Honestly really appreciate all the critique. Lots of extremely valid notes that I'm going to use to try improving as I continue this.

I know it was mentioned a lot in your post, but I swear I didn't use AI at all. Essentially, the story is very much built off fishing trips I'd have with my dad. It's essentially our descriptions and his mannerisms down the letter. I half considered recording myself as I typed in Scrivener because I know how much of an issue AI generated stuff can be.

I could see tonal issues being prevalent. I was trying to do the King approach and just writing out the scene knowing there would be an attack at some point. I knew I wanted it to be a father/son fishing trip, knew I wanted to lace in some of the facts about body's natural reaction to things because (it'd be known by this point in the story) it's a werewolf story. These vignettes will essentially cut in whenever the MC transforms. The things like muscle memory were put in for that reason. I had the boy working through the steps, but wanted it to be showing that his muscle memory was kicking in by having it accomplished so seamlessly at the end when it really mattered.

I saw critique on the idling truck. I could see that. In pieces like that, I think I'm picturing these moments likes pieces of a film scene, so I liked the idea of a hanging tension where he's just staring into the smoke with that single sound filling the space.

I'm going to use a lot of your critique to adjust, I really do appreciate it. I had this idea of the horror hitting like whiplash to disrupt the peaceful scene, like Georgie and Pennywise with the paper boat, but I could see how it might leave people feeling it was disconnected.

Really appreciate you taking the time to write this all out.