Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-10319977-20160102141602/@comment-24101790-20160105051530

Starting with the overly complex sentence at the start: "Growing up with a single mother and three half-sisters, all of which were younger than myself, as well as never having a vehicle to travel anywhere and thus having to walk to school, the grocery store, etc. in the blistering cold forced me to grow up quite fast." Try breaking that into two separate sentences to improve the overall flow. (Try reading that sentence aloud. Over-extended sentences tend to be quite taxing and can actually cause problems if included multiple times in a story.)

This sentence for example: "Not only are they lacking in obvious basic necessities: food, water, shelter, but they would either have to be completely disowned by their family or have none left to take them in, and that must be a very scary thing." has multiple points/focuses (explaining what basic necessities are, how their current relationship with their families impacts them, and how it makes the protagonist feel) that would be more effective addressed in a manner that is a bit easier to focus on/follow. There are quite a few instances of this: "Now my heart was thudding, the beat growing faster and faster (slightly redundant as you already explain their heart is thudding) as I heard the voice start to repeatedly call out my name, closer and closer until finally, a large man wearing an over-sized, dirt covered jacket and straggly jeans emerged from the shadows and grabbed me by the shoulders, looking straight at me with his wild, glossed over eyes."

When giving a message/headline, you should include proper punctuation. "The description read "Ex war veteran *name exempt* found dead outside *name of company exempt*. Police reported likely cause of death to be suicide."" Additionally since you use a compound word (ex-veteran), it should be properly hyphenated. You use exempt correctly the first time in the headline, but the second time is tenuous. I think you meant excluded as "exempt" is a loaded word implying that the company may have been found culpable for the man's death. (Exempt = free from an obligation or liability imposed on others.)

Story issues: I am going to draw on Dupin's comment a bit. The story really lacks a creepy factor where I feel like the protagonist actually feels threatened/intimidated by the man. This is partially compounded by the fact that the veteran clearly recognizes the girl, but doesn't divulge any information about being related to her (even when he's grasping onto their shoulders). This ends up coming off as a bit of a plot hole. This man is clearly terrifying this girl who he is trying to talk to, so it seems odd that he wouldn't try to comfort her or explain the situation. It also seems odd that the father isn't really mentioned in the story especially when they draw attention to it early on in the story ("Growing up with a single mother and three half-sisters...") so it comes off a bit like trying to bury the lead.

Opinion: To be perfectly honest, it's an interesting idea, but comes off as more of an attempt at being an emotional piece rather than a horror story (While there are emotionally visceral stories on the site, they always have a very large focus on terror/horror) and really needs some balancing out. (Either by building on the inherent terror of the situation, the protagonist's emotional state, circumstantial elaboration explaining why this situation is as dire as it is, or how physically intimidating the man is.)

On a site dedicated to horror literature, this can be quite a bit problem. I would say that if it were posted in its current form I would likely mark it for review to get another admin's input, but I would likely wonder why it was being posted here and not on a site that isn't as focused on scary/creepiness in its stories.