Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-31477126-20170823183346/@comment-24101790-20170828202014

Given that I had given feedback and the author responded a while above, I felt like I should also respond to your message given that I disagree with your assessment. As there were quite lot of cross-overs between your story and the one above (as they both are based off of a premise. This one being a sleep paralysis-style story and all that entails, and yours being a re-imagining of an old campfire story. Here's a link to the story that was on the site. As it was un-cited and likely copy/pasted, it was probably removed for copyright issues.

"I can get behind that, but also the opposite is true. Saying something generic will let the reader make up more images in their mind. If the narrator says "my dog spot" they are limiting the reader by not letting them have their imagination, whereas having the one you say, the pet could be a dog, a cat, a snake and unless it is needed for the story" The problem is that there can be different things inferred with nebulous writing. A friendly dog is different from a friendly iguana for example. Saying that the protagonist was so driven to solve this case that they went beyond the normal to hunt down information would strengthen the plot.

"This is probably something you should have led with. Saying there are a dozen or so out there isn't really implying that there are a lot and I appologize but I am simply not familiar with the trajectories as you are. Saying that we had to cut a lot of them down to a dozen makes much more sense as to what you are trying to limit. As you keep pointing out more details are better."

That would be why I mentioned other types of stories that we're also going through as a means of providing an example. I could have worded it better, but typically inferring that there are a dozen (+) other stories out there that follow the same premise generally implies that something more needs to be done to make it stand out from the rest or be more effective in its telling.

"I do not mean any ill will, only wish to open debate to see that there are two sides to a coin. A very effective pasta does not need lots of detail or lots of description as is true of micro pasta, sometimes letting the reader imagine something is more important than telling them what is going on. As I say when I do reviews, its better to show than to tell, so I understand where you are comming from."

I can understand where you're coming from, but the problem is that you weren't given any real insight of your own so that only leaves a few things that can be inferred. If you provided more of your own feedback and how they could improve rather than go through someone else's review piece by piece, it might have come across as being more helpful rather than contradictory. (The talk about the physical description for example: "It would if that's the only feature available. For instance an invisible entity with only milky white eyes. It seems like you just want more imagery instead of accepting what imagery there is. Understandably more is better, but sometimes the monsters don't need to be described." when really it's the only thing that's described and if they're going to approach it like that, then they need to make it more impactful.) In the end, it doesn't really give the OP an idea for how to better their writing and just ends up discouraging feedback they may have received that they were putting to use.