Subject:

I'm really on the fence about this one, but I gave it a thumbs-up because I think the overall narrative device is very ingenious, and you write well. I dont think the story works yet, though. Just my opinion; please ignore these comments if they aren't helpful.

That beginning letter goes on far too long and gives us far too little information about the plot-- or maybe it gives us more than I think it does, but it's so deeply buried that by the time I have the other pieces of plot information to connect with it, I've forgotten the first pieces. When the letter writer says after many obscure ( though atmospheric--what about, we're not sure) paragraphs, "I swear I'm getting to the point," your reader (this one, anyhow) is practically screaming with relief. Except. . . The story still doesn't get to it.

Finally, in the second part, it does. The whole beginning of the second part is mystifying, though, because it seems to bear no connection to the first part. By the time we've gotten the connection, it's sort of too late. Getting toward the end, I'm thinking, "Bobby Sullivan. . . Where have I heard that name?" I had to hunt back through the first part to find it and realize what the connection must be. Meanwhile, I've been completely lifted out of the fictional world you want me to inhabit.

At the end, I'm thinking, ok, the old man in part two is waiting his turn to become the next victim in the old neighborhood, and thinking back to it, the letter writer of part one is also waiting for the ghost to strike. What I didn't get is why the letter writer in part one would be a potential victim too. I sort of get that the old man in part two has set himself up to be a victim via his Kitty Genovese-esque bystander status all those years ago, but i'm not sure why the letter writer would be. Maybe this information is buried somewhere in the first part and I missed it.  Thinking about the old man's age & when the murder took place, I'm figuring the letter writer ( who seems to be a college student) wasn't even born then. So the bystander thing wouldn't motivate the vengeful ghost of Bobby to go after him. So. I'm confused, and after all that work, a bit annoyed.

i really hope I'm not offending you by going on and on about this! I think you have some amazing potential here. I do think you should cut that opening letter at least by half. Then circle every big word in the whole section and if you can say it more simply and directly, do it. Otherwise, cut them out. That will get us into section two much faster, and we really, really need the information in section two in order to care about the letter writer in section one. There may be other ways to rearrange the plot to accomplish some of this too. I do like the device of presenting this story to us in the form of documents that we're discovering. That is potentially really effective.

Other readers may have a completely different reaction. I may just be dense and thick-witted. A writer reading criticism like this always has to consider that possibility.

I think you're onto something here with this story, but I ended up just being confused in the end.

Jane makes some good observations, and you yourself know some of what needs to be done.

Personally, I want beginning, middle, and end to all my stories. They can be in any order, but without those, it's probably gonna feel incomplete.

Having just two sections is interesting, and I like to motif you chose--a letter and an article. I think they need a really strong tie between them to make this work. One needs to explain the other. The first section should raise the questions, and the second should answer them. You've certainly done some of that already. But you may need give the reader more.

We don't see Alex or Ben referenced in the 2nd section, so we have no real clue why they might be important. Is Alex the one writing the article?

I like how you write, and I'd like what you wrote to be clearer. A 2nd pass through this will help tons. I'd get the plot straightened and clear, then revise it back down to 4k words. You have plenty of atmosphere in my opinion.

Keep at it.

Wow.  I swung pretty severely on this one.  The letter felt like too much of a contrivance for me. It's a device and it's a device that draws an enormous amount of attention to itself.  If you're going to use something like that, I need to feel as the reader like that's the only way the story could be written - it needs to enhance the narrative in a way that telling the story in a traditional sense wouldn't.  Because the letter took so long to get going (there's a lot of philosophical musing before you finally get to Bobby at the end), it distanced me from the story because I felt like I was listening in on a conversation that didn't make much sense to me.  By the time you got to the good stuff, I had sort of zoned out.  My recommendation would be to get to the point faster with this  (i.e. the stuff about the grandfather is interesting but doesn't progress your story in any capacity.)

However, I feel the exact opposite about the article.  The coolness of the tone (that sort of detached, editorial perspective that's necessary for that field of writing) was such a stark juxtaposition to the scary and visceral content - I loved that.  My only critique with the article is you come just shy of nailing the journalistic tone.  Unless he's writing a humorous essay, he wouldn't be that conversational.  I'd say make the article drier (more detached) and let all the color and gory details come from the man telling the story.  There's a serious creep factor in there.

Overall, needs some work but there's something really cool in there!  Great work!

Ok, the atmosphere created was great BUT only once the letter had finished. The interview or re-telling of the interview, is spot on and down right awesome. Very well written. I feel if you had concentrated more on the intereview and less on the letter (or if the letter was more ambiguious - perhaps written to any person finding the letter) it would've felt like a more complete story. If ever a short story was a slow burning tale (and if it is possible)...this is it. Good stuff.

The letter pulled me in at first. I liked the conversational style of it but after awhile it felt a little more like incoherent ranting. Which is fine, since i think that is kind of what you were going for, but it seems to drag on way longer than it needs to. I'm assuming that the article was written by the charachter that wrote the letter and that the letter was just a precursser. If that is the case i do wonder what makes this charachter a target. The monsters other killings seem to be revenge motivated. All that said; the article was fantastic. I think a breif letter for introduction will serve your intentions much better. Since i really enjoyed the latter portion of this story I give you a thumbs up. Thanks for sharing.

--Jonathan--

I think my opinion of this story is a bit different than the others.  I like the letter set-up.  This guy thinks that he will be dead at any minute, and the rambling and getting off point and failure to say what exactly he has to say succinctly makes complete sense to me.  I see him sitting in a hotel room, scared, trying to get his thoughts in order, constantly distracted from his point by the knocks on the door, as well as, I assume by this point, his fear of his own shadow.

I think the set-up of this narrative, with the letter, then the article he had written, is very daring.  And I like that the voice is different in each, that the article was written with a clear mind, and the letter is a rambling, scared mess of thoughts.  The more I think about it, I really like the format of this story.  Reminds me a bit of H.P. Lovecraft in the near refusal to just describe what the monster is, but making it creepier and more mysterious with every avoidance of description.

I notice that most reviewers have voiced the problem of tying it all together, which I can see.  If Huett could give a reason that the Sullivan boy would come after Alex, some statement of "now you know too much" or something, I think this problem would be solved.  I'm pretty sure, anyway.

I like this a lot, and if you end up revising it, I would love to read it again.

I liked the opening to this one, it struck me as somewhat Lovecraftian.  The one issue I have with it is that you have a very hard transition into the following text.  If you added a little cleaner lead-in to the letter say, some sort of indication that the rest of the document was attached, it would probably work out better.

The story itself is viciously dark and very well written.  The foot notes where a an interesting touch.  Good work!

I really like the idea of this creepy ghost story.  To me, the idea of the intrepid reporter going in for a story and getting way more than he/she bargained for is an excellent one.

That being said, I do agree with the others: the story needs to be tightened up, and connections need to be made between the letter and the story.  I get why Sullivan is going after the people in the neighborhood, but I don't get why he/it is going after the reporter.  Does the reporter live on the street? Did the reporter see the creature and is then tracked by the monster? That's unclear for me as a reader.  

I would say you should maybe add another letter at the end or flip the letter to the end, explaining why the monster is now after the protagonist.  I think if you tighten up the story that you'll be able to do this. I would also say that you have a good opportunity to make this into a longer and stronger story.

Thanks for sharing! It does have a lot of potential!!