All Comments on 'Who's Watching'

But too much detail about what was clicked on in the old operating systems and such. Could use more dialog.

you need an editor

Some people like their characters black and white. They will probably enjoy this story. For myself, I prefer stories where basically decent people make mistakes. That is the way life is. Life is rarely black and white.

An interesting concept but too many holes in the chronology. Sentence structure and grammar need lots of work. Thanks for the effort.

Overall, I enjoyed the story. With that being said, what the !@#$ was the whole sex slave detour? It added nothing to the story and raised more questions than answers.

You whitewashed Maggie at the end, with zero explanation, conversation or explanation of WHY she did what she did. It was, "Oh yeah, she was a sex slave, was treated badly and now she lives in our basement."

Other than that cluster!@#$, the story was well written.

The bad? It lacked dialogue and was long on narration. The mystery wasn't solved so much as it just petered out. It was a very passive piece of story telling. More dialogue and less explanation of minutiae would help. Trim it down, use more dialogue, and stay on topic would be my suggestion.

This one, unlike the other, does need some editing work, but I enjoyed the read. Welcome to LW. Write another, please. Randi.

Too many broken sentences.

Chopped off ending.

I assume Jake was responsible for her sexual slavery? Why weren't we shown what happened between them telling the police about Jake and the police telling them about his wife?

"They welcomed Emily as the daughter they always wanted." - I think you meant "granddaughter," since Helen is the daughter the DO have!

. . . with a terribly disappointing ending.

YOU DON'T TAKE THE WIFE BACK! I don't care if she was with the Manson family!!! Terrible ending to a decent story.

Can’t even call the last page-and-a-half “loose ends”. What’s with Jake and what was he charged with, what happened to Maggie while she was missing, who abused her (Jake?), why did Jake install the cameras....

You started a whodunnit- whydunnit-howdunnit and didn’t bother to answer the questions.

This was a very good story up to. A point. In my opinion it needed a conversation between him and his wife to get the answers he needs as to why she did it or what he did wrong. Because of that I can only give 4 stars.

This could have been great if it had been written more carefully.

I really liked the story and gave it four stars because the ending was telegraphed at the first mention of Jake. I intend to read more of this author’s work because the story had depth and the romantic parts were very well done.

Thanks

The premise is decent but you need an editor.

Grammar errors throughout the story. I’ll give you points for a good plot, but it felt rushed in some places.

Good work over all

Poorly written. Should stick to one culture, British or US, not mix them up. Could have been great story.

The writer says he's originally from the UK, so one would expect him to understand English pronouns and articles, as well as sentence and paragraph structure. Spelling appears to be optional in his world. Aside from the technical deficiencies, the story line is haphazard, disjointed, and if he didn't use cliches, there wouldn't be more than a couple of short paragraphs here. In short, don't waste your time reading this nonsense. I'm retired and had all day long and nothing to do or I wouldn't have read it...

But it needed some extra editing work on it. And some development.

Who kidnapped Maggie? Why was she kidnapped? Living in the basement? If she was that seriously deluded she'd have been kept in a psychiatric facility.

1. As others have mentioned there are a lot of grammatical errors, most of which should be caught with simple proofreading.

2. I really didn't see any reason for having Maggie live with him at the end, someone who had plotted to have him killed, taken an active part in the plot and been not only unfaithful but angrily so by finding places he considered his to cheat in.

"For days left before I turned eighteen, social services didn't care, they just gave Helen the paperwork to be my guardian for the next few days and kicks us out of the office."

Enjoyed it

Authors put a lot of effort into producing any story and they inevitably make mistakes.

Unsolicited high handed comments such as yours are insulting to authors and their efforts. particularly when you obviously don't understand the difference between British and American grammer, or even that there is difference. The error is yours

You have been a member for five years and published nothing, you have no credability so if you can't be constructive, put up or shut up.

You would do well to remember English is a live language that is constatntly changeing according to usage. Grammer is therefore transient.

I rapidly lost track of almost everything going on here, so many threads and loose ends, and not enough connections; this mish-mash needs a proper rewrite with a competent editor before it's even marginally inteligible. 1 star

I didn't mind the story!...But I suppose there is a lot of unanswered parts so I am Giving you 5 Stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ WOOF!

Poorly written, you NEED an editor. Why do all writers on this site make the speech from characters so juvenile as to be ridiculous?

"I want a little sucky-sucky and fucky-fucky action before I leave."

Are the characters and author 12?

but we have no fucking clue why. Or how a man could be married to such a cruel heartless monster and not discern or sense her evil. The daughter was supposedly raised by a loyal loving intelligent woman, so what happened to turn this saint into Satan? Please, not another Martian Slut Ray story.

Obviously the husband was so distant and detached from the marriage that he had no clue what his wife was doing, who she was doing it with, and that sometime some how their relationship had not just died, but turned into hatred and contempt. Maybe he should have paid a little more attention to his family?

Thanks for the effort, but it was too lame and contrived to be exciting or compelling. I do wonder what brand dog food they were feeding her. She's living in the basement instead of a mental institution? Ridiculous.

Product fell short of the potential

You failed to answer all the questions and opened up more. The ending felt unnecessarily vindictive.

How the hell long was Jake Emily's boyfriend? She was in high school. So she dated Jake for years?

Looks like many many months of video recordings. Why were none of them on the server? The server was the storage device, made to hold lots of video, yet he stored months and months of video on an encrypted drive that took up half his girlfriends piece of shit laptop?

When the hell would Jake watch the videos anyway? They were on her laptop, not like on the cloud. What, he came over and locked himself in the basement to beat off without Emily noticing??

How was a boyfriend who wasn't a resident, nor around that much able to put a sophisticated camera network and server into their house undetected? It sounded like old tech, based on the lack of support and ancient version of Windows. So, doesn't sound wireless or small. Yet, nobody noticed.

Why was the system that old? He was only in the hospital 10 months, not 10 years.

Why did Maggie start cheating?

Why didn't he do anything to the other people she was fucking? ( plus why pile on the additional lover anyway? It didn't hell and wasn't needed. Just to make Maggie even worse?

Why / when did Maggie start disrespecting her hubby?

Why did she want her husband dead?

Why did she take out a million dollar insurance policy on hubby more than a year before she started cheating?

How was she able to get the policy? You cannot get a policy on someone else without consent and a policy that large requires a medical exam. If people could just get million dollar policies on anyone, the murder rate would be really high.

She was fucking multiple people in her house and nobody ever caught on? She hated her hubby so much she wanted him dead, but both he and his daughter thought they had a happy family relationship?

What happened in Mexico?

When did Maggie start getting involved with Jake? Why?

Why is she not on trial? If she is nuts, shouldn't be be institutionalized, not locked in their basement.

He couldn't get a divorce for abandonment? But he gets a divorce once she is found and deemed incompetent? Then her divorced husband is made her caretaker???

The other thing that really hurt was the poor editing. You called Emily Helen at least once, but maybe twice. Lots of other issues.

Would have been way better if it were less convoluted and answered the main questions.

KB

@Venustas Re: Dont_miss_me, as a writer, I have no problem with non-writers criticisms. Writers write for readers, readers have a right to criticize.

I'm old enough to have had a very old school high school English teacher.

Most valuable thing I learned was to proofread out loud.

Read your story to yourself, out loud. It forces you to slow down and read what's actually on the page rather than skimming and your mind seeing what you meant to write. It's also good for catching style and usage errors. Those things just won't sound right. The out loud technique is also good for catching the wrong word that's spelled correctly. "Ewe did knot halve two dew that." is an extreme example, I'm sure you get the point.

As for the story itself, others have given much better advice than I can about the nuts and bolts. My only contribution is to let the story be however long it needs to be to follow through with your plot items. That said, sometimes there are plot items that would be better off saved for another story. An editor, or even just a beta reader, can help with that.

Good effort, thanks for posting it. I'll watch for your next one.

Maggie plotted to have her Husband killed,which got botched,then Maggie vanishes suddenly,and isn't seen for 5-6 years,while her lover commits suicide in Mexico.Emily has an ex-boyfriend who secretly video'd her and ended up recording Maggie and Lover conspiring to kill Hubby.

But somehow Maggie ends up being enslaved as a sex slave,and beaten,tortured and brainwashed to think she is a dog that is lead around on a leash while naked in a store,and poetically is made to live in the basement for her crimes.I don't know if her punishment fit the crime but oddly I think Maggie paid dearly for her actions by being declared a total nutjob,and will likely never fully recover.She will just be a blithering idiot forever,the way she should be.

Put this as okay for moist of it. Almost in the Too Much category. The ending going into overkill, for my taste.

The writing needs proof reading.

Overall enjoyable.

So how did Maggie get separated from the teacher after shooting the MC. Note that the story has US police finding Jake and Maggie so they didn't go to Mexico. They may have been hiding in Pennsylvania all of the time. If Jake was a sadist why didn’t he attack Emily? So what if Maggie is now subservient that doesn’t change that fact that she coordinated the murder plot. Normally the person who orders a murder is charged with a first degree murder while the henchmen who just do the killing as ordered get a lower sentence. I see no reason why Maggie can’t be tried. She was abused but that was after the fact not before. Maggie was sane when she coordinated the murder attempt.

It is or was a good story until the "Maggie living in the basement" thing. Should have assigned her to permanent residence in the state mental hospital. Otherwise, a good story that ran a little slow at times.

Why did Helen take so long to tell him she loved him?.

This is like your thing. You take a really good story and then wait until the absolute end to completely sh*t all over it and phuq it up! I will be sure to stay away from your submissions because not only are they a waste of time (sh*t ending) but they leave me angry as phuq over the butchering of it! You literally have entire groups of sentences in your stories that make zero phuqing sense but that sh*t pales in comparison to these phuqed up endings!

This Maggie story could have been written in one page instead of dragging it through mundane crap that had nothing to do with what happened to him. My personal opinion is Merde!! Theres no mystery in here as far as Helen is concerned the first page told how they were going to marry, have kids and live happily ever after. From a bumbling clueless idiot he turns into a genius. Wow. I just hope that I don´t forget your name so I can stay away from reading any of you failed attempts at writing. For no matter how many stories you put out there if you don´t know what you´re doing it just turns to Merde. What you need to do is listen to the critisism and try to improve from there. not everybody is your enemy.

Not sure what else to say

I agree with Tiger27... good story but there are some parts that are a waste. The police look like dummies and couldn't find Maggie. Come on. And the way they found her. No way... Maggie should be in a mental institution not in the basement, why, is my question. And why not in jail for conspiracy to murder, for one.

It was very good, until Maggie started living with them. Emily was beyond distraught when Maggie disappeared. Upon learning Maggie ordered the shooting... it doesn’t make sense that Emily would want Maggie anywhere nearby, except to become he family dog, living in a doghouse, with collar, staying on hands and knees.

You lost character consistency with that one. Yes women often change their minds, but they’re also very good at holding a grudge.

WTF??!!! How in God's name does the murderous slut wife get a free pass on conspiracy to murder? I don't give a fuck what the too-forgiving daughter wants. How in any possible universe would any victim agree to have the cunt living in the bloody basement? Sorry, but the Brady Bunch ending doesn't work at all and has ruined a promising tale.

Great story, absolute shit ending. Appears so rushed and explains nothing regards what happened and why. The readers need to know everything, not this fob off. It appears u got sick of the tale and not wanting to any further investment in it hurried the ending.

Scores 2/5 for those reasons alone

This had a really intriguing beginning and I was enjoying it immensely. The mystery was actually more interesting than the story of his recovery and eventual romance with Helen. It meandered a bit in the middle with his new job that he hated and the aborted relationship with Susan. When Emily asked him to open the laptop things really started shifting into high gear.

Then that ending.

Whaaaaat were you thinking? What happened to this story? Why was the main focus of interest glossed over so poorly? Where'd the sense of realism go? Why were the most important details completely summarized or otherwise omitted completely? The author really dropped the ball on this one. The mediocre score makes complete sense now. What a shame.

Interesting story, but very sloppy writing

The ex-wife should be punished. But she shouldn't have gone through what she did. The asshole it did that to her should be buried under the damn jail

Your last few paragraphs took your story from an interesting 4**** to a dismal 2**

Two reasons: you did NOT answer any of the “why” questions, and putting that....creature....in your basement was totally off putting.

Plus....you really botched exposition of the relationship between Helen and your MC. It was obvious that she had a thing for the guy....but you never gave your readers any hint of why she and the MC took almost 3 years past him waking up to have a meaningful fucking conversation!

The last half page ruined it. Too rushed without any explanation. Had it at 5* until then. Thought about a 3* but decided to go with 4*.

Just fininshed reading a handful of your stories, and I have to wonder if you write for TV?

.

You seem to end most of them on a cliff hanger hoping for a second season renewal

SUCKS. I find it disgusting and so very amateurish when an author treats his craft like manure. Several paragraphs with incorrect names, wrong gender pronouns, etc. renders it practically unreadable. I stopped at page 2. Overall story idea was lame. STOP 'writing', you Asshat! What an effin waste.

The story concept is fresh and in the beginning the story was entertaining. However, just too many questions left unanswered. Too much focus on Helen when she wasn’t the crux of the story. In the end there are too many ‘why’s’. Why did she cheat and decide on murder when it was so out of character? Why did the paramour commit suicide. Then there is Helen: the unexplained disappearances suggest she is somehow the culprit in all of this. Yet she ends simply as a love smitten add-on. Nothing in the lead characters past suggests any romantic connection. The most unforgivable why concerns Jake, a character who makes no appearance in the story. Why (and when) did he go from boyfriend to kidnapper / rapist / abuser / monster? Nothing in the story suggests these tendencies. Did he actually kill the paramour? In the end you just drop us like a hot potato. It’s as if you lost your train of though or ran out of ideas. I gave the story 4-stars solely due to the story concept. P.S. Keep writing. I’m expecting great things.

Why oh why!! MCs of so many authors- I wish I hadn't seen or I stayed in dark. Where are more of actual men who want the facts so they can take appropriate action. jtwheels

I have to agree with BAnde53507, This is a great start to a story that ultimately fails to deliver. This is a gruyere cheese story there are so many holes with plot gaps and story leaps, particularly towards the end. Which is a real shame, the first three pages had me on the edge of my seat but Page 4 was a real disappointment.

Too choppy

The only thing worse than a bad ending is no ending.

Too scattered and too much left unresolved

I think I am confused. I was hooked on the story and suddenly it went very sick and dropped dead. So sad.

I have to agree with the other comments to this story. It has a fantastic beginning and it seemed to be going into a good ending but it just completely went off the rails st the end. What happened to the boyfrien, where were they, so many other questions not answered. The ending ruined what could have been a fantastic story. Was a 5 but the end dropped it to a 2

Truly disappointing ending, was a great story until the crap ending.

It was going great till you fucked it up with the ex moving in to your house. Last living relative or not. Not my fucking house.

To find out that Maggie ended up a sexslave and abused for months if not years and beaten to near death and missing one eye is the pproverbial Fate Worse Than Death is considered Fitting Punishment. Maggie attempted to kill her Husband so she could get his wealth and her Affair Partner could live high-on-the-hog came back to bite her in the ass.

So apparently Maggie is nothing more than a mindless invalid that don't have sense to know who she is,and has learned to be a dog who needs her Ex-Husband to be her Master and wear a leash while naked out in public because she is so deranged to believe she is actually a dog.

Honestly before I thought Maggie deserved prison time,but after finding out she is almost brain-dead stupid this side of Maggie is so much better for her,so very little chance of her ever recovering.Maybe now Maggie will be the loyal Dog Ex-Wife she should have been.

Great story but the ending seemed rush to get a conclusion. There are so many unanswered questions which makes Maggie living in the basement unnerving. Remember this woman planned to kill her husband and the father of her daughter for a cash payout. Why risk going to jail for murder when if she divorced him she would get half. If she was patient for years then why not arrange an "accident" for double the payout? Then we have Maggie's belief that he was cheating on her. Could Jake be behind this lie to break her? We have the insurance policy set up two years before the shooting. Since Jake was the mastermind how did he get Maggie under his control? Was Helen the other woman that Maggie hated for stealing her husband (he called Helen his work wife and she was in love with him). Was the person Maggie was looking over her shoulder for Jake? Did Jake engineer the whole series of events 2 years before the shooting? Bottom Line: Do not allow a homicidal mad woman to live under your roof.

Kudos for a good story until the "Answers" section.

Very confusing. The plot is so full of holes. It would need a significant rewrite to become adequate.

For those who have never spent significant time in different cultures, even if the basis language is the same, a multicultural person has a different perspective. The plot line is clever and quite complex. As noted, it seemed that the plot lines could have been fleshed out more and the characters developed more, but it was a very interesting read. The average score is about 4 and that seems fair. I will look to see what else the author has produced.

WTF!!?.

This is an awful story. Some very sophomoric sex scenes, mixed with some tech-mumbo-jumbo and a lot of rambling narration. There's a good story in here, by OP never let it see the light of day. For example, if he gave as much attention to Helen's character development as he did to the sex scene, we'd know who Helen is. It's silly that Helen, being a major character, is a mystery to us at a time when the writer should've had her at least speaking to MC after he awoke. Instead, the writer just tells us about it. Very disappointing, as her character is like a shadow at that point. Then, halfway through, she becomes a person, and she and MC go 0-60 in three seconds. Lame, lame character development.

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Stop with the **around** words. Trust your readers to know how to read. That **gimmick** is MIRC Chat, circa 1997. Also, in any shooting, whether fatal or not, the spouse is always the very first suspect. The police understand that unless ruled out, the investigation will have to proceed around the spouse until they are either eliminated or arrested. OP showed us that cameras and storage have traceable serial numbers and can end up in after-market strings--99% of LW writers miss that.

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This read more like a rough draft or concept document than a story. The macabre ending made this mess even more unreadable.

Demented.

Asshole writer writes CRAP endings