of his motivations or personality at all, really. Fran143 was fine, but we've seen that type of 'newborn not-quite-human' many times before.

In terms of the writing: Typos here and there, but those are easily caught with a proof read. You probably only need STEPHENS for his character headings, you've established who he is in his intro (a point on those, aimed at everyone as much as you: why is Meagan, and by extension Fran143, 'plain but pretty', but no male characters described in terms of their attractiveness or otherwise?). I had to read a few parts more than once to fully unpick what was going on, particularly in the first few pages. Two montages might be a bit much for a ten page script.

On the whole, this really does feel like a first draft. If you go back, punch everything up - the characters and their motivations, the dialogue, add more to the story. Two montages and an abrupt ending make me think you currently have a sketched outline of the whole story you want to tell. Go back and flesh out the details.

One final note: I haven't got around to watching Ex Machina yet - it's about to be made available on streaming services, but glancing at other comments I fear the ending may now be spoiled for me. :(

Quoted from JonnyBoy I always feel nervous doing this as it's usually not the case, but am I right in guessing the writer isn't a native English speaker?

You are not correct, and the writer is not going to be happy hearing this.

The writer doesn't get mad silly....she gets even. Now where's my magic wand??? *s*