Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-26373631-20150521161946/@comment-26007602-20150524195448

Alright, I'll give my thoughts as I read through.

First off, your tense is all over the place. The majority of the story is told in third person present tense (Which id difficult to do, so props for that), but there are many inconsistencies throughout. I'll list a few:

"The walls were all painted white." Should be "The walls are all painted white."

"Yes Jeremy,” he hugged his son. Then he spoke again, “I paused your movie for you.  Enjoy your first day of summer okay bud?”  Jeremy nodded his head yes with a smile and continued to eat his eggs.  Paul leaves the house and goes to work." Should be hugs his son and Jeremy nods.

"Jeremy finishes his eggs and starts to run up the stairs and just before he could reach the stairs his mother yelled at him," His mother yells at him.

I'm not going to list every single tense inconsistency. If you proofread the story yourself, you should be able to spot them.

At this point, I've read through the beginning and have noticed some issues. First off, your story is far too slow. Nothing creepy or interesting happens until Jeremy leaves the shower. That's about 25% of your story pointless, boring, and tedious to read through. It doesn't necessarily have to be creepy, but it has to be interesting. Reading about this family moving into a new house is not interesting. You need to introduce the villain sooner and add more tension (Which the beginning sorely lacks) or cut the beginning down considerably (Which won't hurt the story too much, because the beginning has literally nothing to do with the rest of the story).

The major issue with the story I see however, is your writing style. Your writing style is very simplistic, and this hurts the story considerably, because it makes it a chore to read through. You write in very short sentences (And sometimes sentence fragments, which should be avoided) that hinder the story development because of how bland they are. I'll use the first paragraph as an example.

"The car pulls up to the empty house. The windows are black to match the night sky.  The headlights of the car shoot beams of light at the house; the light trying to scare away the dark (Note:  The second part of this sentence is a fragment; use a semicolon to combine two similar complete sentences).  In front of the house the car stops, not taking another step.  The doors slide open letting out a child.  He jumps up and down in excitement, and he yells at the car, “Come on!  Come on!"

The first two sentences could be combined like so: "The car pulls up to the empty house, its windows as black as the night sky." Your story would benefit a lot from combining sentences, as your current ones only list a single action or description. Look at the sentence: "The doors slide open letting out a child", and the following, "He jumps up and down in excitement, and he yells at the car," They give the story a very choppy flow because they state an action, stop, and then state another action. As this is prevalent throughout the whole story, it gives it a very repetitive feel. "He does this. He does this now.  He stops doing this." That's how your story reads, and it needs to be broken up to have a real flow. Using the two sentences above, you could rework them to give something like this: "The doors slide open letting out an ecstatic and hyperactive child, who turns and yells at..." This conveys the same idea as the previous two sentences, but isn't a simple, "He does. He does. He does...". I urge you to comb through the story and find ways to rewrite these sentences, as it needs to be done to give the story an adequate flow.

Before I forget, I want to make a note about your dialogue between characters. It doesn't seem very realistic. It seems so... bland and devoid of emotion. Look at this interaction:

“Jeremy(Additionally, you need a comma here) it is time to come and eat.”

“Dad can I at least get to a new part? I always have to leave at this one.”

Read these out loud. Do they seem like things an actual father would tell his son? I don't think they do; I'd rewrite them like so:

"Jeremy! Turn off the movie and come downstairs to eat!"

"Aww, come on dad! Can't I at least get to a new part?  I always have to leave here!"

I advise looking through your other dialogues and revising them a bit, as many are like this, with the characters stating things directly with little emotion.

There are lots of little grammatical errors present throughout the entirety of the piece; I'd proofread this further through Word or another word processor to try and catch them.

"I have a few rules for you when we speak to each other young lad." This line bothers me. Why must Jeremy talk in only questions when speaking to the evil leprechaun guy? Seems extremely arbitrary and there for plot convenience.

Before I discuss the monster and "horror" in the story, I want to go ver this paragraph:

"Seven months later Paul had gone through the court system. They found him guilty of two drug induced first degree murders.  However the jury felt as though Paul was mentally unstable and that mixed with the possible drugs he was able to conduct this act.  So decided that he was mentally insane, so he was then sent by the jury to the states Mental Health Institution so that he can get aid for his issues."

First off, how can they find him guilty of drug induced murder? There were no drugs in Paul's system, and the police can't just say, "Must have been high when he killed them". That part of the sentence makes no sense. Second, a jury can't declare someone insane. Insanity can only be used as a defense, and for it to be proven you must be able to prove that you could not tell right from wrong. Even if they somehow declared he was on drugs (With no evidence), that has no impact on the ruling. Whether someone is high or drunk does not absolve them from the crime. If Paul was indeed found guilty, he would be sent to prison; the jury does not say where he goes after he is found guilty.

Okay, let's talk about Marziplex the evil leprechaun. First, since you titled the story "Marziplex", it's pretty obvious who the leprechaun is, and the reveal isn't as climatic as you think it is. The main problem I have with Marziplex is that he has no motivation, and no real reason to torment this family. He just shows up and murders them. There's no reason behind any of his actions. If you are going to give a character as much personality as you've given Marziplex, then you need to give him motivation. You can't just have him say, "Because". That doesn't cut it. There should also be some reason why saying his name makes him dissolve. You can't just have some deus ex machina ending where the creature dies suddenly with little explanation. Make a reference that names have power or something earlier in the story or something.

As for the horror, this is where the story falters as well. There's nothing creepy here. You try to get by solely on shock value from the excessive blood and gore. That doesn't cut it. It's overdone and not scary in the least. Your story needs tension. We need to know that Marziplex is a threat before we see him murder everyone. Have him stalk the family (Or just the kid) for a little while before he murders them (And cut down on the excessive gore; it adds nothing to the story). You need to introduce him sooner; having him show up and immediately murder everyone just doesn't work.

This review is long enough. I like the evil leprechaun idea of Marziplex, but he needs more explanation and creepiness to get by. The story as well needs a heavy writing overhaul if you want it to succeed as well. Hope this helps.