Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-26112985-20150720213348/@comment-26112985-20150725204413

Shadowswimmer77 wrote: Ok, first things first, I noticed a few grammatical errors throughout. I hate writing those kind of corrections out, but I'd suggest doing another couple readthroughs to catch them. Then if/when you post this, I'll go through and edit any that I find.

Your concept is decent. The basic bones of the story are not particularly unique, the idea of a kid finding a serial killer's lair, but they don't necessarily have to be. I appreciate that you didn't spend too much time focused on the tongue killer...too many people do that with their OC so the fact that you kept him as a strictly background character works well.

I disagree about the notion that you have to make James more likeable. Why? To me it actually makes the character more real that he has some flaws. The notion that he's a "bad" kid in that he does drugs, steals money from his dad, helps break into a place etc, is then directly juxtaposed against the fact that he's not so bad as to be ok letting a serial killer roam loose. Some main characters can be somewhat unsympathetic, have a little dirt on them. There is nothing wrong with that here and I think you've given plenty of character developing details.

One thought I have is to rework the verb tense you use throughout the story. To me it was a bit jarring in the beginning because you say it's been a week since James has found the killer's lair but then instead of talking about the present, you describe the finding of the lair in the past perfect. I hate the past perfect for storytelling. My suggestion would be to take out the first line and instead open with something like this: "James Stanton was tired of running. He knew that eventually he would have to stop, but the German shepherd was right behind him and Bill, all angry barking, white teeth and foam flecked snarls, and it was gaining on them. A painful stitch pulsed in his side, and every time he took another step it got slightly worse, like poison that was eating him up from the inside." From there you can just use past tense the rest of the way, although this would obviously take some effort to change over. I think it would work better though, where flow is concerned and allow the reader to discover the serial killers lair with James. The first line serves to give a sense of danger, but so does opening with the dog chase. Also, since about a paragraph later you say "there was a serial killer loose after all" the current first line doesn't really provide any information you don't almost immediately get anyway.

As far as giving a hint about that dad being the killer, the hint you give doesn't really work. Now, I'd argue you don't necessarily have to give a hint...I mean, who says you have to? This is your story. But if the killer is strictly taking young girls, the dad might not be too concerned about his son. Also, Raleigh is a big city and it appears that the dad is a single father (don't know if the mother was ever mentioned...was she maybe another victim?) In any case, single parents have to work, and the notion that your kid is going to be one taken in a relatively large city might not seem like that big of a risk. There's no issue if you want to include a hint (as most stories do) but this one doesn't work very well.

So that's most of the major stuff I saw, here's a few minor things:

-James thinks of his dad as "Martin" at one point. To me, thinking of parents by their first names is usually reserved for either step parents or if the kid doesn't like their parent much (which doesn't seem to be the case here)

-I'm not a huge fan of the black jump suit. I dunno, it may just be because it's suuuuper generic.

-If the killer has been using the shack for a while (as it would seem) why is it that Bill knows about the shack but hasn't been inside before now?

-Why does Martin have a kill shack but keep his clothes and weapon in his dresser at home?

I'll add more if I think of anything else. Hope this helps! Thank you ShadowSwimmer! This definitely helped me a lot and I will take up many (if not all) of your suggestions. Proofreading through the story a couple times probably wouldn't kill me, I imagine fixing the tense errors shouldn't be too difficult, just the switching around of a few words and generally spiffing up the descriptiveness (which I was planning on doing anyway).

Throwing in a hint about Martin being a killer should be painless enough, I'm pretty sure I'll be able to dream up something. You've also pointed out that, in truth, Raleigh is a pretty big city which creates some noticeable flaws in the story. The small, mountainside town of Seven Devils, North Carolina immediately comes to mind. It would fit the rural setting well and it is even home to a popular resort, which the father could perhaps work at instead of the "country club" (funny how it all falls into place now that I think about it.)

I'll do my best with the minor mistakes as well, thanks again for giving me your thoughts!