Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-27012445-20150923201343/@comment-25980905-20150925231016

[insert quirky line here]. Let's begin shall we?

Overview:

I'm not going to go too in depth here; I'm just going to vaguely scrape over the surface.

My first thought of this story, as soon as I saw the word 'cellar' in Petey's email, was 1999. The antagonist (Petey) also reminds me of Mr Bear (with substitutions such as a goat mask rather than a bear suit, etc.) and the two share similar mannerisms. This story does bear some shocking similarities to the aforementioned story (1999), but just because they share similar antagonists does not mean the stories are exactly the same so I'm willing to drop it for the purpose of this review.

From a plot perspective, the story was well done. I didn't notice many plot errors or continuency errors. The story made sense, which is always good to see. I'm glad to see that most things that were brought up earlier in the story were tied up near the end.

From a character perspective, the characters were realistic within reason. At times I felt like the characters were just a little off in regards to realism but overall it didn't break the story. The character Jaime was also not elaborated on much and she appears to be in the story just so that you can create more mystery and shock after she is taken for a second time.

The language used in the story was acceptable, your use of words bigger than 'bad' show that you have a good vocabulary. However, in regards to sentences, at times you seemed to just reword sentences and put them both right next to each other, breaking the immersion of the reader. E.g: '... I learned what I already knew in my heart, my mom was dead. There was nothing that could be done for my mom, she had died instantly...', it's literally the same sentence just written differently and they both don't need to be there.

The conclusion is also a bit baffling. You said only thirteen children were taken in the beginning but now their are fourteen? I get the distinct impression that maybe the main character became like Petey in order to be the 'other kind of evil' that is needed to defeat him. In that case, did the protagonist kill fourteen kids (you said it yourself, the protagonist is a killer) and Petey's thirteen kids were not in that talley? The ending was just a bit confusing and I think it needs to be made more clear.

To conclude, this story will be let down by the fact that it can be associated with 1999 (I know I said I'd drop it, but others won't), not because they are part of the same story (as they clearly aren't) but because they share similarities (in both plot and characters). The spelling and grammar aren't bad, which is good to see. Overall, the story is good but it still needs work. I look forward to reading the edited version and/or your response to this review.

Good luck in your writing adventure!

PS: I didn't have a quirky line to add to the start of this review, and for that I am deeply apologetic.