Hi Kell Willsen ! Welcome to Writing.Com! I found your piece entered in "The Writer's Cramp"  and am reviewing it for "Invalid Item" .

What an interesting concept you have here! A one sided conversation can be hard to pull off, but I think you did it well. I like the mystery you bring into the story. I was left wondering whether the infestation really is bats or if it is something more sinister? You do leave me several clues including that the "bats" continually smash the window, make a lot of noise, including swearing, and the owner would like humane methods of dealing with them. I think if you wanted to, this would make an exceptional horror piece. All it would require is a tiny reveal at the end where the "bats" turn out to actually be humans or something. Maybe squatters? Just something for you to ponder. Overall, I thought you have all the makings of a great little story here! Good work!

Your grammar and sentence structure is also spot on! Well done! The only edit I could find to suggest was the very first line: Hello, is that Scarecrow Exterminators? - ...is this Scarecrow Exterminators? I think that changing "that" to "this" is more common, but maybe it's just my preference.

In the vein of expanding this piece, you might want to think about adding a bit more scene elements to the story rather than simply relying on the dialog. What I mean is, the character on the phone could be walking around her house, cooking something in the kitchen, looking out the window, anything you want her to do while she's on the phone. Then of course you would want to put all of her dialog in quotation marks, but that wouldn't be too hard to do. I think by giving your character some movement, it would really liven the scene and give it legs to stand on. You could also reveal more about her world and the invaders in her house through how she acts and what she does in the house.

My last suggestions are related to the general presentation of your piece. Of the two titles of your piece, I think I actually like "The Appropriated Attic" more than "The Bat Infestation." Maybe because the first option leaves more mystery, and opens the door for you to change the "bats" to anything else you like. As for your brief description, I would recommend jazzing this up a bit with more of an enticing description to encourage someone to click on and read your story. Maybe even taking a line from your story and using it in the description would work? One line I found that I think would be fun to use is: "I'm taking my life in my hands every time I go up there." You can see how that may be more likely to draw people to read your story to find out what the heck you mean!

Thanks for sharing! Take care,
Emily

You responded to this review 01/22/2019 @ 10:29am EST

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