From Vilna with Love by Warren Duncan (Warren) writing as Anonymous - Short, Historical - Years after the Soviet invasion of Poland, a brother and sister track down the man who destroyed their family in an attempt to find some justice.

Nature vs Nurture writing challenge: Items: Die-Cast Toy Car, Painter, Place of Worship

Powerful and didn't end the way I expected.

With all the characters, flashbacks and forwards - you have a lot going on in the script and it is a bit overwhelming at first trying to take it all in. I think what would help is to make it leaner. There are quite a few wonderful but unnecessary descriptions you could trim to make this a lighter read.

Great story, well told and fits the parameters nicely.

-Mark

Wow. Great story. Too big for 5 pages though...as often happens. Some reall great imagery here but to make this less confusing maybe you'd have to cut out some of that in order to lean it out and make it easier to understand.

Excellent use of the object. Very interesting characters. To me, this line was chilling..."The time for being a child is over".

Nice job, writer.

Some really decent writing on display here. Great flow, character development and dialogue. Is this based on actual people or specific event? Maybe I'm not interpreting the historical genre properly but a story taking place in Poland during WWII doesn't really define it as historical.

I think you nailed the theme though. Tomasz, even with the hardships and circumstance, was not a killer at heart. Nice.

Good work, writer.

Good of you to write about WW2.

I wonder which character is from history here. I usually look them up but what's the use here - doesn't look like Tomazc is a national hero or anything.
So, I am thinking it's a straight up drama with no historical elements. Maybe if the war factor is taken into consideration...

It's a good use of an object.

I wish there was more on the rapist early on.

This one is a bit of slow built for me, cause you introduce their problem later in the story. I was finishing p3 without knowing what the story is really about.

Reads well and the writing is really clean here.

Very well written piece, though the end felt a little telegraphed (to me anyway).

Weirdly I think you could have left it ambiguous and finished it at the top of page 5.

Good job!

Yeah this is the best I've read for this round.

Couple of nitpicks though: the painter variable is shoehorned in as him being a painter has no effect on the story;

And I goggled 'die cast toy' out of interest and the first proper ones weren't made till 1947, but we can imagine Tomasz's car as made of metal.  A small village in 1939 Poland wouldn't be producing die cast items lol.

But the names and flashbacks were handled well!

Just some trivia before I go - my paternal grandmother's ancestors were named Dohnt and came to Australia in the 1860's from what was then Prussia.  The villages and area they were from have changed names since then but I have researched them, and the area is now in Poland. It would be cool to go there one day , but of course I would find no trace of old graves or relations as the area suffered during all the wars since the 1860's.

decent work

a nice flow to it, good pacing and a captivating story

the criteria were handled and the theme nicely present.

instead of violence they choose confrontation

good work

Not much to say about the theme and all, but reading it was a very pleasant experience. Wad of emotions clubbed into one. Very much enjoyed the twist at the end(if you call it that). With a solid cast, it will work wonders.

Good luck.

Flashback-heavy for me, this one. I enjoyed the action as it was playing out, and really enjoyed the opening scene. Road movie-like (not what this is intended to be but liked it nonetheless). Yes, it was a surprise ending. Wonder why the soldier kept the toy?

Well written story about revenge rejected by a brother and sister who can’t overcome their upbringing to kill the man who murdered their father and raped their mother. Good use of the elements, and the theme was well incorporated.

Hi,

I have nothing further to add to what has already been said. A touching and emotive story that I really liked.

Well done.

Well, that was pretty Impressive and very enjoyable to boot.

One nitpick:
the look of concentration on
her face
I personally think that should be ' a look of concentration...

And maybe, a missing apostrophe I think... big deal.

You evoked the sense of time and place so well.

Snow crunches under Tomasz’s shoes...
One thing we script writers often forget is the audible sounds that accompany the visual to create a fully dimensional world to make us feel it.

I actually thought when the gun went off that he did it.
Building to a very nice denouement and working that theme in again.
Elements were there.

A deft hand on this one.
Great job!

Re read this one...

Often we don’t have time, it’s all too rushed,

This is absolutely class.

Sorry I didn’t give it more praise.

Beautifully written and very evocative...

Good use of the elements...

I'm struggling with the theme this week, or should I say, I'm struggling to recognize it where others are using it subtly, and that's probably more of a reflection of me than it is the writer. Here we have siblings who lost their parents, and they seem to have grown up ethically and morally under both circumstances, heredity and environment.

Nevertheless, the writing is top notch.

AJR