Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-26391248-20150516131731/@comment-25052433-20150516175406

Okay, just finsihed reading this, so let's get down to the review. First of all, let me say thanks for using the Writer's Workshop here. This is a great feature for new writers, and you would be amazed at how many people ignore it because they want to hurry up and see their work posted on the main site. Excellent job taking advantage of the features here, and hopefully this will pay off for you.

So, looking at the good and the bad of this. What I liked was the original concepts that you introduced. The counting of the bat taps was something that I haven't really seen done, and the idea of the guy tied to chair being forced to count the insane actions of a masked intruder does bring on some very sharp and clear elements of true horror. That was a very excellent idea to add and is certainly something that should remain in any revised version of this.

You also did a great job on maintaining the elements of mystery here. The girl in the mask is never revealed, nor is her skeletal accomplice. In that regard you did an excellent job of maintaining that aura of uneasy doubt, and it worked quite well in this story.

Now, let's take a look at the elements here that you will have to repair or revise before you can post this on the main site.

First of all, this needs a grammar check in the worst kind of way. You need to copy and paste this into your Word document and let spell check do its thing. Even after that, you're more than likely going to have to go through it with a fine tooth comb to find any smaller errors, because there were quite a few of them. Some of the ones that jump into my mind right away though are your use of the word threw to denote passge. Through is the world you were looking for there. Threw is the past tense of throw, so unless your character is playing ball, you want to use through.

You also change tense in a couple of places. The bulk of your story is told in first person, as in, the character is talking directly to the reader. However, during the portion where he leaves his bedroom to get a drink of water, you switch to third person, which is where the author is talking directly to the reader. That needs to all be changed to once tense throughout the entire story.

Like I said, there are simply too many grammatical errors for me to point out here, so you'll want to take this and rework it. I suggest enlisting a friend to supply you with a second set of eyes. Trust me, I have my wife read over a lot of my stuff, and she can catch errors that I never would have even noticed. Having a second person look it over is always a plus.

Now let's talk plot. I would label this as ''unpolished potential. ''You strike on a lot of workable dynamics here, like the strained relationship between the mother and son, the son liking a girl at school, the basic fear of being followed by a stalker. All of these elements work, however, where they fall flat here is in the execution.

The conversation with the police officer for example, comes across as hallow. Perhaps you could do some research on how these sorts of invesigations generally work. The cop comes across as uninterested and in a hurry to leave, as though he doesn't really care. Now, if you wrote him up to be that way, that's fine, but go a bit more into it so it makes since. Describe him as fat with a stained uniform or something, maybe some beard stubble. That way, the reader will see a cop that doesn't really care about his job and is just phoning this investigation in.

If the cop is supposed to care, then you'll need to have him show some greater interest in the situation. He'd ask more questions for sure.

Also, in the initial conversation with the cop, it is unclear as to who has the stalker, the mom or the son. That needs to be polished a bit so that it clicks right away who the cop is there to talk to. When I first read this, I thought that mom was being stalked and was wondering why the son was even talking.

The rabbit scene could probably go, as it doesn't do much for the story. It would probably be creepier if he looked out the window and saw nothing as opposed to a rabbit. Plus, his statement about looking out at the "cute" bunny doesn't feel organic to a teenage boy. I mean, I haven't been a teenager in a long time, but that just doesn't read like a normal reaction.

You also added in a lot of filler that doesn't really need to be there. Having him play with the mute on his television and talking about his X-Box could be condensed into more a  notional, "I was bored in my room" sort of concept.

The skull mask girl with the bat though was awesome, and is certainly something that needs to remain in the story. She seems like a powerful and interseting enough antagonist that I would almost suggest removing the skeleton guy and just allow her to have the entire spotlight. She is clearly psychotic, but edge of mind torture with the bat, that works, and I think that's what you need to make the focus here.

Finally, the ending is very murky. Honestly I was left not fully understanding what was even happening. Now, this wasn't because the end was left a mystery to be pondered, but rather because the ending narrative was just put together too hastily and didn't flow well enough to form a solid string of plot.

So, final say here is that this story is a keeper and could have a spot on the main site, but it needs to be overhauled before it's going to be ready for that. Work on it, fix the grammar, improve the plot and flesh out the ending. I want you to stick with this, because this has a ton of potential, but needs some polishing.

We're all here to help you with that process, so don't lose faith. You've got a great story here, you just have to get it to where it needs to be.