Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-25226524-20140908005526/@comment-24304936-20140908192545

Although well-written, it definitely feels rushed and anti-climatic at the end. Some murderer gets his head blown off. All of that great pacing you painted led to that? I know you said that this is probably the first installment of a possible novella, but I was really expecting some sort of catch towards the end there. At the start of reading this, it honestly felt like I switched to the middle of a bloodier Law and Order: SVU episode I had not seen before. Although not necessarily a bad thing there, the "creep" factor was lacking for me.

The dialogue is done very well, although the conversation between the sheriff and his wife seemed needlessly long.

Your characters are done well too, although you might want to consider upping the tension factor when the sheriff and deputy are reacting to their environment. Although you point out a few times that the sheriff became unraveled by what he saw, his manner belies that. Is he sweating at all? Maybe shaking a bit? How about some stammering? Although that might seem negligible, little details like that really can convey the portrait you are trying to draw.

Not sure how you plan to proceed with this, but all-in-all it's obvious that you're a talented writer. I'd just like to see some more "edge" to this. As a fellow horror author, I think you can probably figure out what I mean there.

Keep at it. I love the fact that we seem to have this influx of superior talent coming our way recently in the form of people like you, GreyOwl, and Banning. We need more of you guys around here to make this place scarier than it already is :)