Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-28299494-20160628152608/@comment-24101790-20160630070148

"“Yes, we’re sorry for calling on such short notice but this is really urgent.” They replied “Okay, I understand I’ll be there right away. What’s your address?” I asked. “3214, Alabama St.(quotation missing) They (they) answered(punctuation missing)"

"“Well maybe it’s in the garage.” I asked." (also this isn't a question so using 'asked' seems off.)

"blood.”What(space needed) the hell happened,”(quotation not needed) this cannot be happening,” I yelled."

"I ran back in the kitchen in a fright, only to find Rachel dead covered in a pool of her own blood."

"“Yes, Is (is) there a problem?” the parents asked(punctuation missing)"

"“Listen, I have no idea how it happened, but your daughter has been murdered.” I exclaimed(punctuation missing)"

"“W-what are you talking about, y-you can’t be serious,” they cried(punctuation missing)"

"“NO YOU LISTEN TO US, I DON’T KNOW WHO THE HELL YOU THINK YOU ARE, BUT IF YOU MURDER OUR DAUGHTER WE MURDER YOU.(should be a comma)” the parents screamed(punctuation missing)" Additionally this is a really awkward line of dialogue.

"“This wasn’t my fault, I promise you, the police are here investigating but they haven’t found anything.” I told them."

There are other issues, but this far in, the story issues really outweigh the other points. Unfortunately there are quite a few story issues here that really impact the overall story.

Starting with the basics: It seems odd that she's notice this girl on multiple occasions ("So I walked back into the garage, found the nuts, and saw the girl again with a different appearance. Her smile was wider and she looked as though she was wearing a red cape.") but not really mention it. I mean it's an odd occurrence for people to just stand outside (or inside) your house and just look at you without talking. Wouldn't the babysitter talk to Katie or the parents after repeatedly seeing this girl posted outside their house (likely in the dark since you mentioned dinner)? The babysitter lives in the same area and her current occupation is babysitting so she likely would recognize her as not being one of her neighbors.

Here's the problem I have with most of these types of stories (see below for clarification), it's always a mirror and it being a mirror is problematic. ("“Wait a minute did you say a window… our garage has no windows just a mirror.”) The issue is that a mirror is reflective. If she can see the girl, why can't she see other things being reflected while looking at it (other items in the garage or even her own reflection)? Even if the girl is somehow inside the mirror, other items would still be visible. I'm assuming the garage has lights (although it should be clarified if there are no lights as it seems counter-intuitive to be looking for something and not turn on the lights to find it more easily.)

Here's the biggest problem and I'm afraid it's a bit of a story-breaking one. This story has actually been told a number of times before and some of the points you cover are near identical to the other ones. Here are copies of other stories that are very similar, and it's a fairly similar twist to the old camping tale. There's even an [analogue story (The Killer in the Window) that is pretty well-known. I believe there's a version on this wiki, but after looking through hundreds of old deleted stories to turn up those few examples (not all iterations unfortunately of that, but I thought two examples were enough).

Unfortunately we get this concept quite frequently pitched to us and I've actually had to explain the issues in this story a few times. I'm sorry, but this is a fairly used premise and there is an uncanny amount of bleed-over between the previous stories that were deleted (for a lot of reasons that were outlined above) and yours.