Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-24924166-20140513220809/@comment-24077689-20140515163119

I seriously had this open for like 9 hours yesterday and still didn’t review it.

You’re off to a great start with this. You introduce the setting and character very well. I’m a bit bothered by the description of the 12” metal pegs. Some preliminary research shows wooden stakes were more common, and from the looks of it the metal pegs when used were far larger than a foot high. You should also clarify on the description of the rust; a lot of people only see the nasty caked oxidization that appears on their vehicles. They don’t typically associate rust merely with a thin coating of oxidization on forged iron. Well, at least, some of my moron friends don’t anyway.

And when you go into the statement of how much they’re proud of their acrobats, I wouldn’t start with “however”, it has all the typical carnival fare and they’re especially proud of their acrobats. When you say “however” it immediately conjures up a negative connotation as in “you did good on this story, however, I personally think you suck eggs”.

Whether or not you want to look more into the question of the pegs is up to you, either way, the wording in here is a pretty quick and easy fix.

It’s a little unclear of where the children are, why is it necessary that he go get them? You don’t mention them dicking with the wire until the next paragraph. Plus how would he have not noticed three young children sneaking in? Kids aren’t all that sneaky most of the time. Plus you make it seem nefarious the way the boy shakes the wire, like it was his intention to drop him.

You def gotta stop using ellipses, they’re unnecessary, the beats and pauses you’re trying to facilitate could be achieved with a dash. Plus it won’t interrupt the story. The smell wouldn’t be rust, either, it would be iron. Metallic, tinny, iron.

I dig the Silent Hill-esque sort of transformation, I feel like you could take this a bit further, though. I loved the ending; again the misuse of ellipses is distracting. That’s my personal pet peeve. It’s also a bit unclear why everything changes, obviously the vengeful spirit thing, but I don’t really think that’s a satisfying answer. You imply his thoughts of loss through the memory but that’s something you should state. We need to know what was going through his head. Vengeance? Hatred? Muted irony?

It definitely could have done without the little epilogue there. It’s implies that he butchers the children. The setting, the eerie appearance, all point towards this happening. Some things are best left to the imagination.

Overall, I was very impressed with this story, I think you could do more to it, I think this is pretty rich material and potentially good enough for a series of stories, if you’re up to it.