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Printed from https://writing.com/main/my_feedback/action/view/id/4710973
Review #4710973
Viewing a review of:
 Cemetery Séance  [E]
A group of friends with a Ouija board in a cemetery...what could go wrong??
by Allen Mitchell
Review of Cemetery Séance  
Review by citruspocket
Rated: E | (4.0)
Access:  Public | Hide Review (?)
Hi Allen Mitchell

I spotted you on the newbie page and I'm just dropping by to give you a review *Delight*

I had great fun with this story! It's a nice little twist on the "friends doing a seance" trope, and I thought the banter between the group was believably pitched so that it was believable, e.g. when your point of view character says:

"To watch the three of you scaring yourselves and each other half to death in a cemetery at night? Hell yeah, I'm in. I'll drive."

I really liked the twist/reveal of Jeremiah's story, and I think you could build it up and do more with it - adding more description to the initial, shocking appearance of the ghoul (which works really well because the reader, and the characters are not expecting a real ghost to actually turn up!), perhaps drawing the moment out for a bit until they start chatting to him and realise he's actually just a nice gay guy like them.

A couple of technical/vocab things I bumped on:

"This was our weekly poker night with a group of LGBT hikers, bicyclists, and generally outdoorsy guys." I'm not sure I'd refer to a group of friends as "my LGBT friends". Maybe something a bit more informal here? On that sentence, the part about them being outdoorsy never really comes up again later in the story, so could be cut or repurposed.

You have a couple of instances where you have a comma followed by some speech. You should always have a full stop and then a new line for speech, e.g.

"Erik swallowed hard, suddenly unsure of himself.

"We just want to know why you wanted to kill her.""

Finally, I have to give a shout out to my favourite phrase: "...grinning like the cat that ate the canary." That really made me giggle!

You've got a great tone and fun sensibility - keep writing!
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