Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-26193563-20150622185523/@comment-24101790-20150622212002

Looking over the story and a lot of the comments, I have to say I agree with a lot of what's being said. I feel like this short story would be better if it were more fleshed out and there was a little more attempt to mislead the audience as the twist that the protagonist is the killer is telegrammed pretty early. ("She was an ugly whore")

Lines like: "The one thing that my father loved more than himself and the remote control for the TV (he hated his 14-year old son) was my mother." come off as filled with information that really doesn't come back later and has little use. (His love for the remote. The parenthetical would also be better as a new sentence also with reference to the protagonist being the son so readers don't assume there is a brother in the equation.) Also go into why he hated his son, give him some reason/motivation (even if unjustified).

"...my father loved her so dearly was because of her sick sense of humor." This could really be fleshed out some more. How is her humor sick, give examples. (The Uranus joke is a good start, but a few more would really cement who her character is.) A lot of the characters could use a bit more depth to them to make the twist at the end a bit more impactful.

"One might say he was mentally ill, but that wasn't exactly the truth." (Depression is a mental illness)

"He sometimes would simply stare into space" to "He would sometimes simply stare into space" for a better flow.

All in all, I would really be on the fence about the story if it were uploaded in its current form and I would probably M4R it for someone to weigh in or I would delete it for the issues listed above.