Talk:Shut That Damned Door/@comment-29249491-20160724044730

Dammit, Wikia, killed my comment and have to do over. Short version this time.

I like this, but two problems.

This line "It was so slight, others might not have noticed it, but by that time, I knew enough about Aunt Louis to equate that with a scream of horror. -- Bullshit. I don't believe, you, I have no reason to believe you, it takes years and age to learn people's small ticks (and actually be right) and a fucking lifetime to know someone's deepest horror. Moreover, even if I did believe you, it's a bullshit line, it kills the suspense in favour of trying to force a state of  mind on the reader -- never do that (well, almost never, the reasons one might don't apply to this work). It adds nothing and costs you a helluva lot.

Anti-climax. I don't want the narrator to try to shut the door, that would preclude an open ending, or cheapen it anyway (oooh, what if the door opens itself some day!), narrator succeeding would add nothing, but failing would either leave us with the ending we already got, or a bland actiony death scene instead. None of that would be better -- I think what leaves that big gaping hole is that nothing happens -after- the narrator sees the terror, and then does nothing. Which means nothing happens at all -- and really, the narrator isn't even left with any suggestion that something might actually come thru the door, because nothing happened. Nothing freaking happened. I don't know what needed to be there, but I know nothing was an unsatifying way to go -- all that suspense and nothing to spend it on. Anti-climax.