Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-34296765-20160501000610/@comment-28266772-20160504150357

So there are few/no grammatical errors which is quite rare! Some sentences are awkwardly worded but Dr Frank N Furter catches most of those. But here are a few others I picked out.

"Something was off that night.  Something was not in place."

These two lines are a little redundant. I'd pick just one and stick with that (you use the idea of something being 'out of place' quite frequently so I would personally suggest you keep the line 'something was off that night').

" nuzzle close with them" I thought this line sounded a little funny. I think it should be "nuzzle close to them".

" He did not notice his father climb out from under the bed after hours of waiting and smile at his son's calm expression in sleep, straighten his blankets, and kiss his forehead as he opened his son's mouth and dropped a squirming centipede into it." This is one long, run on sentence which switches subject from son to father half way through. Make one sentence that focuses on how the son doesn't/can't notice his father, and then another sentence that focuses on the father's actions from that point onwards.

Overall though this is good. I didn't anticipate it being his father. However, if I could make a few suggestions to the story itself they would be,

1) A father wouldn't really need to hide would he? He's a natural presence in the house, and gains nothing from lying under the bed for hours. Maybe have the father enter the room in a way that leads the audience to think he's there to give his son a reassuring hug on a scary/stormy night, only for you to then reveal him as the true threat.

2) The ending is a little too vague (why a centipede?). Your story is very short, and there's lots of room for you to tighten up some of the descriptions, which will only free up more room for you to provide some exposition/background. You only need to hint at some larger conspiracy/idea. Even a few lines could explain that the child is awake because of a specific incident, which might help give a bit more context e.g. a schoolmate disappeared a few nights ago only to be found dead, and full of bugs, that very morning. Or the child had heard rumours about a witch in the area that force fed children centipedes and ate them. The specifics are up to you, and there's a lot you can do with it, but I would definitely suggest you add even just a little bit of context.

Overall I liked this story. Good luck with any future drafts.