Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-25036236-20150119173246/@comment-25036236-20150119180922

Grizzly Bear wrote: At a glance, I notice you have way too many ellipses. These should be used sparingly and also appear only in dialogue, not for some sort of dramatic effect while the narrator tells us their story. It becomes harder to read when you have as many as you do here, so replace most of them with commas or start new sentences.

You heard a baby moaning "What the hell?" I'm pretty sure this is just a spacing error, but you need to indent that line of dialogue because it can easily be read wrong.

He didn't call the police for fear of being charged? Well, if someone comes by later and finds the body, then he'll be way more likely to seem suspicious. Most people, if they found a dead body somewhere, would call the police to investigate, which would be way less suspicious than trying to hide the body. Your MC just made what's frankly a pretty stupid decision. He either needs a stronger reason not to call the police (like, being in a very isolated area or a convicted criminal who escaped from jail) or this story won't seem very believable at all.

Also, when dealing with small numbers like 2 and 4, it looks better to spell them out as "two", "four" etc. rather than just type the number in most cases.

An "If you ever, never" type of ending is really overdone and doesn't leave much impact on the reader. Since the story behind it felt rushed and not very realistic, I don't think a lot of people are going to close the tab looking with fear at any old Jack-in-the-Box toys.

All in all, this story feels rushed, weak, and sort of "messy" in how quickly you move from one event to the other. You need to slow down and take time to introduce your MC and the enviornment he (or she) is in to immerse the reader before moving on to the scary parts. The plot you have here, since it relies mostly on gore to scare the reader, will probably be a difficult one to execute because gore and violence in themselves are not scary. I'd suggest either changing the idea you have here to something simpler and more realistic, or moving on to a new idea that doesn't use gore as the central scare factor. DAMMIT!!! The only good pasta I have written is the Furtim Seductor!

What should I change the idea to?