>An afternoon chill rises up from the swamp and washes through the yard

I would like to be *shown* this. This first sentence is your first (and potentially only) opportunity to get your words into a reader's head. If you hit them with something they can't see, you're going to lose a lot of them right off the bat. 

How do you show a chill rising up? I'm not sure. In the following sentence you seem to present it as wind while it "ruffles...pages," but it's also so cold as to be gnawing. So, as a reader, I'm left confused about what exactly is happening. Which is not a great state you want to leave your reader in. 

That said, I vastly prefer this:  
> It ruffles the pages of my paperback and gnaws at my bug-bitten skin

It does a much better job of painting the picture than the first sentence, even though I'm still not sure what is happening. *But,* since it is concrete and specific imagery, that's okay! I'm willing to wait and watch and see where it goes. When we're instead presented 

I thought the imagery was very good in this story. My main problem is that at some points where the action escalates, there is not a lot of justification for why is ramping up. Some examples of this: 

"We sprint towards the backyard as bubbles of dread expand in my chest." Why does she feel so much dread? Is it because she worries an animal is hurting the chickens? It would be good to know her reason for being worried. 

"I click the old lighter on and fling it into the darkness. A great blaze bursts to life ... burning a fiery red as brilliant and proud as Rosanna. " I mention this later but why does she suddenly want to set herself on fire? If she is concerned about something growing in her why not go to a hospital or something like that? I think this could benefit from more explanation.

At the beginning a lot of the imagery was filtered through the action of your Hannah literally looking around at different things. I think you could just describe the sights and experiences directl

>“I’ve read about much worse than you!”

More camp. Get rid of it! Although, one way you might be able to salvage the moment without just deleting, it may be by relating the creature to a specific thing Hannah has read about. Although this idea of her not being afraid of the creature doesn’t resonate with me. Show her being afraid, show her frantically lighting a cigarette after her chickens are torn from their coop, maybe she goes out to save them not because she loves Rosanna but because she’s her livelihood. Because she’s broke and can’t afford to get new chickens. Maybe this isn’t the first time it’s happened? Maybe Rosanna is Rosanna the second? 

>An army of fish, sucking away with their  toothless lips. A massive, fleshy, tongue. Rolls of fat and sweat, folding endlessly. Fingers take shape in the heaving mass; they trace the length of my lips and then pry them apart.  I writhe and try to bite down, to fortify my insides from the mud. But it squeezes through, and props open my j

First off, apologies for skipping around. 

In regards to a hook: As humans, our eyes are naturally attracted to motion. Try establishing a morning routine at the start. The checking for eggs, refilling the water, dumping feed on the ground, fixing the fence and general maintenance. Raising livestock of any kind has its own little quarks, things that only people who’ve done it would know. Tell us something only a chicken farmer would know. The fending off of predators such as owls, raccoons, foxes, coyotes, etc. The scanning for rats at night with a red spot light (many animals such as rats and raccoons can’t see red light). 

>It ruffles the pages of my paperback and gnaws at my bug-bitten skin.

What kind of bugs? Be specific. How does Hannah deal with them? Traps? 

>I reach down and run my free hand along Rosanna’s smooth, golden-bronze feathers.

Why is Rosanna special? Why has she taken a liking to her specifically? Does Rosanna has some resemblance to Hannah’s mother? 

>She’s a

What's good here - very good - is that you understand the need to create empathy with your character and get inside her head.

But....

You're trying much too hard to use fancy words. E.g. rappel. And you're over describing, e.g. *bustle and forage.* Would you ever say this? I doubt it. And mixed metaphors - fingers and weave. And describing the desire for a cigarette as *a twisted hunger*... No, save that for when she wants to eat human flesh.

Good writing is simple and natural. You use metaphors and unusual words when they're needed, not for the sake of it. And you only use "rappel" instead of travelled or ran when it would be the more accurate word. And why the hell would it be? Do the chills have a rope??? **Whenever a phrase jumps out and says Look At Me, it's bad.** Unless, maybe, you're at a rare point where you need extreme emphasis. Which you won't achieve if you rappel and twisted-hunger all the time.

And, yes, I know someone said they liked "rappel". But that's the interne

*On the day I left, mom blocked the front door. Pressing her back against it, slender arms braced against the frame as if to keep the outside out.*  
  
I think this is a good example about how and where information is presented in a sentence can alter the interpretation of it. Starting with on the day I left, to me reads as she had at the very least stepped out of the house. When I read that her mom blocked the front door, I'm interpreting this as the Mom was refusing to let her back inside. And this wasn't made clear until the very end of the next sentence.  
  
*The swamp shuffles and creaks and rustles. Fat flies buzz around my ears and tease at my nape, daring to land. I think it’s time to build a fence.*   
  
I'm finding I sometimes have to engage in mental gymnastics in order to understand how a sentence makes sense within the information I've already gathered. In this case, we have the previous paragraph hinting at a potential predator who is trying to get in a coop. How

I found the way of describing the transition of time when Hannah was holding Sally to be extremely well done. I also enjoyed the actual description of the crimson egg in the pan. Gross stuff. Love it. Also, the imagery in the scene with the monster and racoon interacting was great, very macabre. I think the sudden presence of the baby racoons needs a bit more expanding on, as I found that a bit difficult to picture.   
  
Some sentences felt a bit bloated. For example, instead of saying she lay under her blankets, it’s said that she lays secure beneath the weight of her blankets. I could see the purpose if we're given some information about her current state (e.g., she's nervous/scared and the weight of the blankets make her feel secure). Since we are not given this information, it just reads as long winded and unnecessary. As well, why say, ‘my hand seals my mouth?’ Aside from it reading unnaturally, it’s putting the action before the person, which is not always ideal.  
  
Other 

**Smokers**

I cannot believe I have a section dedicated to talking about smoking, and honestly this might be me being petty so I’m so sorry in advance. As someone who smoked nearly a pack a day for seven years, I have a couple comments on the internal experiences of Hannah in relation to cigarettes. The first description of Hannah craving a cigarette is referred to as, ‘a twisted hunger wells up inside her.’ This feels like a very excessive craving, and it’s what I would expect from someone who had just finished an 8 hour shift without a smoke. Smokers are very good at taking precautions to ensure they don't reach this point of craving and withdrawal, which is what it sounds like with Hannah here. Experiencing acute stress could trigger a craving that intense, but typically not when she has both the means and ability to smoke in that very moment. To me, this ends up feeling like an unnatural and forced way of setting a tone through the use of unsettling phrasing, rather than accurate

Hello,  
  
Thanks for submitting! Overall, this was an interesting story with a unique premise that certainly entered the realm of horror with respect to gore. However, I found that this piece never hit the fear and dread that would make for a scary story. This was likely due to a combination of unrealistic characterization, lack of tone, pacing, as well as clarity and word choice. That being said, you clearly know how to construct a story from the beginning, middle, to end, so great job with that!  
  
**Opening Paragraph**  
  
I’m going to talk about a few lines from this opening paragraph because it contained clarity issues that are a bit of an ongoing pattern in other paragraphs throughout the story.   
  
*An afternoon chill rises up from the swamp and washes through the yard.*   
  
As an opening sentence, I was left confused for two reasons. The first is it isn’t described what an afternoon chill is. It probably refers to wind, but my difficulty in confirming this is

Hey everyone.  
  
[Something's Growing in Rosanna](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lQCez0k37pbCePNHz2StakL55I-PgNPUtPS7-huGaxc/edit?usp=sharing)  
  
I challenged myself to focus more on the main character in this piece. Specifically, I wanted to make the monster feel interconnected with the protagonist's history/family to elevate the intensity. Did it work?   
  
What I'm looking for:  

- Is it scary/thrilling/gross? What worked and what didn't? Is there a consistent escalation of dread throughout the piece?  
- Were you hooked? If so, where?  
- How's the prose? What did/didn't you like?
- Pacing. Where does it flow, where does it drag
- General Critique
- Title suggestions?

I've really had a tough time wrangling this piece into shape. Thanks for the help!  

I critiqued [Crimson Queen V3{2150}](https://old.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/w2vd7e/2150_crimson_queen_v3/ih2cpmx/), [Then Die Ingloriously{2675}](https://old.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/w38le2/2675_then_die_ingloriouslychapter_1/igypltc/), [Crimson Queen V1 {1500}](https://old.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/w38le2/2675_then_die_ingloriouslychapter_1/igypltc/), and [Blood Summer {1534}](https://old.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/vvk3y6/1534_blood_summer_mm_vampire_chapter_one/iflvlb6/).

[4228] Something's Growing in Rosanna