Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-35949526-20180621220502/@comment-26444017-20180622082903

It's good to see people who are willing to give this a shot, and the Workshop is definitely the place to go for this sort of review. Nobody is great right off the bat, and it's nothing to be worried about.

Unfortunately, you are correct in saying that the idea has been done before. But, that's not to say you can't do something with it. As it is, this story is very similar to a lot of more famous, or infamous, pastas. Jeff the Killer, the Jane spinoffs, Ticci Toby, and Clockwork are all similar in many ways to one another, and your story reminds me heavily of them.

My reccomendation would be to take what you have here and expand on the story of the character. I think that giving some background about what happened at the other schools she attended, as well as why her mother is so insistent on bringing her daughter home from the hospital prematurely, would go a long way.

I also highly reccomend that you take more time with the story, build up to the most important points, and make as much of it feel integral as you can. The more the reader can feel from the the story, the better off it will be.

Some things that you should avoid, if you decide to continue with the project, include the following: 1. Violence or gore without purpose. This is something that the previously mentioned stories do very badly. These things should not be taken lightly, and should be the climax of your story. If executed well, the imagery can put the reader in the right frame of mind, but if not, then it's just cliché, and no one likes that. 2. Do your best to avoid Mary Sue-ing your character. This is the term used to describe a charater that is perfect in every way. These characters tend to be seen as cool despite being clearly villainous, pretty, likable, overpowered, and altogether bland. Real characters have feeling, aspirations, emotions, flaws, etc. and showing those to the reader will go much further than a copy paste killer character. 3. Sudden shifts in character for no reason. This goes with the previous point, but it deserves to be addressed. If the character is going to have a major shift in personality somewhere in the story, it must have a good reason, and it must be done tactfully. The previously mentioned pastas all use the "my character went crazy and can kill effortlessly because reasons" model, and it leaves a bad taste in the mouth of a critical reader.

So, yeah, overall, I'd say lengthen out the story, add background for the major characters, and make sure everything feels natural. more fine tuning can be done after that, but just getting something down is a good start. Unwritten stories are never read, y'know.

As far as the grammar is concerned, there are some programs that will run grammar checks, but if they are unavailable, then the workshop is the best place to be. If you are looking for an editor to help smooth things out, I'd be more than happy to lend a helping hand.

In any case, keep working at it. Happy witing.