Drown Your Sorrows In Me

Liked the format; liked the brevity. I think by presenting the story in the form of a letter you freed yourself from a lot of restrictions that could have slowed the story down. Good job.

Good stuff. The way it was written, I didn't at all mind we're left knowing very little about the creature and its origins. It flowed very well. A few small things that stood out ot me...

This sentence I think can be written a bit clearer. "his mother had started focusing on the brother and sister that Alex had who died at a really young age". I had trouble with it. Maybe something along the lines of, consumed by the deaths of his his siblings.

And in this sentence "his mother Sarah had always been quirky and vivacious, not to mention that she also had a bit of a temper" I think it flows better if you just say " and not to mention had a bit of a temper".

In this paragraph "The Niagara County authorities couldn’t explain the strange incision that they had found close to her heart, but apparently they had seen it before. I found out that there has been about 8 such suicides in the past 4 months, and while no one said as much, I got the impression that the wound was on each of those bodies." It seems kind of repetitive to say "they had seen it before" and "I got the impression that wound was on each of those bodies". I would maybe go with one or the other. Or perhaps in the second sentence mention each of the 8 suicides had the same mark?

Just my opinions/suggestions. None of those things took away from the overall quality of the story. Great job.

What I like most here is the form of a letter. Great device that serves your story well. The reader never meets the monster, but you give enough details about it that I had a kind of picture of it and what it was capable of.

I have to admit the story didn't seem finished to me when I got to the end. You could have another letter, maybe describing what the narrator saw, or else perhaps a letter from the person he sent his letter to, describing another encounter. Just some ideas.

Thanks for writing this story. I like the concept--especially your creature being underwater (almost always scary for me).

The first paragraph seems unfinished? It ends mid-word, so I went into the story confused.

I don't necessarily mind the letter format, though I think if you don't put a date on the letter, your reader has to assume it takes place before e-mail became so prevalent. I suppose we could assume he just wants a written record of it...

Anyway, I'd sugest having him write this letter to somebody that matters to the tale he's telling. Sending it to an ex simply because he doesn't have anybody else isn't very engaging for me. He'd be better off posting this on the Internet.

Things I think might should be explained in the story: What is so bad about Lockport? Why is this creature there? You briefly touch on one theory, but it's not enough to really grab onto. I'd also like to know how the creature chooses its victims. Is there something that ties all these deaths together?

We can all write about murder and death, but it's the reasons behind it all that are scary to me. I'd like it a lot more if something tied all this together--gave his impending death some meaning. (Because, deep down, we know he can't kill that thing.)

Just some thoughts.