Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-27675561-20160126210241/@comment-26112985-20160128215651

Well, Empy did a pretty good job at summarizing a lot of the flaws in this story, so I'll refrain from being too critical and just point out a few of the things that I noticed myself.

First of all, the title. Now, this is just one of those personal things with me, you don't really have to take this part seriously. However, when I'm writing, I feel that it is a necessity to capture the readers interest right away. There are two main ways this trick can be pulled off. Either you can include a hook for the first sentence (I'll never forget the night I slept over...) or you can have an interesting title that raises questions that the reader wants resolved. Take, for example, Pasta Noir, Dames, Slugs, and the Hatchetman. There is so many questions we can withdraw from that title! Who the hell are the hatchetman? How can creepypasta be noir? What do slugs have to do with anything? You also probably shouldn't start your story by talking about the weather, that's not all that great of an idea.

There were a few examples of grammar errors throughout. Unnecessary spacing was one that came up repeatedly, (Sleepover is a word, there is no space needed between "Sleep," and "Over.") There are also way too many ellipses and hyphens.

Why are some words in bold and using different colors? I think you were attempting to be creative here, and props for that, but this just takes me out of the reading experience overall.

There were a few story issues. The main one for me was exactly what happened with the father, sister, and mother. That whole thing had some technical errors, and I just ended up pretty confused. Also, in the scene where our main character is running home, why does he still hold onto his bag and pillow? If something like that were chasing me home, I don't think holding onto my things would be the first thing on my mind.

Finally, you missed a couple of great opportunities for some seriously creepy imagery. Go back to that scene with the half dog, half human thing. Rewrite it, but this time indulge in the detail of it. Talk about the way its eyes glow, how the thing moves, how sharp its claws look, and so forth.

Hope this helped!