Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-26543178-20150628015542/@comment-26475800-20150628022549

Some of the issues with this is that the story contradicts itself at points. Look at this sentience: "'This is strange, must be something wrong with the juice box again'." Let's start with the first thing, this sentience is part of a sentience which didn't end, so you don't have to cap the "T" for this. It also contradicts itself, why would it be strange if the "juice box" has been acting up in the past? Also, the period is after the quotation marks, all punctuation should be inside of quotation marks, and if the sentence isn't finished use an ellipses or a comma.

Another place where there was a contradiction was at the end when the power came back on by itself, but you later said that the killer kills the power to the house. If he cut the power to the house he would most likely only kill the power to that house, which would mean that the power wouldn't come back on by itself.

There are some grammar issues, but I am currently working on my own grammar so I wouldn't be the person to point them out.

As far as the story goes, you write about stuff but tell us more than you show us. Show the fear by what happens to you when you get scared, your heart starts thumping, palms start sweating, your body tenses up, those kinds of things. Show us with what you protagonist is feeling by the reactions he is having to the feelings. You could tie these into what is happening.

For example, you can use the person coming down the stairs and you see him and fear takes over. you can have the protagonist hear him coming down the stairs and begin to tremble all over again, his mouth become dry or something like that. Look into times when you were frightened and tell them in your story as if the people are going through them.

On a final note, think about the description you gave of the killer, he sounds more like a monster or ghost or something, but he is a man. Maybe you could have the guy who had broken out of the mental hospital be shot dead on the block or something, coming back for one last kill? That would be a better twist, because I feel that the twist wasn't much of a twist for this story.

You can make this work, it isn't such a bad idea just needs to be polished up a bit and it would be a good story. You thought up the hard part, the body and plot of the story are already there so you can put a little more work into it to make this work for this site. I hope you do and would like to read it again after it has been completed.