To Have and To Hold by ?????? - Adult, Short, Drama - He loves her and she loves him but he's also been keeping a secret. Will their first date IRL (in real life) be their last? 10 pages - pdf, format

Mysophobia - Fear of contamination and germs

Format wise - fine. Writing generally crisp and clean.

Premise - solid UNTIL

SPOILERS

The twist. i.e., if he has no immune system that his fear of germs is not a phobia - in fact it is what killed him. I mean it was a clever flip - but it kind of derailed the phobia. It made the fear rational. I also found it highly implausible that she would have no clue what he died of.

Hi,

Quoted Text THOMAS (40s), reserved and meticulous, sits at a desk. Smiles lovingly into his computer monitor. KIMMY (40s) is lovingly smiling back via Skype. She’s bubbly and warm. Speaks from inside a train station.

Both your character descriptions are unfilmable, "reserved and meticulous", and "bubbly and warm". How would you film this in the way it's currently written? Scripts need to be visual.

Your formatting style isn't great, I'm not a fan of the ---, why not just write them as normal action lines? If the're a series of shots I think they should be labeled as such, but again just writing them as action lines would be better.

SPOILERS

The whole premise is confusing to me. He fears germs but he ends up doing things that expose him to germs, why did he even ever meet Kimmy?

This doesn't meet the parameters of the challenge as a phobia is an irrational fear, this guy has every reason to fear for his life.

All the best.

OK, for starters, the formatting of the skype call is not correct.

The first thing each says to the other makes this come off as a pisser or comedy.

What's with all the "---"?  doesn't read well.

OK...I skimmed to the end.  So, is this a comedy or supposed to be taken seriously?  I didn't even check, as I didn't think comedies were part of this challenge.

If it's meant to be taken seriously, what are we supposed to feel here?

Writing isn't terrible or bad even, but there are issues throughout, and the subject matter doesn't work at all for me.

Grade - **  

LOVE the title.

LOVE the logline. Very good job there.

Out the gate I feel like I'm in competent hands here. Great writing on display. Short clear descriptions. No fat.

Love the forewarning ...This won’t end well.

Love the visuals of his phobia.

You have a good knack for pushing tension in a story.

Not much to complain about. My favorite so far.

GREAT job.

You had me right up until the twist.

Great premise, great writing, a solid hook with the foreshadowing. You could have ended it with him showing up at the hotel, make that a bit more emotional and I would have been totally satisfied.

I didn't have any problem with the formatting or the character intros, just the ending. It felt tongue in cheek instead of emotional.

Good job, it has real potential.

I was fine with this until the twist. I thought it a bit odd that she would want to have sex with him on their first date but it didn't really spoil the story. The twist is a good one but it turns the phobia into an actual medical condition, which isn't a phobia and therefore doesn't seem to be within the confines of this OWC.

Apart from that I thought it was well written and easy to follow. I disagree about the comment about the character descriptions being unfilmable. Character descriptions are generally a mixture of what you can see with an insight into what type of person they are. As long as it is brief, I think it adds a little bit of flair and is used widely in produced scripts.

-Mark

I think this one actually is within the confines of the rules. The definition posted is "An extreme or irrational fear of or aversion to something". Extreme OR irrational is different than extreme AND irrational.

Hey,
I think that's a good little story you've got there.
What if Eric reminded him at the beginning about germs and stuff - when they were texting each other I mean.
The conversations in this could be more interesting I think.
She came out a bit bland for me. She laughs at him when he came to her room with all the antiseptics - made me wonder why would anyone fall for someone like her.

At places, I thought you were going too fast. You could wait a moment to let the drama set in. Otherwise, it's too upbeat for a drama with death in it.
But good story all the same. Thanks for writing and entering.

Good Writing.

Kind of boring.  A story that wasn't going anywhere fast.  "I want to touch you but I can't" .

I didn't know if the reader was expected to laugh or cry.
I guess it had that Adrian Monk thing going on but,

What did he die of?  Germs?  No immune system?  There are many auto-immune diseases out there.  Think you should have picked one.

Good clean writing though.  No problem with the story flow.

JJ

I was a bit sceptical with the writing on page 1, but the pages to follow were fine.

Being a competent writer, I'm sure you would be able to skim over it all and pick up the errors here and there.

It was a neat little story, but not for me. I agree with others on the twist - it didn't fit.

As with a couple of other entries - I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it either. I think I was waiting for something to eventuate in the end and it didn't.

The twist being that kind of medical condition, IMO, really isn't a phobia - he's just being carful because its essential for his survival.

RJ

I definitely was surprised at the end. Didn't expect that, even knowing Rest In Peace was going to be the final line.

A really intriguing and interesting story with good dramatic elements, especially considering the length of the script and the limited time there was to write it.

The only thing that bothered me was Eric happily sending Thomas to his death. There are certainly other ways of dealing with this rather than having his brother die.

I would have preferred if it was more Thomas' decision to go to the hotel with Eric trying to stop him. The story is more about Thomas anyway, and he should be the one making the final choice. And like I mentioned, it seems awful that Eric would suggest his brother die to be with someone he loves rather than take the million other options that don't end in death.

I agree with several of the others.

It was good.  A guy with severe phobia of germs until

SPOILERS
it wasn't.  Then you voided the condition of the story.  It wasn't a phobia.  

And honestly, I can't imagine a person with no immune system not saying something.

Good effort.

Dan

Hmmm...I think I'll side with it being a legit phobia just because even the thought of germs made him want to vomit. The immune deficiency just supported the phobia, or vice versa.

Not sure if he died from a germ exposure or if he got suffocated by the plastic sheet during sex if he was on the bottom?

Regardless, a fun read. Easy to film. Another cheap-o production here on a shoe-string. A house and a hotel room. Good work. Oh, a lot of missing commas that need to be addressed!

Not sure what to make of this one.  I like the premise of this germaphobe falling in love online and having to deal with finally meeting his true love.  

Tonally the climax at the hotel (a sex kit including a plastic sheet replete with an ‘inches wide hole in the middle’) and cut to the funeral played more like comedy which jars against the emotion it tries to wring out at the end.  It’s like the writer knows this but can’t help but have fun with the idea.  Was he a Mysophobe if he had no immune system?  Maybe one to revise into comedy?

Not sure if you were intending this to be a comedy or not, but the second I read the slug line for the funeral scene, I laughed.

You did a great job with the phobia he has up until the end. It's at this point that his germ issue went from being a phobia to being something that he was extremely cautious about ... which ended up killing him. Not sure why you veered away from this, it was working good.

Writing and pace were both great, an easy read.


Good work.

This is hilarious, but the fact that he didn't have an immune system is really a legitimate reason not to deal with anyone or anything, so I'm not sure it fits in with what  is normally referred to as a phobia. Lose the cemetery scene and give us a glimpse of the ridiculous sex scene and you have a great comedy!

Hey writer,

So, I'm on the finishing straight for the reviews here, and was worried about what I may find. Wish I'd found this one earlier.

No idea why, but I just ended up in a big smile, even at the sad ending bit!! It seemed to have some comic force that just threw me a bit. I don't really buy that he'd never told her about the phobia, but I kinda let that go and just ran with it.

In feature length, this could be the worst, most painful romcom ever. In short, it's bloody funny and for some reason and it really worked for me.

I think it's the visuals, you did a bloody good job there, and this helped you along in what is a highly unlikely premise.

I liked it, though probably for the wrong reasons!!

Cam