Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-25319269-20150607095137/@comment-26007602-20150607180045

Oh, the irony.

In your attempt to create a non-edgy, non-pretentious, true ramblings of a madman, you have created an edgy, pretentious, laughable ramblings of a madman. This reminds me of the guy from Hatred in his needless swearing and boasting about how much "more insane and powerful" he is than you. The constant insults and threats towards the reader are fairly ridiculous (I'm going to find you through your IP! Um... Ok...) and don't really help this guy build his "insanity is bad" case.

There's nothing actually creepy in this story. The only horror comes from this dudes threat of killing the reader, which is a fairly common "your next" cliche. Also mentioning JtK will block your story from being posted, and it's fairly ridiculous to be included in a story. You also need to separate this thing into paragraphs. I think you posted parts of the story twice for some reason, so I'd remove those repetitive bits.

I'm not saying I dislike the concept. I think showing the reality of mental illness (which this guy doesn't really seem to have; he's just a cliched psychopath) and the complications would be a great story. If your character was a sympathetic serial killer (which he is not due to his actions towards the reader), it could be a really interesting story. Yes, people should know that mental illness sucks. But your story doesn't help that case; it hurts it. In trying to create a character unlike the others on this website, you've created one exactly like the others.

Here's my advice: get rid of all the "badass" insults and threats towards the reader and instead play on this guys sympathetic qualities. He emphasizes with children, he had a prior life, expand on that. Tell us about his daily life when he's not killing, his family, his regrets; don't make him "go after" the reader. It's stupid.

This certainly has the potential, but it's currently bogged down by the problems it so desperately tried to separate itself from.