The Basement Edit

The Basement can be found here:http://www.wastedproductions.com/2013/03/the-basement.html

Norik has had some back and forth with Jonathan, so we’ll include the other edit suggestions too.

Using an intro paragraph to set the tone can be done successfully, but they're just as tricky to use as the phrase "It was a dark and stormy night" because they're basically a cliche. If you're comfortable with it, we think it should be cut. Let the story itself set the tone. In a way, this paragraph brings up too many questions that remain unanswered. However, if you want to keep it, here's some tips:

Maintain tense at all times. This is a horror story. Horror stories work on tension, and mixing tenses breaks that tension. What does the mouse do? Who knows. Leave it to the ether. Right now, do not provide closure.

Example:

A receiver vibrates in its yellowing plastic cradle. A scurrying mouse, startled for the first time in months, pauses and looks up. Its ears twitch, uncomfortable with the unfamiliar shrillness accosting them.

As suddenly as it had begun, the ringing stops.

I get the sense that you're going for a 70s-80s slasher vibe with Molly Ringwald and River Phoenix in the lead roles. The kids are super campy and have big personalities. Those types of stories can be a lot of fun, and hearken back to the basics: a bunch of idiot kids getting slashed up. If that's what you're going for, you're definitely on the right track. If it's not what you're going for, then that needs to be reworked in order to show what you are actually going for.

Spend some time on the description of the house and do it much sooner, not on page 23 when it's almost too late to set the scene. And don't let Tim Burton describe it for you, he's a hack. The house is its own character, really, so it should feel that way. Ratchet up the creepy factor. If it's a stark contrast to the rest of the neighborhood, show that in your description, especially if that matters (it seems like it should, especially with Stacy's parents being the bad guys). There's a creepy house at the end of the road. Who lives there? Something sinister? Oh-ho, the sinister is in your own back yard and you didn't even realize it with your manicured lawns and your prize-winning begonias and your unlocked front doors!

It almost seems like you were starting to say there's something supernatural or psychic going on. Stacy has weird dreams, the kids see Steven in class when he's not really there, Stacy hears Steven's voice on the phone when she couldn't, and James sees a spider that isn't there. None of that ever pans out. All of those things ultimately make no sense for the whole of the story, but they're focused on enough to make them seem important. Why are they there? What do they have to do with the story? It almost seems like the chocolate chip cookies have a point, too (maybe to show that Stacy's mom is a normal, wholesome, cookie baking June Cleaver?) but that's not clear, either. It's fine to have red herrings in a suspenseful story, but they need to be red herrings and not the fish slap dance. There either needs to be more things going on that actually lead to the big reveal, or the things that don't ultimately matter need to be toned down. Maybe both.

If your characters are complaining about something being boring and hating something, then there's a good chance your reader is going, "I hate math, too. This IS boring. Why am I even reading this?" and then skipping forward. You need all the kids in the same place for the phone call and when James starts seeing things, but with both of those things ultimately not making any sense in the scope of the story, this whole section doesn't make sense in the scope of the story.

The arc words are absolutely not obvious. If Mouse hadn't mentioned that they existed in the roll call post, I would have had no idea they're there. You won't be able to text them to everyone on Amazon, so they need to stand out more than they do. As it is now, a lot of the creepiness is lost.

Possibly because of the arc word issue, Stacy's parents being the bad guys feels completely out of left field. There's no sense of setup so it seems like they were drawn out of a hat filled with side characters in the story. It's a hard sell that these kids can figure out their algebra homework but don't know that some basements have a storm door or think to look outside for an outdoor opening. It's also hard to buy that Stacy would not recognize the body shape of a man she's looked at for 16 or so years or recognize his voice immediately. It took me two readings to realize that the butcher and her father weren't separate people.

Overall, you're a good writer. You've got some chops and a ton of potential. Just tighten up these things and you'll have an awesome slasher fic on your hands.

Jonathan’s response:

I like where you are going with some of your suggestions.  And others i am going to ask for some helpful feedback on.

Getting rid of the last line of the opening works for me, and I think you are right.  

As for description of the house i get that too and I will work on it some when I have a chance.

Something supernatural.  Everyone has missed this point (although you've come the closest so far) so I think I need some help, and it also wraps into your last point about the parents coming from left field.  The cookies are the impetus for all of the "supernatural" stuff you are talking about, but this was my attempt at foreshadowing. In my opinion, in order for the payoff to work, it needs to be very subtle (but apparently I was too subtle) so as to not give it all away.  So, my idea was that the cookies were drugged, and are brought up before all of the hallucinations. 

The math thing I get, but i felt the scene needed something further to solidify why they were together, ie showing rather than telling, (showing them doing the actual math, although I could trim it down some and will when I have some time to do more than look at an email on my phone.  

Now as to an outdoor opening/storm cellar, many young kids growing up in newer neighborhoods have never seen a storm cellar, but these are not those kids.  I tried to explain it away the first time by the storm outside, maybe they can go looking for one but have the water too deep outside in the side yards.  But I agree with the recognition of her father, and may have Stacy give some kind of tell up front when she descends the stairs and sees her father.

Norik’s Answer:

I totally didn't get that the cookies were actually tied to anything, let alone everything. So knowing that, you might want to have the mouse in the opening eat some cookie crumbs and then when the phone rings it drops dead. So it looks like the mouse was startled to death when actually, it was the drugged cookies.

Upon re-reading it, it seems like there's a long time between the initial incident and any mention of cookies. So since the cookies are the main thing, they need to be brought up a lot sooner (and not just with the mouse)

Honestly, I think you're giving readers way too much credit. For the most part, people are clueless and not at all good with subtlety. It probably seems obvious to you since you wrote it, but you could stand to be way less subtle (in fact, you could probably swing much closer to beating the reader over the head with it) and still kapow the reader with the big reveal. You could even have Stacy find the hallucinogenic in her house before she goes back to the creepy house. Then she starts to realize (along with the reader) that maybe her parents have something to do with the whole thing and that pays off when she sees her Dad in the basement with Steven strapped to the table. You could then have her think to herself that maybe just her Dad is nuts and she has to run and tell her Mom before OMG there's Mom and Stacy is SO SCREWED.

As for the storm cellar, I hear you. So maybe it could be locked the first time around, or it's boarded up in some way so there couldn't be anyone down there. Or even, the door can be opened but the basement is completely empty (after all, they're hallucinating, right?). That would really ratchet up the creep factor when Stacy comes back and sees the doors standing open and finds her Dad and Steven.

The only other issue I can see with the cookies being the key is Stacy's dreams. How does the drug make her prophetic? She envisions pretty much exactly what ends up happening to Steven. I might be able to buy that she's dreaming about it because she's actually seen it happen (maybe when she first went into the basement and didn't "see" anything? Although I'm not sure how to reference that without completely killing the momentum of the climax), but otherwise, she should only have a creepy vision of something happening to Steven that doesn't really match up with what ultimately ends up happening.

Again, I think you've got something here that has the potential to seriously creep people out and make them go, "Wow, I didn't see that coming but it totally makes sense now!"