Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-28838392-20160624205649/@comment-24101790-20160624211859

Really, three minutes was all I needed to read the story as it is about a page long and isolate the punctuation, wording, grammatical (corrected in this version), and story issues to determine that the story isn't up to quality standards.

Punctuation: Hyphens missing from compound words. "you’d be a little self (-) centered", "your own lack of self (-) preservation skills ", etc. If the words directly impact each other (as is the case in compound words), they need to be connected with a hyphen or joined together as a word depending on the situation. You also tend to have issues with conclusive punctuation. "I’m not joking, this is very real… Yet you still read(period missing)", "Maybe if I drop the enthusiasm of “wasting” your time and tell you what I’m actually doing you’ll finally stop .", "At this point I have to wonder, because you are apparently still reading, who's the monster.(?)"

Wording: "I can’t hear you of course… or see, or hear, or smell etc(period missing) etc." Stating hear twice is redundant. "you’d be a little self centered to (too)" Awkward wording: "you are quite realistically (realistically doesn't really work here without clarification) keeping me alive, as I only exist as (while) you read these words.", "you aren't taking this seriously, or of (have) some morbid curiosity"

Story issues: "To put it simply, I am a monster, killing me would probably be beneficial to you and those around you." and " I’m killing your time, and effectively killing you." really showcase the point that this would be a lot more effective if it were told descriptively. Rather than just leaving it as 'procrastination' killing the audience, go into what moments they are missing by wasting time, what regrets they'll have, why this is a bad thing, etc. Without that, the story falls short of being effective.

Story issues cont.: There's a lot of repetition here that comes off as padding. "Yet you still read", "even anger in you, yet you read on.", "even told you what my intentions were yet you still read.", "ou still continue to read a completely useless string of words that will bring you nothing." etc. A little repetition can cement a theme or focus the audience, but doing it 3+ times really comes off as trying to flesh out the story without actually adding content.

Story issues final: This line: "At this point I have to wonder, because you are apparently still reading, who's the monster.(?)" is a really overused trope in horror (See "Frankenstein", "The Walking Dead" comics, George Romero's "Diary of the Dead", just to name a few comics/movies/comics that use this trope) It really feels shoe-horned into the story as it really isn't explained why the audience is the monster instead.

These were a few of the issues I came across while reading the story. This really feels like it could be more effectively told if more time is put into it.