Deadend Cemetery "The Execution of Darlyn Drake by Benjamin Theis (DeadendBen) - Short, Thriller, Drama - Arrogant Warden Akers has different ideas what to do with the body of executed serial killer Darlyn Drake.  Leading a trio of his men and the prison priest to the fabled  DeadendCemetery, he quickly learns that there is something more sinister with ideas of it’s own. 26 pages - pdf, format

Deadend Cemetery 2 "The Book of Sorrow" by Benjamin Theis (DeadendBen) - Short, Thriller, Drama - After a successful female horror writer acquires a journal from a mysterious man, she sets out to discover the truth regarding it's authenticity. Leading a group of friends on a paranormal nightmare, she learns something of her own past, and of a horror that is far from fiction 120 pages - pdf, format

Not a bad effort. Though I did have a few issues with it. Firstly, three of the main characters names begin with the letter W - never a good idea to have characters names begin with the same letter - as it can lead to confusion during the read.

There were quite a few typos, grammatical errors and even the ocassional missing word which all made the read less enjoyable!

The story itself was fairly interesting. However, you spend ten pages building up to the execution of Darlyn, then barely mention the actual execution itself! I understood why you did this as I read further, but still feel you're short changing the reader after such a big build up to the execution. Also by showing us what actually happened during the execution instead of skipping past it, you're missing an opportunity to build tension and suspense on the journey to the cemetry.

I was also confused as to where Darlyn's body was? Was it in the van? If so, then this was another wasted opportunity to build tension! Maybe it was waiting for them at the cemetry? Either way, you need to make clear where it is.

The twist at the end, with the little girl opening the package, was in my opinion gratuitous at best. I get that you were going for as much shock value as possible but for me, it felt excessive and ended the story on a sour note!

Hope this helps! Good luck with it!

Rolo

Hi Benjamin,

Not sure if you're around, but gave this one some more thought and my advice would be to rework the ending and try to come up with something more original.

At the moment the script builds to the shock ending but unfortunately this has been done before in the imcomparable Se7ve! Try to come up with something unique rather than replicate something we've seen before!

Rolo

OOPS! Missing an 'n' off Se7en!