Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-38762742-20190310165055/@comment-38762742-20190310172259

EmpyrealInvective wrote: The biggest issue here is the story itself. Overlooking the minor spelling "We were stranded in the middle of no where. (nowhere)" and instances of awkward wording, the plot feels too anemic to be effective.

Lines like: "The night? Cold.", "The darkness? Overwhelming.", "The fear? Absolute." would be more effective if fleshed out and grounded in the story more (How cold was it? What made the darkness feel so oppressive? ETC.). While you could argue for a minimalist approach ala Raymond Carver, that really is weakened by the fact that there is very little to imagine/fill-in-the-blanks here that would enhance the premise. Whereas their stories struck up a balance between detail and plot where the audience was able to get a clear image and infer the things that weren't said, in this story it comes off more as content that is needed to effectively tell the story.

The biggest issue is in the lack of details which creates a large number of plot issues. While it's left ambiguous, I assume that the protagonist killed their friends for their clothes, but the line: "I just wish my newly acquired clothing didn't fill my nostrils with a putrid, metallic stench" doesn't really work as putrefaction takes time and it likely wouldn't stick to their clothes.

Fleshing out the story more and giving detail about the situation they're in (with character dynamic) would help drive home the twist at the end. In its current form, this feels more like a skeleton draft of a story.

To be fair, it wasn't their clothes he took