Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-37197096-20190121073935/@comment-36627132-20190121144112

Spelling and Grammar Issues: This one has quite a few for such a short story. First off, always remember to create a new paragraph everytime someone speaks. "For as long as I can remember, when I was a younger child, I always carried a harmless little doll around with me." I would get rid of the "For as long as I can remember" part. "I loved it, I took care of it, like all children do" would work better if it were "I loved it and took care of it, like all children do." Which leads us to " I loved it, I took care of it, like all children do...but" remember, ellipsis is three periods and a space. "that doll led me to ultimate disaster.When" you forgot the space after the period. "When I was around 15 years old, I had found the doll" the word "had" is pretty pointless. "and it didn't look much different: The hair" the word "The" didn't need to be capitalized. "my Parents" "parents" does not need to be capitalized.

Plot Issues: As you said, haunted dolls have become an over used cliche. Unfortunately at this point there is nothing anyone can add or come up with to make the concept fresh again. The irony is that in the attempt to make a non-cliche story, you added a whole bunch of cliches (see below). The story itself is pretty lacking in content. Ok so your main character had a doll, got to the age when she didn't care about it anymore, then when she found it she was super excited. Why? "my family found it unsettling. How do they not remember?" remember what, the doll? I don't think you ever elaborate on this. Then your character's mother threatens to destroy the doll which brings us to a cluster of cliches (see cliche list below). Your character nonchalantly listens to the doll's command to kill her family (thinking nothing of it) and somehow the police find out about it.

Cliches: First off, we have the evil doll which we already established. Then we have the main character killing her family which is a big no no as it is one of the many Jeff the Killer cliches. Next we have the murder-by-chainsaw cliche. Then you end the story with your character being arrested (cliche) and finding out the whole thing was just a hallucination (also a cliche).

The biggest problem with this story is the ending itself. The main character's family wants her to get rid of the doll, but it turns out there is no doll. So did she hallucinate the entire thing and kill her family for no reason? The final line, while trying to add horror to the story, only destroys it.