Who is Alan? by Back in Black - A young boy's imaginative friend needs to eat too.  Short, Horror

I like the basic premise here. Obviously ran out of time on the execution a bit, judging by the floating last page. I think there’s a good spark here and it’s well worth cleaning up.

The big thing I’d say is the “why now.” Curious why Alan chooses this moment to execute his master plan. And I’d like to know a bit more about how the kid feels about this.

Anyway, I do think there’s something here.

First thing I thought was an 11 year old with an imaginary friend? Then that made sense.

This didn't quite land for me, it got very confusing with James, Mikey, Alan, Bobby, Kelly. Could be me.

Sadly no Halloween element either. Points for Horror though.

One more thing and you can correct me if wrong: Mum is 50s but looks more like 30s. Is there a legit reason for this cause her hitting the bottle at breakfast would unlikely result in dewy good looks. If you're falling into a habitual character description (that is one that I see often), that is another thing entirely.

JAMES
I’ll eliminate these—time for you
to play puppy eyes.

What's that mean?

Like I said, it might just be me...

Ahoy Back In Black - um... as previously mentioned -- no Halloween element. The horror was there though. A bit creepy when it came to the parents sex life. An imaginary friend telling him that. I like the idea behind this but methinks it could benefit from an extra page.

No snobbery on my part, just a simple fact that it does feel to me at least that it could be fleshed out a bit more. Not bad by any means. Best of Irish luck!-A

JAMES
I’ll eliminate these—time for you
to play puppy eyes.

Ah... See, now I get it. Your punctuation messed this up for me. I know it's an emdash not a hyphen but you need a space in between it, or even a full stop. .

Who is Alan?

Not sure what was going on here at all.  Had to read this three times after James, Alan and somebody else appears as a GQ figure. Go figure I told myself tho I'm still none the wiser. How many eleven year old's tell their parents they don't fuck anymore? Was Ethan possessed by his imaginary Alan?. Get me outta here!

Easy to read but a few speedbumps

No Halloween theme but a horror nonetheless

Ethan is adopted, and his imaginary friend Alan is in it together, preying on the weak-minded. Thus this couple has been played by Alan, and although they call him different names?? I think that's right.
The dad is gay which is probably why they don't F$%k anymore
Also, they kill off and eat the people that adopt Ethan... I think
Because, as the logline says, Alan has to eat, too   

I think that's it
It was good but could do with a rewrite

Good job on entering

Writer,

I get it. The whole time his parents thought he had an imaginary friend but in reality he's friend is real. Who he knows as Alan while Kelly knows him as James, and Bobby knows him as Mickey. So he's banging both on the side. How clever.

So this is some type of scam Ethan and Alan are running on people who adopt Ethan. Only to feast on them later.  And so on... won't spoil too much.

Don't see why you need to have James go by so many alias'. Loose one;

Props for a decent spin on adoptions. Sadly, as other's have mentioned, the Halloween aspect is missing.

Not bad, I like what you 're trying to do with it, but a rewrite is in order.

All the best,

Ghost

The creep/weirdness factor on this story is off the charts. What I'm getting is Ethan
gets adopted and the Alan/James/Mikey character is something of a
throw-in bastard in the deal. I thought he was imaginary, but there's the
scene Alan comes down to breakfast and both parents greet him — by
different names. He's a GQ type so he would appeal to both parents as a
sex partner.
Maybe we're not supposed to read into this too deep.
Ethan brings along his imaginary companion who infiltrates the adopting
(weak-minded) parents' lives and that's the scam. Creepy but interesting.
Now that we've got the payoff, it might be fun to see the setup.  Not too bad.
Good luck.

Another with no Halloween element, so outside of the criteria?

This got confusing BUT I thought there was a decent idea here that could shine with a re-write or two.

Also, I think you've accidentally left a couple of lines after the Fade out, on Pg 4,

Hey Writer.

It's fun but I was confused at times for sure. The moment where my mind got a little too frazzled is when James first addresses them all but then you tell us Alan approaches Kelly. Like you deliberately change his name in the narrative to cause a sense of confusion? Well it worked but I like a break from getting confused cos I can get confused over making a cup of coffee

Anyway, fun nevertheless.

A bit on the confusing side for me, I’ll say.  As others noted, no Halloween element but there is the horror element at play and a bit of a surprise ending.

I’m afraid this kid isn’t going to get adopted anymore if his adoptive parents keep meeting horrible deaths!  Maybe it’s scarier if he’s not adopted and he’s saying these things about his real parents.

Not bad writing on display, just a little cleanup needed and flesh out the setup a little bit more and you’ll have a pretty decent effort there.  

The story went OK until the end, when the 'imaginary friend' comes in, and a baffling conversation ensues. The surprise element didn't work for me as it felt off with the story before it.

Good luck.

Like others mentioned, I had to read this more than once to straighten out in my mind who and what each character was.  I'm thinking that James was appearing as all the characters who had interacted in their own ways with Ethan and his parents, thereby knowing intimate details of each - ?  Still a little confused though if there was just one monster (James) or two (James and Ethan).  Anyway, this certainly has the spooky and creepy elements down but no Halloween tie in.  Good dialogue and visuals (unfortunately, for the head eating part).  Definitely felt the shock value at the end.  

This was disturbing. Definitely horror. Not so much Halloween.

I too, was confused by the final conversation but just assumed the creature with the un-hingeable lower jaw (not named Ethan), had many, interchangeable names. A demon, by any other name is just as scary.

OK, so it’s a sick twisted love triangle this GQ type blood sucking monster is involved in, using the blood sucking monster kid as a way into foster families to satiate their hunger.

James seduces both parents into a secret affair, then kills them, all the while the kid is there to anchor a way into the home, then he (Ethan) once again puts on the puppy dog eyes for Child Family Services and is transported to another foster home, where the whole twisted game begins again.

How long have they been doing this? How long till someone somewhere figures it out? But then again, it’s easy to get rid of those who ask too many questions, just rip their head off and feast on the goo of their shattered psyche, and neck juice. Definitely a twist(ed) game going on. Works well for the OWC theme, but…

Again, no Halloween. Bobby could have simply said “how would you like pumpkin pancakes and vanilla ice-cream for breakfast, considering today’s Halloween? Just spit balling. Best of luck.

Writer,

Well, that was one of the stranger ones I’ve read so far. For characters so sinister, I would think you’d come up with names for them that weren’t so pedestrian, not to mention the “chocolate stabber” line, which is so Andrew Dice Clay-like, read: so 80s. But hey, if you’re writing a revenge tale through the eyes of a child (Ethan’s), I suppose it works. I could be wrong, but I feel you’re a new-ish writer. Good luck, though. Decent effort and keep reading!

Steve

Honestly a pretty good premise and I liked where Page 2 was going. Page 3 though goes right over my head.

I think the idea is solid, just need to go back to the drawing board.

P.S. I had no idea this line even existed:
Bobby’s throat is SLICED OPEN. BLOOD soaks his lifeless
torso.

It appears right down the bottom of p4 after Fade Out.
Maybe an afterthought or something you forgot was all the way down there. If you Fade Out we can't see that image.

A minor point that nevertheless bugged the heck out of me – the dialogue for James should be attributed to Alan. That whole naming thing was super-confusing, which is never welcome in a script.

It also felt rushed -- with the entirety of the action spilling out from our lone scene heading of Ethan's Room atop page 1, down to the weird footnote on page 5.

This wasn't bad, really, but definitely needs some TLC to be ready for prime time.

I struggled with this.

At first read I thought there were some shocking (and enjoyable) revelations from the mouth of an 11-year-old! But, I was confused. Who, what, is Allen? Was he imaginary? Real? One person or three?

I’m just not certain about what happened in this story. My bad.

I must say, however, that it has generated a great deal of discussion, and others have very strong positive insights that I am still pondering.

So congratulations on writing a story that has some strong fans!