Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-32183198-20170602202552/@comment-24101790-20170602211155

Overly complex/run-on sentences: "Being a high school senior, she had only recently received her official driver’s license and traveling even on an empty road was paranoia for her, let alone through the unforgiving blizzards of winter which stung her skin with iciness even when she wore a warm furry coat, thick pants, fuzzy boots, and red earmuffs contrasting with her plain number 2 pencil colored hair.", " By the way after we finished the movie we decided to stop by a friend’s house to hang out, we probably won’t be back until almost midnight, if you’re uncomfortable driving alone that late at night you’re more than welcome to stay over, we have enough room for one more person, all you would need to do is tell your parents about about it”", etc.

Awkward wording: "Watching it now it was much cornier than she remembered and it wasn’t too unbearable if it weren’t for the nostalgia, it was interesting for her to see the new creature designs nonetheless.", "She started to like too much to see their heartbroken faces at losing.", etc. The best advice I can give is to read your story aloud to yourself. If a sentence feels unnaturally long or awkward/clunky, it generally needs revision.

Capitalization: "you can call the restaurant just to make sure okay?” Instructed (instructed) Garrett" Dialogue tags shouldn't be capitalized unless it's a proper noun proceeding the dialogue. You also capitalize a few words in the middle of sentences that don't need capitalization. “Um, Hello (hello)?”, "retorted Hayden(period missing) “this (This) is the same girl that would steal my toys and pour glitter on Megan’s hair in art class”

Punctuation issues: A lot of your dialogue is missing proper punctuation. "“Okay, thanks again for taking this job Hayden, we really appreciate it, we really needed a night out to relax”, “ Don’t(space not needed) mention it”", “Honey calm down! We’ll find them I’m sure they are probably hiding around here somewhere with Hayden”, “Please for the love of god, don’t look”, etc.

Punctuation issues cont.: You forget to punctate the end of a number of sentences as well. "“But daddy what about the coat man? Is he gone?” asked Raymie(period missing)", “Dad, is he still out there? The stranger in the big coat? I’m scared, where’s Hayden?” asked Drew(period missing)", “I need to find our kids, my precious babies, WHERE ARE THEY!?” cried Lacey(.)", “Upstairs bedrooms, we look there first!” demanded Lacey(.)"

Punctuation issues cont.: There are a number of sentences that need commas. "Honey(comma missing) calm down!", "Jeremy(comma missing) you just blew your cover,", "We’re outside(comma missing) please open the door", etc. As with the wording issues. I found that reading the story aloud and checking for pauses generally denotes a situation where punctuation of some sort is required.

Grammar: Your=possession, you're=you are. "Call someone else if your (you're) looking for a good laugh!”", "Oh thank god you’re okay! It’s alright now kids, you’re (your) parents are home", etc.

Story issues: The transcript format for the telephone calls feels out of place as the rest of the story isn't told in that manner and it seems to randomly shift from being narrative to transcript ("No answer * “Is someone there?” No response * Click! *") without much reason. It feels like these moments would be better told descriptively rather than simple lines like "heavy breathing" as that's a relatively common descriptor.

There are a few times where it feels like you missed some wording. "She had a chance of escape and completely blew it by hiding out of her sight, she was just a few inches away from safety. Hayden could strangle a boar right now." I'm assuming you mean Hayden was so angry she could strangle a boar (also it feels a bit random to mention strangling an animal that really hasn't tied in to the story) and "Still not giving up(comma missing) Hayden went downstairs again to begin a search and avoid any impending danger when the corner of her eye spotted something on the kitchen counter that wasn’t there before." You spot something in the corner of your eye rather than using the corner of your eye to spot something.

I'd really refrain from using glass as a weapon. ("something just stabbed her. The stranger drew a mute howl of agony from Hayden when he ripped out the weapon, which she saw was a glass shard from the painting she broke. The stranger plunged it into her back two more times eliciting more moans of pain") Glass is pretty brittle and since it's stabbing someone in the back (an area with heavy musculature and bones) it's likely to break rather than pierce. Additionally glass shards get used a lot as a weapon and unless the area they're cutting/jabbing is soft (like a stomach), it's likely they'll break (especially if they're weakened from being shattered previously).

Story issues: This feels like it takes a lot of beats from the Babysitter urban legend (Killer calls, taunts babysitter by asking them to check on the kids, turns out to be inside the house) Additionally some of the dialogue feels overly expository ("Garrett, I’m sorry I accidentally locked the keys inside the car, we took up an unnecessary amount of extra time trying to open it. We shouldn’t be back this late") and unnatural. I know it's going to require some re-writing but right now this feels like it borrows a lot of beats from "When a Stranger Calls" and other babysitter slasher stories without really building up more with the premise.