Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-33001998-20170925032602/@comment-29015383-20170925083141

"The Masons were Wynonna and Judson and their parents."

-> The Masons were Wynonna, Judson, and their parents.

"Wynonna was a dark-haired girl that I could never look directly in the eye long enough to discern their real color. I was in the sixth grade and Wynonna was in seventh. I met Wynonna for the first time because she was assigned to my seat on the bus."

-> These few sentences feel rather awkward to me, mostly due to how Wynonna's name is repeated in every single sentence. After the first one, you may want to replace it with 'she' as it's fairly obvious the focus of the text is on Wynonna. Also, are bus-seats really assigned on schoolbusses? We don't have them on this side of the pond, but having seats on a bus assigned seems weird

"I remember hearing about a string of break-ins or something in the neighborhood happening during the nights around the time. "

-> 'or something'? What else could they be. And around what time? And since there is no further mention on this in the rest of the story...what's the relevance? To tell she has a pocket-watch? Kids don't need break-ins to show off this awesome 'toy' they got and love.

"I almost never saw her smile. " -> why not? If she's frustrated with her family, let that come back in their conversations. Otherwise this doesn't really add anything to Wynonna. All kids smile, unless there are underlying reasons and you give no indication for these.

"We rode the bus together for the next year. We became very close friends in that time so I asked if I could come over to her house to hang out sometime"

-> This feels a bit repeated. It's pretty clear already they ride the bus together. How about something along the lines of 'Over the course of a year, we became pretty good friends.' Also keep in mind that children can become good friends after just introducing each other, so it doesn't have to be a year!

"We sat in silence for the whole ride to school because I thought that she was mad at me. I spent the whole day at school wondering what might be wrong and when I finally saw her at the end of the day I immediately asked her. "

-> This feels awkward and stilted to me. My suggestion would be to switch the structure of the sentences around a little. Suggestion: 'Thinking she was mad at me, we rode to school in silence. However, throughout the whole day I kept wondering what might be wrong so when I saw her again at the end of the day, I gathered my courage and asked her'. Written in a way like this, it also gives the narrator a bit of character. By being hesitant he shows a bit of fear fo the possible answer he doesn't want to hear.

“My parents don’t want me going to your house and inconveniencing your parents,” she told me. I told her I could have my parents explain to her parents it wasn’t a problem, but she told me that her parents almost never change their minds about something."

-> Again awkward phrasing though that is mostly due to the lack of emotion and the repeated 'told me told her'. Try to mix it up. And why have one thing be narrated and another quoted?

"telling me that her parents left a note that said they "

-> 'Had left a note saying they...'

"It was Friday and my parents didn’t care where I was on Fridays as long as I was back before it got dark."

-> Reads awkwardly. Try to start off with something along the lines of 'since it was Friday'. This would negate the need for repetition and make the sentence flow better

"The bus ride back home was filled with an ecstatic silence, possibly due to both of us saving everything we wanted to say for when we were alone. "

-> ....why? Are they a couple not wanting the rest of the bus to hear the flirting? They're kids! Show some of their characters by having them be giddy and excited and talk on and on about what they'll do!

"I glanced out the window and noticed that the sun was already starting to go down."

-> There is no sensation of passage of time, which makes this very sudden. It can be solved by adding in something like "the hours passed by quickly" to at least tie the staying over part together with the leaving part.

"The next morning there were police cars outside of Wynonna’s house. Her parents and little brother were found dead in their bedroom along with a pocket knife that had blood and Wynonna’s prints on it. They arrested Wynonna and I never saw her again. "

-> ... Okay? I have a few problems with this. 1: who called the cops? They don't randomly show up. 2: There was no build up whatsoever and makes this feel like a 'and then a skeleton popped out' scenario. 3: It was a pocket knife. A small pocket knife. You can do some good damage with that, but Wynonna would need to overpower both her mother and father. Even at night, it's guaranteed they'll wake up if you start stabbing.

Overall this is...rather bland. You tell the story without showing anything and the two characters feel like cardboard. Give them some personality! Let them be excited, angry, frustrated, grumpy, happy, sad, aghast, whatever, and show us they are by adding it to their behavior and tone of voice. As a random example, look at the next two sentences:

"I'm scared," Lizzy said.

"I'm s-scared," Lizzy stuttered, her eyes wide and tears forming in the corners.

The first one tells the audience that Lizzy is afraid yes, but it doesn't show us anything and thus doesn't really affect us in any way. The second gives the audience something to work with. Lizzy stutters from the fear and is about to cry because of it. While she still says it, the second version adds a visual.

And the ending....for me it really falls flat. It comes out of nowhere and feels tagged on just to make it a creepypasta. There's no lead up to the twist ending. You could leave it out entirely, and the story would be a basic little tale of a boy finding his first puppy-love. My suggestion would be to rewrite the later third of the story completely and add on to it. Have him come over every day for several days after Wynonna murders her parents. Have her come over to his place, her parents can't deny her anymore! This would also make the cops showing up more believable as someone's bound to sound the alarm when Wynonna's father and/or mother don't show up to work anymore. You can also play with scent and visuals more, as bodies start to rot and stink up the whole house (but hey, it's a creepy ghost house!). For that matter, perhaps the parents begin to haunt the house. Go as far down the rabbit hole as you want!

Another idea is to have the kids be older and nearing the end of high-school. Let them find romance for each other and frustrated that they don't have a lot of time they can spend together until Wynonna snaps and shows herself to be the very possessive type, murders her parents, and refuses to allow the narrator to go back home.

While neither of the two ideas I mentioned may be very original, in the end it's all about how you tell the story. Let us feel the emotion and make us care about the characters. Then let the murder part come in to ruin our happy fuzzy little feelings.