Her Red Reading by Michael Yu (MichaelYu) writing as anonymous - Short, Horror - A man is addicted to watching women reading. When he sees his girlfriend reading an evil book, he must stop her from killing an expert on studying ghosts. - pdf format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

That was a confusing story.  In the end, I understood, but it was hard to follow.  Very much like a King/Straub kind of tale.  The dialog was pretty stiff, and the word usage was not quite right, but I'm certain English isn't your first language.  Overall, the story was good, but I'm not certain the conclusion of why the ghosts went after her and not him was convincing.

I don't know if you intentionally wanted it to be that way or not, but this was an awkward and disjointed read. The dialogs sounded unnatural and didn't have any flow to it. The story on its own made sense. However, the execution didn't feel right. Some minor grammatical errors were also present.

Anyhow, good luck.

I love the idea of a haunted book! And very interesting addiction Mason has, which isn't creepy but sweet, especially when he watches Emily read.

You have some cool visuals, like when the pages fly out. Even though I was able to see most everything, most isn't formatted correctly for a screenplay. That makes the reader take extra time to figure out what's going on, which takes them out of your story...so it ends up not flowing as well. Like when Emily is taken into a room...it needs to be formatted better. And when things happen like someone asking for an autograph, or Maxwell ordering a sandwich...this shouldn't be clumped in the same paragraph. I don't think there needs to be dialog for that, but a better description in the action is necessary. "show don't tell" is what you need to think. How can you show us someone is asking for an autograph? Maybe the girl hands Maxwell a pen and napkin? Show us.

I like the story and I liked Mason. Good job, writer!

Not sure that this reads as intended, typos and sentence fragments, so may be worth a re-read.

The dialogue feels a little stilted but in places it kinda works in it's favour and I liked the idea that his addiction was watching people read.

Well done for getting one in

Ahoy writer - OK, read this twice - I think I get the gist of it, but you've made things difficult. A little prosey. Methinks you should trim the heck out of it, make it faster, shorten paragraphs. More linear.  You had an extra page to work with here. It's a decent story, so kudos. Best of Irish luck! :)_ghostie gal

I’m reading this as a rather silly ghost story. I’m not sure what the writer wanted to convey to the reader. I didn’t pick up on any one theme, and that bothered me because I couldn’t get a handle on the story.
But good effort getting it in writer.
Keep writing.

We got ghost stories coming to life, pages flying from a book, green ectoplasm oozing about, skulls on the wall, and a story that’s pretty much as confusing as can be. Language is not the barrier here, it appears you have a pretty good grasp on that, but I would wager in any other language this story is still disjointed and all over the place.

On a positive note, you have a good imagination, and that’s key to writing compelling stories, so keep at it and keep reading produced screenplays to get a better understanding of story-line logistics, seriously keep at it and don’t let negative reviews cramp your style, you’ll get there. Best of luck.

This one also has pointless V.O, and the opening is very awkward.

Quoted Text She points at the walls. Blood is running down.

I would lose this, far too clich�.

You have an interesting surreal story on your hands, ghosts want to take revenge on a writer for exposing them, using one of his fans as the weapon. It has the makings of a really cool horror short.

Random mumblings below (apologies for the bluntness):
- Pick better locations that will add to the horror
- Dialogue is painfully on the nose, this needs a lot of work.
- Mason adds nothing to the story, consider focusing only on Emily, giving us more insight into who she is. (or make Mason more pivotal in the story)
- ramp up the tension and suspense.
- Try and tell more of the story through action and less through exposition heavy dialogue.
- Remove all V.O

All the best

Overall, this is a really good idea for a horror story - ghosts contained within the pages of a book.  There's a mix of "The Exorcist" and "Poltergeist" going on with an original twist.  I also like the vibe of the guy's addiction being women reading books.  Very original.  Now for the nitpicking.  Not sure all the parameters were met, but maybe I didn't catch everything.  Your grammar and vocabulary throughout need a brush up.  I'm not a big critic of typos and such, but there's enough errors contained in the story to be distracting and that's a definite no-no.  You want your reader to be engaged and immersed in the story, your content would provide that easily, so just try a clean up of the grammatical errors and you'll be good to go.

Thanks for sharing this on the OWC.  Wishing you the best!

Kathy

Another one with a lot of V.O.

I thought this one was a bit of a chore to read, to be honest. A lot of dense action paragraphs. Try to streamline your writing for an easier read. Also, there's no need to mention over and over the exact name of the book and who wrote it. We know what book she is reading. The dialogue tells us pretty much everything we need to know instead of showing us. Now, a haunted book has a lot of potential IMO, but I think you need to rethink how you want to tell it. It says it's a horror, but it doesn't give off a horror vibe. All the settings are in a park or cafe and such. Horror is a lot about mood, sounds, light, and the like. So, don't give up on the story, it just needs a rethink and a big rewrite.  :)

Writer,

Definitely noticing a pattern with all the VO used in this challenge.

Anyway, this one has a David Lynch vibe to it. Honestly, it’s really the only was I can make sense out of what was happening here. There were some eerie moments, but overall, I couldn’t quite get ahold of the story here. Good effort tho!

Steve

A very eclectic entry.

I get that we are to assume Mason and Emily are fixtures at this cafe so are known to each other somewhat as their greetings tell us this. I feel that needs to be included a little more naturally along with your dialogue streams.

I'm going to guess NESB?

I too liked the idea of the haunted book!

I was stumped once the story got moving. I had to read the other comments
to get clarification. But it's a OWC, so not a big deal. You can rewrite it to read
with more clarity, dispensing with the parameters if desired.
I also like the haunted book angle, but maybe Emily can see ghosts and she's  
getting a premonition until the night of Maxwell's book signing. That's when the
ghosts attack him in front of fans.
Or something like that... I'm just throwing out nuts and bolts and shit.
Rewrite it and make this Emily's story from the start. It's not really about Mason
and his obsession to watch Woman read books. Right?
Good luck.

Writing this script was not easy because I needed to meet the July OWC theme requirements, which was very difficult. I did my best to write. As a result, this script could fully meet the difficult theme requirements. I was glad.

Michael