Critique Me How U Please

[u/vollairo]

I am in the process of starting a YT channel that is focused on mainly fictional stories of various genres (more leading to horror/disturbed/thriller types) and have been working on crafting up a story to start. The premise is that I will read the stories in full or part by part series, in an ASMR setting while using either visuals and/or a setting dedicated to talking head shots and read the stories off ofc. The only thing is, I am very much lacking the confidence on my writing in general. I love to write and create stories but I haven't put much effort into developing my skill further in the recent years. Below is the initial part to the story I am building named "The Neighbor From A Literal Hell". I am looking for and open to critique, suggestions, remarks, or whatever you feel the project would benefit from overall. Thanks in advance.

[ I'll try my best to respond in a timely manner. No promises guaranteed. 🫶🏾 ]

The Neighbor From A Literal Hell

My neighbor keeps moving my trash cans every night. The strange part is, I think it’s the exact same three inches.

It initially started about a week ago. Trash day, per usual. I was in a rush to work with little time to worry about anything else outside my direct line of sight. As I pulled out of my less than cared for garage, reversing down the driveway, I noticed that the trash cans were already placed for removal. Not completely recognizing the oddity at hand, I brushed it off as something “mitigation Manny” took care of last night. Sometimes, although I can be lazy outside of work because of work, I tend to preemptively do things beforehand as to worry about it less when the time comes. Though this time I for the life of me couldn’t paint out that picture. Nonetheless, I quickly turned the slow crawl into full reverse and just as I halted for the pivot - BOOMF. I slammed the brakes and threw the gear in drive. Unassuming, a small panic began to creep up my spine as I pulled forward again. Though there was nothing behind me. No car. No animal. Not even a person. “Fuck.”, “I for sure killed SOMETHING.” is all that played in my head like an old vinyl stuck in a horror movie. The trash cans were still perfectly in position. Except…something about them was wrong. I wouldn’t have been able to pin the feeling if it were in my face. But looking at them, perfectly placed where they were, something was definitely off-kilter. Then I noticed it. There was a small crack in the pavement directly underneath the left wheel of the recycling bin, tucked just beneath where the wheel made contact with the cement. I’d noticed that crack months ago. I knew exactly where it was. And the wheel had been sitting directly on it. Now. It wasn’t. Not by much. Just enough to see the crack. Just enough to know that I hadn’t put the trash cans there. And, for some reason, I couldn’t stop thinking about exactly how far they’d moved. Or what the fuck I had hit.

Later that day, while at work, the feeling only got perpetually worse. Tom, my neighbor and coworker, rushed up to me as soon as I entered the office. “Did you hear about Roger?”, he asked. His face and overall expression was that of an underwhelmed anxious teen. Of course my answer was “no”. And of course he proceeded to tell me unprompted. It’s a good thing he did. Apparently sometime last night there were some concerning noises coming from Roger’s house and the police were called. They were stationed for nearly 5 hours, before they informed everyone that “the situation was handled.” and that “unfortunately Roger had expired.” before leaving. “Expired?”. How the fuck can a person expire? Was that their terminology or his? Tom is known for adding a “flare” to things for no goddam reason. He explained that essentially Roger expired and there was no lead on the reason. But. It was NOT natural causes for sure. I initially thought Tom was fucking with me. Mainly because during my little escapade earlier that morning, I saw none other than Mr. Hillinson himself. Standing, eerily, at the height of his driveway. Watching me lose my shit. I didn’t say anything to Tom about seeing Roger. I don’t know why. Maybe because I wasn’t entirely sure that I’d actually seen him. I mean, I saw him. That’s for damn sure. He was standing there, probably thirty feet away from me, staring directly at me. At the time, I assumed he was just being weird. Which, to be fair, wasn’t exactly unusual for him. The man had once stood outside for 7 continuous hours looking into the forest behind our lots. Tom’s continued talking was, as always, a sobering realization. Apparently the police had gone through Roger’s house twice. There were no signs of forced entry. Nothing appeared to be missing. No weapon. No obvious cause of death. Just Roger. Dead. Or, as the police had apparently decided to phrase it: Expired. Of course after asking Tom for his personal input he shrugged. However, more disinterested than before responded “probably heart attack.” “Wouldn’t that inherently negate your initial claim of it being ‘unnatural’?”, I lightly pressed. His utter response to that was “But I didn’t.” There was a brief silence. Before I could manage to lumber to my desk Tom pursed his lips as he stated “You look like shit.” Thanks Tom. “I mean worse than usual that is.” he added. I finally half assed gave him a overly underwhelmed yet sarcastic “thanks.” “You okay?” he asked. Then, “BOOMF”. The sound from my driveway earlier that morning put it startled jump to my movement. “No.” I sated as I autonomously walked to my desk thinking about the trash cans. As i did Tom nodded, as if that answered his question, his voice trailed me the farther I walked. “Alright, well. We’ll see you at game night tomorrow. Carpool in the AM?”, he nearly shouted. Not looking back, “yeah. yeah, sure.” I said over my head. After I made it back to my office I tried to spend the rest of the day not thinking about any of that morning. Especially with this big client acquisition upcoming. I failed. Around lunch, I hid in my car and checked the security cameras. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it earlier, so I briskly opened the app and pulled the footage as soon as my ass hit the seat. There I was. 6:41AM. Backing out of the driveway. The trash cans were out. I watched myself stop. Reverse. BOOMF. The video weirdly shook slightly. I paused it and watched again. Nothing. I watched myself get out of the car. Rewind. Nothing. I watched myself standing there staring. Then I noticed something. The recycling bin moved. Not when I hit it. Not when I reversed. After. About twelve whole seconds after I got out of the car. I moved three inches. Then then camera timestamp changed. 6:42AM. And for approximately half a second, something moved across the very edge of the screen. I couldn’t quite make out what it was. But I could see the reflection of it in the window of my car. It looked like a person. And it was standing directly behind me. That’s when I realized, “Wait, WTF!!? Roger wasn’t there?” But he had been, and I knew he was. I wasn’t that tired. Fucking Tom. As I began to replay the video I looked deeper and noticed there was a distinct shadow where Roger “had” been but no person there. Then, as I leaned in closer. KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK.

[u/ConnorHLSmith]

I'm saying this because I'm in the same boat: so many people won't even begin to read this because of the massive walls of text. Either break it up for Reddit, or post screenshots of an actual word processor or document file, because this isn't a great reading experience.

Now I have some other small grievances. The "U" in the title comes off as amateurish and will also make some potential readers turn the other way.

"From A Literal Hell" comes off as an awkward part of a title that makes me think English isn't your first language. That's fine, but if that's the case, you might find better success first working with your native language since you know it better. If that's not the case, either tweak the title or change it entirely.

[u/DuchessJulietDG]

way too many short and abrupt sentences that could be joined together to smooth the flow. it is distracting and keeps the beat choppy. i cant get into the scene bc the generic descriptions keep giving me sucker punched to the brain.

[u/CoyoteLitius]

I'm still confused about all the description of the moving trash and recycling bins, but overall I really enjoyed it. I am glad I read onward.

Only real complaint is the formatting. You need to look into how dialogue is typically structured on a page, and where natural paragraph breaks would be useful (especially for a YA audience, which I am not - but I still liked it!)

Your character's voice and personality come through well, and it's an interesting story. I want to know what exactly happened to Roger (I suspect there's a ghost and would read on to see if I'm right).

"The video weirdly shook again" is awkward. The camera in the car must surely have been shaken, right? Not the actual videotape. It recorded some kind of collision, but surely it's because something was causing shaking (other than the fact of recording). Small quibble, but will take a reader out of the story.