Anna by ???? - Short, Thriller - For a young girl, everything changes in ten minutes.  - pdf, format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

OK, first read of this OWC, and I'm sorry to say, this was quiet poorly done on all fronts.

This writer has no idea how to use commas, and the way they're used here, is about as bad as I've seen.

It's very possible English is not this writer's first language, as the writing is very awkward throughout.

Mistakes of every kind abound here, including frequent misspellings.

Dialogue is also very poor, sorry to say.  Madalyn does not sound like a 12 year old girl in the slightest...actually, she doesn't sound like a girl at all.

Story is nothing great, but much of the problems with the story come from the actual writing.  Written better, Anna's character could have some power, but she needs alot more story here.

In terms of the challenge, the genre of action has been met, and there aren't any male characters in the script.  But, it doesn't feel right or believable, because there would be men in these crowded settings.

Wish I could have been more positive, but the genre of action involving only women is not a difficult one, so I can't really grade on a curve.

A solid premise, but there are some problems with execution.

Quoted Text EXT. BUS STOP - AMMAN – DAY

Am I supposed to know where this is?

Quoted Text The phone drops to the ground as A LARGE WOMAN walks past and bumps into, Anna without care.

For clarity of action – flip the sequence – the woman bumping Anna should come first – the phone falling to the ground – second.

Quoted Text FATIMA If the bus is late there’s a small cafe across the street. In that case, use the money to order a drink and find a seat inside. Pray they there’s a long line for the knafeh this morning.

Typo – don’t need they.

Quoted Text FATIMA Don’t! This is like a dead man’s switch. Now if you or anybody else tries to take this off you, they’ll be blown apart like a, like a overfilled water balloon. As a matter of fact, don’t touch anything anymore. Do you understand?

Unnatural and a little over the top - I would lose the balloon reference

Quoted Text BASMA (laughing) I hate them. My brother always said I had the eyes of a cow. When we were little he used to chase me around with my uncle’s cowbell and throw grass at me. You have no ideas what little asshols brothers are!

Typo – assholes

Quoted Text responce

Should be response

Quoted Text Abrubtly the bus stops in the middle of traffic. The doors open and Anna rushes out at top speed down the street past a row of shops and PEEDESTRIANS.

Should be pedestrians

Quoted Text Across the street, TRAFFIC whizzes by with even more PEDESTRAINS on the other side. At the intersection a large MOVING TRUCK waits for the red light to change.

Should be pedestrians

Quoted Text Anna looks behind to find a RESTURAUNT patio packed with DINERS

Should be restaurant

Quoted Text With a change of the traffic light, the pedistrians cross the street and the moving truck drives off to reveal an

Should be pedestrians

Quoted Text Watery eyes soon lead to full blown tears as the stress, shock, and loss floods out of Anna. She loses control of her body and breaks down compeltely. Looks up at the sky, then then where Anna used to be.

Where Madlyn used to be – not Anna

Anyway - those were just a few - a good scrubbing is needed.

I did like the premise.

IT does stretch the parameters of the challenge IMO - there are just so many places where male characters would naturally be - on the bus, in the crowds, on the street. But I said stretch - so will accept.

With a re-write there is potential here

Aside from everything that is mentioned in the comments above, I didn't mind this.  This is certainly a possible scenario (minus the no men on the streets, etc).  

I liked how the clock kept on ticking down.  But, I would have liked to see a little more on how Anna came to this.  Was she radicalized?  Or did she just do it because she felt she had nothing to lose after being caught by her mother?  If that's the case, I think she needs more motivation for doing what she did.  It seems extreme to go that route without a little backround into how she was brought up.  I suppose with the page limit of the challenge it would be pretty tough to get that across though.  With some more room I could see this being quite good.

Nolan

I think there's a lot of good stuff with the story you've presented,  the clock ticking down, the bomb etc.

Introducing the sub plot and the burgeoning relationship between the two girls (in a short) however just muddied the waters for me. I wasn't buying a lot of the dialogue unfortunately but this could be because not only is your task to write female characters but they're also young, and unless you're around kids and have an ear for their lingo it's not that easy.  Are you also a NESB writer? Some of the typos and word usage indicates this, but I could be wrong. Example below:

'What the hell do you got in there?'
'What the hell have you got in there?'

Unless of course your character is uneducated and her way of speaking reflects this. But I didn't get that impression considering some of the other errors.

I definitely think you've a great idea to work on here in the future, without the constraints of the challenge. Good job.

One of my biggest pet peeves is when people talk about and write about children. Because they go to extremes with it. Either the kid is a picture of innocence or outlandish adults in kid bodies. The former being the biggest issue for me. When I was a kid I cursed, I experimented, and I experienced a rushed life and so did a lot of the kids I grew up with.

Hello! '13' people?

So, when I read this I thought 'thank goodness' someone got the balance right. I enjoyed this story a lot. I loved Anna and was genuinely worried about her threw out the entire thing.  I would have wished Madalyn was her friend from the bedroom earlier to make this death really hit home.

I got questions. But that's not a bad thing. Good work.

Ok, a rushed job, and not perfect, but a fair effort and good premise.

One to tidy up, but a fair effort for the week.

Some dialogue wasn't too female kid like, but again that can be fixed

I hope folk see through the errors .

I applaud the effort.

Quoted Text Some dialogue wasn't too female kid like, but again that can be fixed

You'd be surprised.

Some of the dialogue felt off for me.

Basma felt like a boy. Madalyn felt like she was from New York, not from Jordan. It's quite a repressive society. Little girls do not, in my experience, tend to travel alone in their teens or use that kind of language. I could be wrong about that.

It didn't feel very Middle Eastern, either. I didn't get a sense of any of the atmosphere of Jordan.

Fatima, I believe would have professed a lot more religious ideas to coerce Anna and praise her for her bravery. They would need constant reinforcement to convince themselves to kill themselves.

Madalyn should really be the same character as Basma. That would add much needed poignancy.


The topic is an extremely common one in produced, professional films and on the festival circuit. Despite being jaded by it, I still enjoyed the story. Good effort.

I have no clue what AMMAN is.  A place?

Something completely ridiculous about a smiley face in the text I assume is signifying a terrorist attack is coming… ridiculous, but oddly funny?  

This flashback scene – all of it is implied just off the opening scene on a bus.  I didn’t need it at all to know what’s up.   That felt like a “less is more” scene.  We’ll see.

I’m taking this with a grain of salt at this point b/c of the challenge.  I find it hard to believe ALL of these people would ever be female, but whatever.

Yoys?  Whatever, I’ll roll with it assuming it’s just a word I don’t know.

assholEs

giigle – giggle

Lot of lesbian stuff in this competition.  Seems almost too easy to me.

Not buying Madalyn. Not buying her cursing, not buying her immediately striking up conversation.  Not buying her explaining things, etc.  Not buying the fact that she is also showing signs of being a lesbian. Etc.

Now we’re really stretching the “all female” cast thing with a busy intersection, but again, since no man is highlighted or speaking, I think it’s fine.  I imagine someone might bring that up.

This could be good... well, in the eyes of other people, I personally wouldn't have much interest.

Feels like it wants to be a “powerful” scene from a longer Oscar-baity type script, but Madalyn is what totally ruined it for me.  I wanted to feel sympathy but she never felt like a real character.  She was actually pretty annoying to be honest.  Also, the whole “Anna is persecuted for her sexuality and thus becomes a suicide bomber” didn’t feel fully realized.  I left wondering how she even got to this point.  The Fatima and Mom flashbacks were out of order.  … also, 2 flashbacks in 10 pages is a lot to ask.

Yeah this could so much better! Nice setup and premise and even though I knew where it was set - AMMAN needs to be done as a SUPER not a slug - the dialogue was so Western as to be almost comical.

I did like the action paragraphs, they were done well. It did seem like a rushed job overall.

Look, the effort was there and good on you but it needs to be more structured and made more Middle Eastern

I gotta say, that's some dog's breakfast of a script, typos all over the place and that's just for starters.

Now, the above is a right shame as the idea was great, and whilst I may just stop reading a script sometimes if the grammar is all over the shop, I didn't here because I cared for Anna and wanted to know what happened.

Real shame you didn't nail down the basics, but so far as plot goes you're up there. Take your time and re-write it, it's definitely worth another go.

Cam

The writing in this really lets down what is quite a tense premise. It's full of mistakes, not only typos but in screenplay structure. Not sure if this is because the writer is new to screenplays, English isn't their first language, or they were in a real rush but it makes it hard to get through.

The dialogue reads unnaturally. Not as in stuff a child of that age would say but in terms of sounding like things being said for the sake of the audience rather than what that character would actually say. An example of this is the whole unnecessary flashback scene where Fatima explains about the bomb for the whole audience.  

And did the mother really turn her child into a suicide bomber simply because she kissed another girl?  

There's a really good, tense and believable story in here, it's just lost in a mess. I think if you gave this a solid re-write and take your time with it, you might be onto something quite producible.

-Mark

Writer,

Done in a rush this one is loaded with typos, misplaced commas and repeated words. I can understand that when your back's against the wall though. Still, the story - although a bit long - did kinda grab me and I wanted to know how it ended. That's a good thing. The bad is that I couldn't understand the lesbian angle here. Sounds like a completely different story as opposed to what was transpiring, and I couldn't quite get ahold of it. So, here we have Anna, ugly duckling type girl who gets hit on by two women (:D~) but wait - she's a terrorist with a bomb! Just couldn't link the two together. Sorry. But good effort, writer!

Steve

I missed some info - what made Anna's mother act that way, and how Anna found Fatima... And why it's all about someone liking Anna - I guess I want to know more about her as well.

Girls sound like they are 7 or 8. Just me?

Good entry though. Well written despite all the typos

title: Wide-spread names as script titles feel always a bit generic and boring too me - but it's a personal taste thing
logline: only interesting point I get out of it is that something happens within ten minutes – which is not enough to gain interest

Interesting surrounding. You should make a reference that you work with subtitles. I hope Fatima and Anna are realistically chosen names for Jordanian because that kind of authenticity is important.

A bit vulgar how all those girls talk. It doesn't sound right from what I "personally" would expect from Jordanian culture.

P8 I like the script so far, Anna has win me over, let's see…

The sexual tone wasn't necessary but I guess you needed it to make her feel, show her feel, that there's worth and so on to survive, to not kill etc… and you didn't find a different way yet

Bottom page 9 - names mixed up

The explosion is a no-go in such full focus as here, for me. Children, if any, should be never more than a collateral damage in a political script/war script. But that's my personal opinion, so I won't hold this against you. Anyway, there's also this kind message about innocence.

Script hits the genre very well, and it also produces emotions. Not sure about the dialogue and general authenticity. Good tension and delivery. Well done. Good work.

I thought it was okay.  Not great, but, certainly not the worst I've read.  

Why the girl-time make out?  It's a flashback that isn't needed.  

SPOILERS
We get it, she's being used as a puppet to blow up something.  We don't need the girls making out to show her getting kicked out.  And how does that lead to her meeting Fatima?  You open up more questions by doing that.  

It's actually better to keep it the mom who wants her daughter to sacrifice herself for the good of "the cause."  It might be generic, but, it's also true.

Also, I think you missed out on the countdown.  You could have really upped the excitement.

2 flashbacks in 10 pages is bad.

Why Madelyn would run after her makes so sense.  

Why not have some curious kids just walk up to the backpack she leaves?  If you were going for the sympathy kill of Madelyn, it didn't work.  Yes, we know she's a nice person.  But, we don't really care for her.

Good luck with it.  It does have potential.

Dan

First off, I liked the premise.

Unfortunately, that is the only positive criticism I can give for this piece.

As mentioned by others, there are typos galore and each one pulls me out of the story.

The dialogue wasn't horrible, but a lot of it felt completely unbelievable.

Also, most of Anna's motivations never felt organic, merely jumping through the beats to get from point A to point B.

Well, you've already been pretty beat up re: typos, formatting, etc. so I won't go there. Interesting is that there have been many comments in this and other OWC scripts about the foul language and that girls/women wouldn't speak that way. What the F?? I find most women have dirtier mouths than most of the men I know. Maybe it's just my circle (Ashlie and I could hang for sure).

All in all, liked the premise. A bit overwritten too but not bad. Spellcheck would've done wonders for this one.

I'll see if I can survive this one.

For the record, Amman is in Jordan. I only know this because Halloween producer Moustapha Akkad (and director of Muslim epics Lion of the Desert and The Message) was among those killed in the 2005 hotel bombings. Also, I'd prefer a SUPER.

"Bus" doesn't really need to be capped.

"empty bus bench" Bus is redundant at this point. Remove the word "bus" from the entire paragraph until the word ceases to be redundantly redundant. "The XYZ she wears" reads awkward. Change it to "Her XYZ."

ALLAH ACKBAR : )
Huh??? Is this a text message? A little communication goes a long way.

Awkward placing of commas that don't even need to be in the sentence.

Are you calling the reader a bitch? Replace the periods with commas.

"... Why waste it?" Why use that awkward ellipsis?

"Anna rubs the
redness from her hand."

Huh???

I can't take anymore. Out on page 1. Sorry.

Ticking time bombs are always fun.  But I'm no fan of coincidence, especially when if favors the protag.  I liked the premise, but the execution seemed lacking.  Had Anna and Madalyn worked together to defuse...well, that would have presented some great opportunity for conflict.

There is lots to like in this, but the basics let it down as noted in a lot of the other reviews, which is a shame as a spell/grammar check would have done wonders.

I found some of the dialogue a little of off, but that could be my ear, and limited experience of middle eastern kids talking.

Did feel for Anna;s plight and you dragged me in well.

Good effort.

More involving once the second girl showed up on the bus. Before that, with the flashbacks, not so much. Action nicely done.  

In this story of 12 yr old girls, a girl desperate for friendship may resonate with the audience more rather than sexual leanings.

Things to fix but there's something about the bus and explosion that worked well for me.

Ok, here is the mandatory response post now that the deadline has passed. Thanks everybody for the reads and feedback. I appreciate it!

First of all, I want to apologize for the sloppy condition of the script. I thought I'd had plenty of time on this one but found myself just finishing before the deadline as you can see my submission was second to last. I never really went back and gave it a good once over which was badly needed. I'm embarrassed but it's split milk now. If you read all the way through I thank you. I gave you plenty of reasons not to it seems.

But moving on, I thought it'd be interesting to write about how I approached the OWC while incorporating feedback.

I'm not much of a "Thriller" guy so at first the genre I pulled stalled me out. But then I remembered an old Hitchcock quote about the difference between suspense and surprise relating to a bomb and if the audience knows it exists or if it just blows up. That was the original inspiration for Anna, to make a whole script about a bomb. Including a real time "24" style countdown timer would amp the suspense up as well.

And if we're doing a short story about a bomb, then why not focus on a suicide bomber right? Low hanging fruit these days perhaps, but more and more women are being recruited for this and it would fit well within the confines of the contest rules. A reluctant female suicide bomber could make for some strong emotions to play with.

The tricky part was the constraint that all characters must be women. Since my story would call for crowds this gave me some fits early on. Yeah I kinda cheated by not just addressing gender at all for many background characters, but I think it didn't break any rules either. Once that was done I could focus on the story instead of schematics.

The story was simple. A young and shamed girl gets roped into becoming a suicide bomber only to have a change of heart at the literal last minute. A lot of people didn't like the flashbacks as they were deemed to be too many in such a short time, but I needed to show Anna's plight or else why care? The first flashback with the Fatima character sets up right away the stakes. A bomb, on the bus, can't be stopped, mass casualties, Anna is not long for the world. Giving Anna pity points by having her silent, berated, hungry would help the audience relate to her quickly I hoped while having her steal a bite to eat might give us hope to root for her. Fatima probably should have been a bit more religious as others have mentioned as well.

The 2nd flashback was meant to show why she had a bomb tied to her chest. Because of the repressed culture she lives in, not even her own mother wants anything to do with her first kiss happens to be with a girl. I don't know if I had that clearly expressed it was her first so that's something I should emphasized.  

As some mentioned, a 3rd flashback may be needed to show how Anna and Fatima met. I thought about having either as it's own flashback, or as a a continuation on the 2nd, Anna alone on the streets, disheveled after being kicked out of her house and stumbles across Fatima at a cafe or something. Fatima gives her a flirty wink to bring Anna into her web and that's that.

Until now Anna is completely passive in her role in the story. It's not until Madalyn sits next to her and gives her friendship that she affects the story through her decisions. Besides the grammar and typos, the main critique seems to be Madeline. People didn't like the way she talked for starters. I teach high school and have done jr. high and will say that for some kids, Madalyn isn't far off with the swearing. I probably did go too far and have her speak like a sailor too much so I'll dial it back. The second issue most had is they wanted Madalyn to be Basma, the girl from the flashback. That's too much coincidence I feel. However that does make 3 girls hitting on Anna within like 6 pages of story, lol. I did write she had very alluring eyes. ;) I think story wise Basma would put Anna back on autopilot as of course she would try to save her friend. The fact she runs off the bus for a stranger is a stronger beat IMO.

This is where I had some issues with the conclusion. I knew someone had to die. To talk about a heavy subject matter like suicide bombers and not have anybody get hurt as a consequence felt like a cop out. Having Anna die woulds been tragic but not as much as if an innocent did. So the end comes to a race. Anna, running away from bystanders so as not to take anybody down with her, and Madalyn chasing to find Anna and give her back her phone.  When Anna falls and the bomb doesn't go off felt like cheating a little, but a lot of these suicide vests had shoddy construction so I felt it was acceptable. That allows for Anna to escape her fate when she takes it off but also sets up Madalyn to find it. At that point, the die is cast and Madalyn is doomed to die. When she does, the story ends rather abruptly. Anna runs away and that's that. The script is missing something at the end I feel. Madalyn's death does feel rather senseless which I like and will keep.

All that said, I do intend to fix this up a tad, put some men in it, and strengthen the flashbacks specifically in regards as to how Anna finds Fatima. And of course fix the grammar mistakes. History teacher here, not English, lol.

Thanks for all the feedback good and bad once again. I'm sorry I couldn't have submitted a stronger script as I feel my efforts didn't do the story justice. I'll fix it.

Hey Cam,

As per my review, I reckon you've got something here so definitely take another go at it and fix the typos and formatting up.

Another thing that came to me was that as there is certainly a lot to go on theme wise with this, maybe expand it, or even take the characters elsewhere and try to eek a series out of it. From the few things I've written, some of the best professional feedback I got was where an initial scene I wrote left an instant and fairly brutal impact. You've already nailed that with the bus scene at the start, now you've got the space and time to really build it up.

All the best with it, and if you need a re-read let me know.

Cam

Quoted from Cameron Hey Cam, As per my review, I reckon you've got something here so definitely take another go at it and fix the typos and formatting up. Another thing that came to me was that as there is certainly a lot to go on theme wise with this, maybe expand it, or even take the characters elsewhere and try to eek a series out of it. From the few things I've written, some of the best professional feedback I got was where an initial scene I wrote left an instant and fairly brutal impact. You've already nailed that with the bus scene at the start, now you've got the space and time to really build it up. All the best with it, and if you need a re-read let me know. Cam

From one Cameron to another thanks! I will.

If I can ask, what part of the bus scene had that impact for you? I think it would be interesting to maybe see what happens to Anna after the bomb goes off, but as you said, there's a lot of places to go with the idea. Thanks again.

Hey Cam, no worries mate.

What I got with the bus is an active intro, where we quickly find not everything's okay with Anna. No slow teasing build up, straight down to it and now the reader wants to know how she's managed to get to where she is, and how it's going to play out, which is covered with the flashback and final movement. It's a good structure and so long as you've got that hook right at the beginning (which I reckon it is), you've got the reader engaged straight from the off.

There's a story there so definitely build on it. The backstory would be an obvious area for extension, roughly the same opening, and take the ending wherever you want to.

Let us know if you want a read of any revisions Cam,

Cheers

Cam