Jagged Little Pill by Shmoop A Loop - A troubled mother faces the consequences of her battle with post partum depression.  Short, Drama

Quick takeaway:
Take your meds! And don't wait two years before seeking help.

Postpartum psychosis really isn't it, not just depression.

SPOILERS -



But I'm so glad it ended on an upbeat note with the alternate reality.

Over-egging the exposition a bit here:

FEMALE GUARD
Better take it Bowery. Not that it
matters much, you’re never getting
out of here. Post partum depression
doesn’t really fly with a jury.

Insert comma btw, before Bowery.

Overall this is a teeny bit too sensational and heavy-handed for my taste.
You chose a serious topic with an overwhelmingly sound message. I think it's terrific subject matter to explore.

I wonder if instead of going the Wentworth route it might be more effective to relay the story on a more personal level - focus on the struggle between the two characters only e.g., husband and wife, the changes in her personality, break from reality etc.

You went full-on cautionary tale here and you definitely had me while reading, I'm just on the fence with regard to the extreme angle you chose.

Nice choice below, segueing into the next scene, just ramp it up a bit or it's easy to miss.

Some stains look like balloons, the
cracks like strings.

Great title.  ;)

This has some well sewn together time-line craft-work, the whole thing was very melancholy, but overall a fine sample of writing.

It also hit close to home, very close. There was a similar incident that took place in my neck of the woods a few years back, just a few blocks from my kids’ school, wherein a woman suffering from post-partum depression drowned her two children in the bathtub, then walked across the street and drowned herself in the river.

A good friend of mine had just recently made Detective for Police Services and had to respond to that particular call, he never spoke in depth of the incident, however, indicated that many responding officers who had children of their own were so emotionally overwhelmed they required counseling.

Long story short, this shit is real, and it’s a tragedy the many in the system don’t recognize it for what it is, including the Female Guard you scripted here, which is a good way of embedding that aspect of the stigma into your story, indicating a person is responsible for a heinous crime regardless of their state of affairs, hence the asylum lock-down, forever staring at the walls and ceiling, lost in a state of demented purgatory.

The ending, her salient relief, if only for a moment via the medicinal gateway to a happier memory, is the icing on the cake for this morbid tale. Not sure what prompted you to choose this avenue of approach for the theme, but it definitely works as an after-hours, dark psychological crime piece. Well done.

I liked this. A complete story arc.

However:

The dialogue blocks from the guard on page three are really OTN/expositional. You need to change it. And – I’m not sure you even need the dialogue in the first place – I think most readers will understand what’s going on it without it.

AND

You had a lot of extra pages left to get us that info in a more effective manner (e.g., Have your protag at a session with a shrink at the end explaining why she needs to take the pills).

Bump...

Not mine, just looks like this script fell off the radar a bit cause it went onto page two of the thread…

There's an episode of House, M.D. that involved a mother's psychosis and her killing her infant while unwell only to be horrified by what she'd done once they treated her. To me, that is what the pills would do, they keep her lucid. They wouldn't make her delusional, and that ending is delusion.

The time jumps work well, matching her conflicted mind. She's trapped in memories with little distraction from them, and they flit about like the scenes. It's well done, which is what makes the ending weaker than it should be. It lets her off the hook, and before you call the SS posse to burn me at the stake, I get that post partum depression is real and this sort of thing definitely happens, but there are millions of people who suffer from PPD who don't drown their kids or play pin cushion with them. The ending also clouds the truth, because now I don't know if her husband did try to help and support her or not. Maybe her way of accepting her crime is by having them live on in her mind because they were both innocent.

Another way to go would have been to withhold the truly terrible nature of the crime for the ending, hinting at it, suggesting it, and then delivering the worst fears. Anyway, it doesn't quite strike me as believable without something to explain the delusional ending. Nice effort, it has potential to have a solid impact with tweaks.

My auntie strangled my 2-year-old niece to death when I was a kid. I don't know if it was postpartum depression because back then they just locked you up in the mental institute for such behaviour and that's what happened to her. I never saw her again and have no idea what happened to her.

Anyway, this was well written and used the experimental narrative effectively. I just think it needs more and I was confused by the ending. Was it all in her imagination or do the pills take her to an alternative life or something, I'm not sure.  

A lot of story in only three pages. Very well done.

Well done.

The balloons as a device was great. Made for nice transitions.

One nit: The killing itself is quite graphic. More horror than drama. I think the story could hold the same power without her having to stab him multiple times. I know it's realistic, and you're trying to make a point. But, sometimes a little less can be more powerful. The risk is that the audience won't see past that moment to see the greater message.

Of course, as is, you could argue that you're getting the message to an audience that might not otherwise hear it.

Either way, this was really good.

Nice title (also the title of an Alanis Morrisette album I think).

Not sure if I fully understood this one, but I liked it... I guess the ending is an alternate life playing inside her head? Are these a series of alternate realities? The first one, she stabs Ed. The second one, she killed the kid and Ed is alive. Third (and last one) is her, Ed and Shea happy.

I liked this one. Good job.

-- Michael

I liked this, but I wish there was something more to it. Postpartum depression is awful and I believe many more people suffer from it than we think since most are ashamed to admit it. But i found the story a little uninspired. If I'm reading it correctly, she kills her family, goes to jail and when she takes her meds she imagines a happy life. That seems like an section of a story, not the whole story itself. If you played a bit more with the timeline, like having the happy moment at the beginning only to reveal the horrors of post partum depression as the story went on, I think it would be more hard hitting and use the non linear storytelling even better.

But all in all good job. A heartbreaking tale about a very real subject.

HI Writer

The guard's dialogue feels forced.

Great idea here but I think it can be explored a whole lot more, it could really dig deep into postpartum and its effects, show her decline over time, the subtle hints that are ignored by others and hidden by her (the bit about her husband not giving her meds makes it seem she was already diagnosed with it).
You could use the timeline distortion more effectively I think to really up the drama in this, at the moment its a bit "meh" when it should really be giving me an emotional punch.

Loved the transition from the stains and cracks looking like balloons back to the balloons at the party by the way, great visual.

best of luck

Strong theme here and the drama works well for the most part...

Not keen on the guard, felt a little cliche and forced, think we get what we need without the dialogue really.

You had a few more pages to build this a little further.

Good effort

Short but in no way sweet. An all true realistic of the effects of PPD. Well written but I'm always put off by the antagonistic nature some uniformed characters berate protagonists, especially cops, prison guards etc just to explain a story. Other than that I liked it.
Well done

Great work here - just to reiterate about the guard but, other than that, very solid. The thought of PPD just tears me up.

My understanding is that Jennifer committed the murders due to psychosis and the pills let her escape into a fantasy world where everything is right again.  Though I could be wrong...

The flashback structure is straightforward enough to follow just (for me) the overall effect wasn’t all that satisfying.  Maybe it needs a little more to connect us to Jennifer?  I can empathise to a certain extent but I just don’t know enough about her situation and the post partum depression for it to land with the emotional weight that it should.  I want to feel sorry for her but I’m equally repelled by her actions.  Maybe one to come back to but consider dialling back the shock factor of the set-up in favour of a more nuanced approach.

Writer,

I liked this although it's probably something that I can't read again, this kind of stuff really disturbs me. It's well done and I like how you used the medication as a device for time jumping. I am still a bit confused as to the ending, so did this really happen or was it all something in her mind? a kind of imagined scenario if she didn't take her pills? Nice work.

This is grim but effective. The part where she turns to her son with cold eyes. Yikes! The dialogue was short, but realistic. Good work. What would happen if we found out that the woman wasn't taking the prescriptions that her husband had gotten her? What if she spit out a pill shortly before the attack?

All 3 of my entries were written extremely fast...and it shows, especially in this one. I wasn't gonna do this last round, and I probably shouldn't have. LOL

First, the story was supposed to show her intrusive thoughts in the beginning. But the murders didn't happen. Her husband was supportive so they made it through.

There was an infant, to show she had recently had a baby...but I took it out. So stupid. LOL. And I just didn't have the time to show that her husband was aware she was struggling, and he was helping her.

The idea struck me after a convo with my 26 year old daughter who is afraid to have kids because she's scared she'll get PPD. She's always struggled with depression so she's worried. I told her she'd have lots of support and it's the people who are afraid to tell people how they're feeling and the thoughts they're having, who end up taking a bad turn.

Anyway, thanks for the reviews.

And one for the girls. Yay!

You're right with your advice too. Knowing what your daughter's fears are you'd be vigilant and you'd both hopefully be on top of it.

V.nice job, Marnie.