Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-27975944-20160314092256/@comment-24101790-20160314172828

Starting with the basics, you should break up some of these paragraphs more. A typical paragraph is five-ten sentences. Any more and it begins to get blocky and difficult to read. Additionally, indenting paragraphs (while correct in other forms of writing) tends to cause formatting issues here and should be avoided. Onto the larger issues present in your story.

While it is important to separate dialogue from multiple speakers, this split seems unnecessary: "“Hello, and welcome to the late night Mute Lake news, my name is David Jahoy!”

Followed by:

“Tonight we have a breaking story; a young man, age 21; Andrew Ortiz has been reported missing. He is described as tall with olive skin and green eyes. Local authorities urge anyone with information on Mr. Ortiz’s whereabouts to contact them immediately.”"

Typos: "Probably on (sic) of the neighbor kids trying to spook me again.", "I had managed to jar (jab) the knife deep within his abdomen.", etc.

"He hit me hard with the dull side of the knife, muttering “Shut up, runt. I’m not gonna hurt ya yet. I still gotta see what Number Two wants to do with ya first.”"

"I slowly opened my eyes to see a puddle of blood arising from the man." Arising doesn't really work in the context as it typically implies upward movement. ("get or stand up.")

Story issues: Here's what tipped the scale and resulted in me determining the story wasn't up to quality standards. "Sleepwalking. The act of getting up and walking around while asleep, a sleep disorder belonging to the parasomnia family." The definition feels unneeded as the concept of sleepwalking is pretty well-known and feels out-of-place as you segue into the protagonist being tied to a chair which really has little connection to their sleep walking.

Story issues cont.: The story feels fairly similar to the premise of Clive Barker's "Midnight Meat Train", but there are quite a number of plot holes that he covered that you left unexplained. The first being, why does the protagonist agree to take on the mantle of the executioner? In the source material, he was forced and trapped in his situation. Here it feels like he could leave at any time. He also seems oddly accepting of his role ("I did what any reasonable person would do in my situation. I took the knife and I wore my mask with pride.") when he previously seemed to be very much opposed to it ("something was happening in Mute Lake, and for once, I didn’t want to be a part of it.").

Story issues end: The system for disappearing people and explaining the murders in the original worked as there was a sense of a greater force behind it that was covering its tracks. Here it feels like a few crazy people abducting and murdering people without really drawing any form of attention to themselves which feels really off. Finally, the latter half feels rushed. Maybe if a little more time was focused on explaining his mental state when he decided to become an executioner might make it feel more realistic. Right now, the story feels like it needs quite a bit of work and re-writing to bring it up to quality standards.