I just read "The phantom jogger", and I had a thought or two.
I have worked security for 17 years, doing rotating shifts, I know what you mean about night workers all having a "spooky" story or two.
I enjoyed reading your story, but if I had done the piece, I might have added some close up spooky details and tried to turn it into a bigger story. For example, when you were trying to "catch" the jogger. But that's just me.
I especially liked your ending, it shows you aren't afraid to poke some fun at yourself.
I am sending you this review as part of the judging process for "A fall romance contest". Congratulations on your first place, by the way!
In your piece "Why?", you created a very real setting for me as the reader. What I particularly liked was that you did this without bombarding me with description and physical details. In fact, I think I can only recall a couple of instances of physical description in the entire in the entire piece.
I picked that Ben was a ghost (or memory) fairly early in the piece, but that doesnt detract from the story in anyway.
The small amount of dialogue you used was sufficiently "sappy" and at the same time "real", in that it read and flowed well, while sounding like an actual conversation.
As for spelling, grammar and such, I really couldn't see anything glaring out at me, thats a good thing.
Ive been reading over "The victims" and Ive seen it develop from early drafts. Its coming along nicely.
As I have read, I have noticed a few things. There are a few occasions where it looks as though you hit enter accidently in the middle of a paragraph.
On the name front, Greig and Isabel become Greg and Isobel a few times, a quick readover will find them.
Theres a few spots, I would chop off a few words. For instance, I would turn "Stanton fell, and he fell hard." into simply "Stanton fell. Hard". These sorts of examples are just how I like to do things, and a matter of personal taste, I think.
Your dialogue is good, though in spots, I find it a little "formal" or more likely "correct". An example is when the detectives are talking to luke: “Its fine, Mr. Anders you have explained your wife’s association with Mr. Stanton. We’re tying up the loose ends. But it’s important that she speaks with us herself.” I would take out between "Mr Anders... and ...We're tying up lose ends." Again this is a just a matter of personal taste.
I liked your fight scene, short, fast and conveyed movement nicely.
"The Victims" has developed really well and is going to be an piece, with a little bit more polishing.
As always, my reviews are all about opinion, and should be taken or ignored as you see fit.
I wish I had a talking dog like yours, though both of them would swear a lot I think.
I loved the way you just had the dog start talking, no trying to explain it with science experiments or spells gone wrong. You made him a very likable character, though what dog isnt?
Hopefully we'll see more of Joe the well read talking German Shepherd in future adventures.
This piece was recommended to me by a good friend, and I am glad they did. I really enjoyed the story. The idea of guilt as a stalker worked really well for me, well done.
The conversation between the main character and his "stalker" kept me hooked all the way through to the twist in the tail. Even though I had a bit of an inkling it was going to happen, I was not disappointed when it came.
A great read, I'll be reading some more soon.
Regards,
drboris
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