Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-28731253-20160711154615/@comment-28266772-20160712150329

In 1998 when I was about 15 years old me and my friends John Retter, Bryce Randall, and George Norman were put in charge of our high school's network. We were allowed to see the history of everyone using library computers, so I felt like I had a lot of power. We didn't really notice anything strange except for a repeated event in which at 12:30, 2nd lunch hour, our math teacher Mr. Fastidar would get on the computers and put up some files. We didn't really think anything of it, as he was our tech advisor and a really nice, caring guy, so we thought he was just beefing up the computers. Two months after we were assigned the roles of network monitors, Mr. Fastidar was called in as a suspect in the murder of his wife and three others. The files were announced off limits to open, even by monitors, so we stayed clear. But one Thursday night, John, Bryce, and me [and I – not ‘and me’] snuck into the library, and decided to open the files. The first one was called upgrade.bat. When we opened the file a notepad document popped up, and the single phrase 'i did it i dont know why' popped up. The batch code ran and the document was flooded with lines and lines of the same phrase, over and over again. John got scared and closed the file, and Bryce called him a scaredy-cat. I took control of the computer and opened the next file, itsokay.jpg. It showed a horrifying picture of a woman with her eyes ripped out and her throat cut. Beside her body was the words, written in dried blood, "I DID THIS TO MYSELF". Bryce told us that he needed to be excused, and from what I could tell, ran to the bathroom to vomit. John stared at the picture, obviously mortified. I quickly closed it, and this time I was scared. I didn't want to go further. Bryce came back from the bathroom with a black spot on his shirt [why a black spot? Is this where he washed the vomit away? Either way it’s unnecessarily ambiguous], and he decided it was time to get to the bottom of the story. The next file was a music clip, with this dialog being distorted but audible.

Voice 1: I don't even {garbled} anymore...

Voice 2: I {garbed}. You're done {garbled}.

[Scream]

[you should describe things like this in detail if it’s part of a narrative – you shouldn’t switch between narratives and transcripts without warning]

It was apparent what had happened. We saw another picture of 3 men, all with their throats cut and eyes ripped out. The next file was a photo of 4 pairs of eyeballs stuck in pickle jars. We closed the computer and immediately notified the police.

A month later Mr. Fastidar was fired, and jailed for life.

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Other things – you should spell out numbers that are less than ten. And mainly cappka is spot on in his feedback on this story – it simply needs some meat on the bones. I kind of like the fundamental idea but you spend too much time describing things like the kids sitting at a desk and being sick and not leaning into the far more frightening premise of a serial killer school teacher. There’s no sense of threat, urgency or even atmosphere. Like I said – the story needs some meat on its bones.

Also – try to avoid one big wall of text. Break the big paragraph up a bit and it’ll help your presentation and formatting.

