Young Writers Society

Introduction:

Marie-Christine: Good morning everyone. Today, the assembly of the Amnesty members in Year 8 & 9, is about ‘vidomingon’in fon, meaning: Children who live with peope other than their parents. Please listen attentively.These children are often ill-treated and forced to live in bad conditions. They have no future and their childhood are often hell. They live as they were orphans

Act I: The Village, Abomey
Scene I – Kouagou’s House
(The scene opens with Kouagou counting his money)

Kouagou: Hehehe this is what you call easy money! Aah life is good.l will finally be able to buy that fancy motorbike from Jerry to do zemidjan work to earn money.
(Christophe enters the room, eyes boggling at the sight of Kouagou’s money)
Christophe: Ooh my broda how do you do to have so much cash flowing eh? Especially you Kouagou. You who sleeps around all day and does nothing but eat and eat in that already fat belly of yours while I labor in my manioc fields everyday and barely have enough food for my own family! How come? Please tell me your secret now. Wait I hope it’s not drugs ehh?
Kouagou: Haha Christophe calm down, nothing to do with drugs. You see I have a secret; a very big one. But if I tell you how I get the money, you must promise to not tell anyone OK?
Christophe: (Nodding vigorously) Yes yes anything you want man.
Kouagou: Good good. Well haven’t you noticed that my daughter was no more with me?
Christophe: Umm yes I did but what does that have to do with anything?
Kouagou: . Patience, I’ll explain everything. You see, she has everything to do with my new found wealth these days!
Christophe: oh really how? Did she start selling wood in Cotonou like everybody else?
Kouagou: Noo man, better than that. I sent her to work in this rich couple’s house who said they needed a maid. They said they would pay me a lot of money and here I am…enjoying my wealth broda!
Christophe: Oh my gosh Kouagou you disappoint me! Selling your own daughter!
Kouagou: No no it’s not like that. They promised to treat her well and give her an education- something we can’t really afford here.
Christophe: (Excited and surprised) Really? Wow that’s awesome! Kouagou I want to do it. I want to get rich to!
Kouagou: Ah no problem broda, I’ll call you the woman who took my child with her. You’ll see everything will go smoothly.
Christophe: (Cheerfully) Hehe thank you Kouagou, I owe you one! (Kouagou and Christophe exit)
Scene II – Christophe’s House

(The scene opens with Rose and Afiavi setting table for dinner; they are talking happily. Christophe walks in whistling.)
Rose: Hmm Christophe what has put you in such a good mood? Let me guess, all your yams were in good health today?
Christophe: Aah Rose it’s better than that by far. I found a way to get rich, VERY rich infact!
Rose: (Intrigued) Really? Tell me everything!
(Christophe pulls her aside, nearer to audience so that Aliavi won’t over hear them.)
Christophe: Ok so I went to my friend Kouagou’s. You know that lazy one I told you about with the big belly and who does nothing but eat all day.
Rose: Yes, yes what about him?
Christophe: Well he got very rich; today I saw him counting atleast 5 ten thousand bills in his hand today. I asked him how he got so much money; Rose, you won’t believe what he said.
Rose: What? Come on spit it out!


Christophe: Well he said that he put his daughter in the care of these rich tycoons in Cotonou who said they would pay for her education if she worked for them. The best of it all is that they pay him lots and lots of money too! We could do that with Afiavi. What do you think?
Rose: (A look of alarm and disbelief crosses her face) What? MY daughter? My Afiavi? I knew it. Money has made you gone mad!
(Afiavi looks their way, a curious look on her face.)
Christophe: Rose calm down!
Rose: Calm down? When my husband is saying that he is practically going to sell my daughter to some utter stranger, you want me to CALM DOWN?!
Christophe: (Convincingly) Rose! Enough! She will have a good education over there. Better than what we can ever give her. Don’t you realize? Imagine our daughter Afiavi a big entrepreneur in Cotonou tomorrow! She will be rich my dear and will go to the university of Calavi and have her master degree in journalism.
Rose: (Doubtful now) Well…maybe…
Christophe: (Enthusiastically) You see! Let’s tell her. I will call Kouagou so that he can send me that lady who recruits the children. Everything will be fine dear, don’t worry.
(They finally settle down for dinner)
Christophe: (Clearing his throat.) Afiavi dear, your mother and I have wonderful news for you.
Afiavi: (Inquisitive) Really? What?
Rose: Well your father had a brilliant idea Afiavi. You will finally be able to do what you have always dreamed of doing: Studying in university and become a world famous journalist!
Afiavi: (Really excited and amazed now) Oh My Gosh! Dad, mum that’s just…WONDERFUL !
Christophe: Haha yes indeed. I knew it would make you happy!
Rose: (A sad look on her face) But…
Afiavi: But what?
Christophe: Well you will have to go alone to stay with some acquaintances of ours in Cotonou. But don’t worry, they are very nice people very rich too and will treat you well.
Afiavi: Oh…(A shadow of sadness crosses her face) (They all exit.)
(Narrator enters)
Narrator: Afiavi was very happy to be able to go to Cotonou, the city for the first time. She was excited about what was to come; and very happy to be able to go to school. Although ofcourse, the fact of leaving her parents for the first time in her life really saddened her. The woman who recruited the children was called to take Afiavi to her new home in Cotonou.
Mrs Radegonde: So is the child ready for us to leave? We are running late and might miss the bus.
Christophe: Yes ok we’re coming.
Afiavi: (tearful )Oh mum…dad ! Maybe I-I shouldn’t-
Rose: Afiavi no no don’t say such nonsense. I hope you have fun there my daughter.
Christophe: You will really miss us love. But remember, we are your parents and we greatly love you.
Mrs Radegonde: (Impatient) Come on, hurry! What’s all this nonsense talk anyways? Is she going to her funeral
(They ignore her and embrace eachother passionately, full of tears. Mrs Radegonde and Afiavi then leave with Afiavi holding her luggage.)
(Enter Narrator)
Narrator: Afiavi and Mrs Radegonde travelled all the way to her new home. Afiavi was very impatient to know how everything was and couldn’t wait to see her benefactors. Now I have a question for you. Do you think she will be happy?...Well wait and see.

Act 2-The City, Cotonou
Scene I - The Akpiti’s household.
(The Scene opens with the Akpiti family dining.)
Mrs Akpiti: Afiaaaaviiiii !
(No answer)
Afiaaavi I say ! Where is that stupid cow now? Always disappearing when I need her!
(Afiavi comes rushing in. Always looking down while talking.)
Afiavi: Sorry madam I didn’t hear you.
Mrs Akpiti: How could you hear? Don’t you see that we are eating and that you need to stay here? If we need you, will we have to scream your name every time?
Afiavi: No madam sorry.
Mrs Afiavi: Nonsense !
(They continue eating. Suddenly Mr Akpiti starts choking.)
Mrs Akpiti: (Alarmed) Honey what’s wrong?
(Mr Akpiti just shakes his head and points at the food.)
Nadeje: Mamma it’s probably that silly Afiavi who did something to the food! Ask her.
(Mrs Akpiti turns to Afiavi. A furious and accusator look on her face.)
Mrs Akpiti: You evil witch! What have you done to my husband? Were you trying to kill him?
Afiavi: Madam no ofcourse not! I-I don’t know why he’s coughing. Please believe me.
(Mrs Akpiti disregards what Afiavi says and starts beating her.All the while, Nadeje snickers at Afiavi wickedly.)
Afiavi: Aaahhhh madam please please! I’m telling the truth. I did nothing to your husband!
Mrs Akpiti: Shut up and get out of my face before I commit a crime! Murderer!
(Mrs Akpiti goes back to her husband to appease him and calm him down.)
Mrs Akpiti: Afiavi ! In fact come here ! I’m not through with you yet. You will clean all this and make the dishes sparkle ! If not…you yourself you know the consequences. Have you eaten?
Afiavi: No madam
(They all scrape the remaining of their meal in her plate and exit. Afiavi starts crying.)
Afiavi: Ooh how my life is horrible ! I wished I had never left the village. Atleast there I wasn’t treates so badly. Amd me who thought I would be getting an education- what a lie! Oh woe is me. Woee is meee!
Narrator: So was the life of poor Afiavi who came to

Scene II
(The Scene opens with Nadeje being thought by her tutor.)
Mr Moussa: So Nadeje what would be the square root of 64 then?
Nadeje: Uhhhh…..
Mr Moussa: What?! Come ON! Don’t tell me that you don’t know that. What are you thought at school? Pfft! I’m going to have to report this to your father Nadeje, ‘cause I’ve had more than enough of your carelessness towards studies. You’re incorrigible and I’ve had enough!
Nadeje: Sorry Mr Moussa it’s just that this girl, that Afiavi really disturbs me.
Mr Moussa: Right go ahead…blame it on the poor girl. Why is she with you anyways?
Nadeje: Oh she came to work for us straight from the village.
Mr Moussa: So she is a vidomingon huh?
Nadeje: Um yes that’s what she is. The worse is that she steals things from me and papa doesn’t believe me. Oh Mr Moussa I don’t know what to do!
Mr Moussa: Hmm…well try laying a trap for her so that her thefts could be revealed!
(Nadeje Looks at public with a mischievous and wicked look on her face.)
Narrator: You see, Nadeje had an evil plan in mind. Her intention was to make her parents forget about her and her studies and be more occupied with someone else more important. I think we all know who that someone was. Anyone?...Yes you’re right, it was Afiavi. When her tutor talked of revealing the truth, (which was in fact a lie) she knew she would put Afiavi in big trouble with her parents. She hated the girl anyways.

Scene III
(Scene opens with Nadeje and her parents.)
Nadeje: (Acting Sad) Dad, mum ! Afiavi stole my golden necklace that Aunt Georgina gave me for my 16th birthday! She was already stealing things from me but I didn’t want to alarm you. Now this…I really loved it and she took it from me! You must do something please!
Mrs Akpiti: What? That lovely golden necklace of yours? Oh my gosh we have been giving food to that girl for a year now and this is how she thanks me? Ungrateful girl she is leaving today! Afiiiaaaaviiiii ! (She calls Angrily)
Mr Akpiti: Honey, leave it to me. It’s about time I show this girl who is the master here.
Afiavi: (Rushing in breathless) Yes madam, you called me.
Mr Akpiti: Indeed. Nadeje here says that you have stolen her gold necklace of hers? Is that true?
Afiavi: What?! No! I did no such thing! I’m honest sir.
Mrs Akpiti: Please keep your inane lies to yourself with you? Village girl!
Nadeje: Dad she’s lying. Check her clothes; it’s probably in there somewhere.
(Mr Akpiti searches Afiavi and finds it in pocket of the top pocket.)

Mr Akpiti: Well isn’t that interesting? Afiavi you say you never took it but howcome I just found it on you?
Afiavi: Please sir believe me. I was set-
Mr Akpiti: Shut up you ungrateful donkey! So we were letting a vagabond of your kind in our class ehh. Well today I will teach you. I will beat you like I have never done before.
Afiavi: Sir sir no it’s-
Mrs Afiavi: Slience idiot!
(With that Mr Akpiti savagely beats Afiavi. Then they frantically try to awaken her up but they can’t. She is totally motionless.)
(Enter Mr Moussa, Nadeje’s tutor.)
Mr Moussa: Well what is going on here?
Nadeje: Pappa beat Afiavi so much that now she won’t wake up. We did everything but for 30 minutes now she has lain there motionless.
Mr Moussa: Mr and Mrs Akpiti I’m afraid that she is dead.
Mrs Akpiti: What no surely not.
Mr Moussa: Try feeling her pulse then.
Mrs Akpiti does and realizes to her greatest horror that Afiavi really is dead.
















CONCLUSION:
Marie-Christine: We have now come to the end of our assembly. Thank you for being such an attentive audience. Now could anyone tell us the message that Amnesty is trying to pass through this play? …Vidomingons, who are mostly girls, are often ill-treated, abused and forced to live in bad conditions. They have no future and their childhood are often hell. They live as if they were orphans because their parents forsake them; voluntarily or involuntarily in some cases. Amnesty is fighting against this because it is bad. Every child has the right to education and a good happy and blissful childhood.

Hi!

This needs a bit of work.

A: Your punctuation and spelling is way off.

Hehehe this is what you call easy money! Aah life is good.

There should be commas after the areas in red, and you do this a lot throughout the script, so try and work on that.

Children who live with peopeother than their parents.

The area in red is misspelled, and there's lots of little errors all over this work. Just proofread before you post.

B: Your formatting is also way off.

Kouagou: Hehehe this is what you call easy money! Aah life is good.l will finally be able to buy that fancy motorbike from Jerry to do zemidjan work to earn money.

Dialog needs to be represented by this:

KOUAGOU
Hehehe this is what you call easy money! Aah life is good.l will finally be able to buy that fancy motorbike from Jerry to do zemidjan work to earn money.

This is a common mistake, but try to work on it if you want to work on scripts full-time.

C: When a character is speaking while doing an action, such as eating while they're having a conversation, you want to use a parenthetical.

Christophe: (Nodding vigorously) Yes yes anything you want man.

You almost have it here, but the rules of dialog and the rules of parentheticals have to work together to be formatted properly, like so:

CHRISTOPHE
(Nodding vigorously)
Yes yes anything you want man.

There are also certain areas where you need to have a parenthetical like you did, but there's nothing there.

Kouagou: Hehehe this is what you call easy money! Aah life is good.l will finally be able to buy that fancy motorbike from Jerry to do zemidjan work to earn money.

Laughter, sighing, and similar actions cannot be represented by words in scripts. Here's what you need to do here:

KOUAGOU
(Laughing)
this is what you call easy money!

Kouagou sighs.

KOUAGOU (cont.)
life is good.l will finally be able to buy that fancy motorbike from Jerry to do zemidjan work to earn money.

What I've done in the blue area is a dialog break. Sometimes, when you want to have the character do an action in the middle of their dialog, like light a cigarette or open a door or whatever, you have to stop their first line of dialog, you have to have a SEPERATE action space, and then continue their dialog after you've written down their action. You do this in a couple of spaces as well.

D: When you introduce us to a new scene, you have to tell us everything about that scene instead of leaving us hanging. You have to tell us it's sunset BEFOREHAND rather than just leaving us to find out by something the characters see or say.

Act 2 - The City, Cotonou
Scene I - The Akpiti’s household.

In the area in red, you need to capatalize the whole thing, tell us what time of day it is, tell us whether we're inside or outside of the house, represented by the abbreviations EXT. (Exterior) or INT., (Interior) and tell us what part of the house we're in. Like so:

ACT 2 - THE CITY, CONTONOU
SCENE I - INT. THE AKPITI'S HOUSEHOLD - DINING ROOM - DAY

See?

All in all, you have an interesting concept going on here, but you need to work on formatting and spelling. I'm sure I didn't write this very well and it's too long, so I recommend you read this http://www.scriptfrenzy.org/introtoscreenwriting and download a free program called Celtx. It's a script formatting program. I've used it for a long time and it's very useful.

Keep writing!

Well, there are a lot of conventional errors, and they are very distracting. However, that being said, it is a good idea. Work on sentence fluency too. Vary your length and style. Remember: write with passion! This piece doesn't feel like it has much emotion to it. Bring your writer's voice out of hiding! Okay, if you fix the grammatical stuff, sentences, and voice, I think this could be really really good! It has so much potential, it just needs a bit of work. DOn't give up hope though. Keep on writing and rewriting until you get it just the way you want it!!! Good luck!

TS