Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-24719047-20140322171640/@comment-24077689-20140323061407

If it had really annoyed me I wouldn't have reviewed it.

The problem with the bad guy isn't just that it's sentient darkness and that's cliche. While that is a common trope, it was more your execution. There doesn't seem to be a lot of effort in the development. It changes shape too often, as if you can't lock down what it is. The lurking, always watching, figure is a great image. But the way you executed it was sloppy. The way you executed it was cliche and too drawn out. Yo, I was afraid of the dark until I was 13, I totally get it. But you could write this so much better.

It's not really a matter of length. Fixing the ellipses would definitely be a step in the right direction to fixing that tedium, though. I'd go into more detail at some points. I'd really focus on polishing up the dialogue, while like I said it's not overly terrible dialogue, it just needs some shining.

I'd say review this. Start back at square one with this, really try to focus a bit more on building up that tension, try to build on a sense of paranoia. Which I see you tried to do a bit but you didn't flesh it out quite enough. Adding the dynamic of the friend to the formula you applied to this also really screwed with the sense of paranoia because it much less juxtaposed his calmness to the protagonists paranoia and more cancelled it out. You want to highlight the paranoia, really try to develop in the reader a sense of empathy. And keep in mind, writing in the first person, especially in horror fiction is a slippery slope. It's much harder to develop descriptive language and promote an atmosphere of dread in the first person.