String of Missing Montgomery County Teens Stirs Suspicions from Concerned Parents Ahead of Upcoming Holiday Festivities / Discussion

This is the discussion related to the wiki page String of Missing Montgomery County Teens Stirs Suspicions from Concerned Parents Ahead of Upcoming Holiday Festivities.

UncannyClown 28 Oct 2024 22:56

there's something here, to be sure: the dialogue is endearing, and i enjoy the abrupt reveal of a first-person narrator at the end. however, i don't think that the prose is quite up to snuff (it lapses into an especially dull rhythm as he begins to get lost in the woods, which is the worst time for that to happen), and the nature of the thing that's about to munch him is too vague for me to really feel anything about it. the reports of prior disappearances might be expanded upon to help address that last criticism.

---

poet

FleshMaddAvalon 28 Oct 2024 23:37

Mhmhm. I agree with UC here. It shows a lot of promise and a good understanding of the concept, but I'm somewhat lost as to WHAT the prompt was and how you developed the idea.

And of course WELCOME TO THE LIBRARY!!!

-Avalon

---

I watch the yonder hills
See foodwrenches toil in dust
Let their cacophonous calls
Rend our bodies to rust

Spoddetman 29 Oct 2024 00:05

First of all, welcome to the library! New authors are always welcome, and it's a joy to see someone taking an interest. That being said, UncannyClown has once again beat me to the punch with very apt criticism. I sort of get lost in the story, and it seems to take too long to rev up and too little time to do the scary thing it's meant to do. I'm going to have to downvote this, but I do very much encourage you to keep writing!

Snapdragon133 29 Oct 2024 01:18

I do admit, I see where the criticisms are coming from (except for the dull rhythm? If anything it went too fast in my opinion), but personally I had to upvote because of how much I enjoyed my time reading it. I laughed a solid handful of times and I really like the first twist into spookiness and the second, greater twist into first person at the end there. The fact that all the details are only things the person watching Waldo could've seen and the narrative follows those rules is really cool. It feels like a classic, fun Halloween story.

Ultimately, I think the others make some decent points that would help you improve, but I genuinely had a good time with the story and I can't ignore that. +1

Last edited on 29 Oct 2024 01:18 by Snapdragon133 Show more

zipzipskins 29 Oct 2024 01:56

im definitely more of snap's mind here. i think there are ways to polish this and some spag stuff (especially tense-related) and other technical issues, but on balance i thought it was a fun, "it-happened-on-a-halloween-night-just-like-this-one" kind of story. my big critique is that dread is a feeling you really need to earn — you could probably linger more in the end section, building atmosphere and tension.

all in all though, glad you posted this, and a +1 from me

Maxyfran73 29 Oct 2024 19:13

Hmmmm… This is a difficult one. I like how this piece starts, and the dialogue's a bit rough at times, but overall fairly solid, but it's the end that gets me: I feel like it's just way too sudden, and not in a particularly engaging way. Rather, it comes off as a convenient way to wrap up the whole thing, besides the buildup, rather than thanks to it.

This definitely has charm, but really wasn't a fan of how disjointed the ending feels compared to the rest of the piece. -1