Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-36772767-20180831051828/@comment-5733573-20180901165821

This story feels like it's all buildup that leads nowhere. You hook the reader with the letter at the beginning and then keep us interested to find out what's going to happen, but then there's no real payoff at the end. They just catch the guy and he confesses his, frankly, overdone reason for killing her. The "murder by Biblical punishments" trope has been used a lot and really needs to be handled differently if it's not going to come off as stale.

Another thing: who is the narrator? Why does he or she know this story? Why are they telling us? Why should we trust them? And, for that matter, who are we meant to be as the reader? What is our role in the story?

As far as execution goes, I need to talk about paragraph structure. Every should have one job to do, one point to convey. If it's conveying more than one point, you need to split it up. For instance, you can have one paragraph describing the body, and another paragraph describing someone's reaction to it, etc.

Finally, the verb tense needs to be standardized. Pick present or past tense and stick with it throughout the story.

I hope you develop this further. The buildup was delicious and is worthy of a big pow at the end.