Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-26342384-20150609222623/@comment-26487831-20150611225606

Hmmm, a good portion of what you've written is exposition - and decently written exposition at that. We're introduced to Mr. Jones, we know he's a teacher, has a child etc,. However, Humboldt is right in saying we need to spend more time with the character. Expecially with the most interesting point of the story, that final main paragraph, mentioning the stress in his life may have created this monster. Don't you think that calls for more attention paid to the daily life of Mr. Jones? I could imagine more scenes involving him being mocked by students, feeling an emotional disconnect with his wife, having doubts about being a succesful father... you know, real common problems that we ourselves could see ourself facing. The horror comes from the notion that we, too, could experiencing this kind of experience - and from the ambiguity over whether it's real or not. It's fear of becoming stressed and having our own mind turn against us.

Think of sleep paralysis. It's definitely something many people experience. I believe statistics suggest every person will have at least one sleep paralysis experience in their life. And these experiences real, tangible experiences of horror. Considering it's brought about by stress and anxiety in a person's life, I find this to be a terrifying concept that can be expanded even further through horror literature.

There is a lot of potential in your story. At the moment, it seems to end way too quickly, and there isn't nearly enough exploration of Mr. Jones' life. Short pastas like this are usually always quite gimmicky and based around some kind of twist. You do have a twist in your story, but I'm not sure it's shocking enough to justy itself, and I'm not too fond of short pastas in the first place. Your story seems like one that would be far more succesful if fleshed out a bit, with some more humanity placed onto the main character. Make us feel like we known Jones and could potentially become Jones one day.

I hope this helps. ^_^ Keep up the writing. I wouldn't reccomend scrapping what you've done - keep what you've written, and don't let good ideas go to waste. Just polish what you have right now, and you'll come up with an amazing story if you work hard enough.