Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-24996913-20140908044311/@comment-24996913-20140908072529

Banningk1979 wrote: Ok, well let's take a look at the Last Letter by complimenting it with the First Review! (Review humor!)

-The more of your work I read, the more I have come to realize that you have mastered grammar, tempo and timing. As always, I can bypass such technical issues and dive right into the story.

-Let's start by looking at your premise. This small, foggy town that apparently boasts a very high suicide rate. First of all, excellent job on using reality to compliment your fiction. It is a proven fact that lack of sunlight can cause depression in people. Therefore, it was very easy to go along with your setting of this miserable little town where people don't like to live to see old age.

-You further played in the realm of reality by adding in the character's obsession with this scientific theory. It is easy for the reader to follow along in the character's mind set, that the more he thought about the scientific findings, the more he dwelled on it.

-The entity towards the end was described, designed and executed perfectly. The idea of something like this, rasping away in the darkness, is excellent nightmare fuel. I also loved the fact that you explained the mass suicides as the work of some supernatural entity. It works beautifully. The chilling aspect is that since everyone that sees this creature ends up killing themselves, none of the scientists will ever really know the real cause of the suicide rate.

Now where could we make some changes:

-One thing I would consider adjusting is the protagonist. You made him a guy, age unidentified, but clearly old enough to be out chasing women. Now, not to sound callous, but his reaction to his friend's suicide almost seemed over the top. Now, that is not to say that men don't react to grief in such a manner, but generally, men tend to put on a strong face and try to comfort others in these times. I think the issue here falls in the fact that you designed him to basically be a very well adjusted guy that was able to go out and get laid and do all that other fun stuff. If you want to paint him up as the extremely emotional type, I would suggest working in some talking points about him earlier, to help the reader see him as a tortured protagonist more naturally. Consider the following,

Going into deeper dialogue about his friendship with the suicide victim. Really hammer it to the reader that they were life long friends that simply couldn't function without one another. Throw in a back story where they really help each other. In other words, write them up to be more like brothers than friends.

This is actually something I am speaking of from experience. When I was in high school, we had a student get hit by a car in the school parking lot. For about a day, the entire school dwelled on her. We sat around and talked about her, all of her friends lit candles and made wreaths and cried. However, after her funeral, it was literally back to business as usual. No one really talked about her after that, and all of her close friends who were weeping their eyes out just a days before, were back to laughing and being teenagers again. Is this cold or emotionless? I think it is just the human spirit's desire to heal and move on. Especially in teenagers.

The point of that little story was to illustrate that, if you are going to realism here, you may want to anchor the two friends together a bit more in the written word. That will make the 'screaming into the pillow' scene seem a bit more real and a lot less like plot device.

-Another thing to consider. Have him write his suicide letter on paper with a pen, rather than using a computer. I feel it would have been a lot smoother and personal, had the entity handed the kid paper and a pen, rather than having him sit down on a computer and have it magically turn on.

Overall though, as with all your work that I have had the pleasure to read, this was perfectly written and executed. As always, the plot suggestions are just that, suggestions. As it stands, I think this is a find story and would fit perfectly posted onto the site.

Thanks again for writing another great story, always a pleasure to read your work.

I have to agree with you there. I'm what a lot of people call "cold hearted" and I definitely remember a lot of accidents like the one you've mentioned above in my high school as well. And just as you described, people forgot soon after and continued about their lives. So I think I will provide some backstory on the closeness of their relationship. I did feel as though I needed to elaborate more on the friend to make everything melt together perfectly. And onto the computer scene, that's a give or take. What triggered me writing this story was glancing over at my laptop. I could see how it would be a bit creepier if I just had the entity hand over the pen and paper. I'll write an alternate version and compare the two when I rework it a bit. Thanks a lot for the advise and feedback :)