Talk:The Santa at the Mall/@comment-26475800-20161228025552

This was a fun read. The characters were developed rather well, which is surprising in how short this story is. The multiple endings was clever, although they weren't much different from one another. If I had to choose one, I would say the second was better, just because it made it known that the Santa was still in the house. The other one he could have gotten out, and she heard him running down the street.

Negatives: There was one spot that had a few grammar issues that took me out of the story for just a moment. "upon seeing the sea of torsos behind her, each holding up or the hand of their own children, she decided that it was okay to wait it out. Anyway, her little guy might like ol’ saint nick anyway." The "holding up or the hand" and the two "anyway" in those two sentences bogged me down for just a moment. Also, Saint Nick isn't capitalized. I'm not really looking for grammar when reading these, but that just stuck out.

Scoring:

Use of Prompt: 20. You nailed it.

Grammar: 17. I feel like I have to take some points off because of that one section, sorry.

Flow/Structure: 15. I'm going to take points off for two things here, and the multiple endings, which was clever and gives you points for the creative section, but also messed with the flow a little. And the section mentioned above.

Creativity: 19. This wasn't the most creative story, but the way you've written it and the world you created was very strong and enjoyable. The multiple endings also bumped this up too, because, I don't think anyone else would have tried to get the readers that involved in the story.

Overall Story: 15. It was a fun read, but not that daring. The build-up was strong, the ending was alright, but something fell through the cracks between those too things. Well, maybe it was because you spent so much time with the Santa/mall aspect and then jumped directly to the murdering. I loved the foreshadowing, and detail put into the mall, so that helped here too.

Final Score: 86