Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-25458443-20190620214321/@comment-25458443-20190620224910

BloodySpghetti wrote: Ehhh... The thing that is there and will scare us all... ehh no... it's the thing that will make me want to stop reading. It's an "Evil Force of Nature" at it's most stereotyped glory. It's a cliche. You want an obscure thing, make sure it's obscure, can be insanely powerful but don't make it inevitable, especially not in the beginning. Leave me with doubt. The moment you scream in my face "This is real!!!" I know it's not.

You want an obscure monster/thing, go for it having no clear definition, make it a black mass that looks remotely human with small holes for eyes and a slit for a mouth. It's easier to work with that and give it a sort of supernatural creepiness in my experience.

Not to mention how the two guys sitting there after the first encounter feels rather out of place; they feel creeped out, why do they stay if the feeling doesnt exactly subside when the thing is gone? Cause otherwise the plot won't work, or will look even more like The Smiling Man's plot.

Now, this really reminds me of The Smiling Man.. uhh...

The ending is just out of place completely, the guy dies and instead of being serrounded by family, it's his friend who saw the monster he saw awfully so conviniently Ted is an asocial person with no family. This just makes me feel like you didn't have anything in mind or didn't care enough to come up with something that's more than this very convinient yet unlikely scenario. This is a retelling, which I already said. I understand its supposed to stand up on its own as an original story, but for the sake of feedback it would usually be pretty helpful if you've read the original story as well... I really value any criticism but there isn't a whole lot I can do with this. Like I say, this is a retelling of an already existing story, and a lot of your issues are central to the concept. The only observation here I can address (since its more specific to my version of the story) is the opening sort of building up the inevitability of the creature.

I can see what you mean, but its more an attempt to be faithful to the original story but sort of bend it differently. The Thing was a story about a forerunner appearing, but in the retelling I try to broaden it out and make the thing represent death in general. Subtextually what I'm trying to do here is make the story about a brush with death at a young age, in a sense.