Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-26444401-20170422044558/@comment-24101790-20170507132546

First and foremost, here's a guide on journal based stories. A lot of these entries feel really rushed and not like actual entries due to the fact that there's not a lot of day-to-day life here and it attempts to jump right in to the story without really building anything up first.

There's a lot of unnecessary repetition here for such a short story. "My husband knew I slept walked, but he couldn’t bring himself to think I would do that." and "he knew I slept walked but couldn’t bring himself to believe I would ever do such a thing." feel redundant.

"Then, it moved to the camera and put the damn thing in its mouth! I wish I could show you the video, really! Otherwise, y’all would think I’m the most outrageous sort of fake!" Why can't the protagonist show the video? They obviously watched it after the fact so why bring it up and discredit themselves? Also since there's not a lot of description here, the story feels kind of flat.

"The footage shows the thing feasting on a dozen carcasses, ranging from rat to dog to even a deer and bob cat" I am wondering if the protagonist is writing about the minutia of their daily lives that they wouldn't notice the smell of multiple decaying animals.

All in all, I really don't think in its current form that this story is up to quality standards. There are quite a lot of plot holes, the entries feel rushed and unnatural, there's a real lack of effective description ("It looked to be like a Coyote standing on its hind legs, but it was six feet or so tall!" is a pretty bland descriptor to be building up to), and it follows a fairly used trope of "strange occurrences happen, protagonist set up a camera, record something spooky, story ends". I think this one is going to need quite a lot of revision if you plan on posting it to the site.