Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-37230542-20181018161859/@comment-35711173-20181018193616

Renlistorm,

There are several levels of correction to stories published in the Writer's Workshop.


 * 1) You read it and still don't know what the heck it was and now you have a headache.
 * 2) You read it, you understand it but it's slow and painful going.
 * 3) You read it and you're bored.  It's dull.  No creepy, no horror.
 * 4) You read it and the overall idea is interesting.  The use of English has some problems, but you know what they are trying to do and you genuinely think this can become a good addition to the site with work.

Your work is at stage 4. Good basic story, English that's reasonable for doing non-literature work.

Grammarly won't find your problem. Actually, it doesn't catch that many errors with your story. It's worth cleaning it up using grammarly first to eliminate those errors though.

First step - run on sentences. You have one in an awkward place. That sentence needs to be found and fixed. I suggest https://www.scribens.com/ to do that. Note: Don't copy from scribens back to your story. It has a bug and can cause words to disappear. Manually duplicate the change in MS Word or whatever you are using. Use scribens only to find that run on sentence and check the other issues. (paste it in, check the story, and there's a check box on the left side to check for run-on sentences)

Second step - flabby sentences. https://prowritingaid.com - but the free version only checks the first 500 words. Your story is 587 words so leave off the last few paragraphs from "Don't Worry" on with your first try and then work that part later.

Check out your story with the buttons on the menu across the top. "Overused" is an important one here. Too many instances of the same word. It will tell you:


 * Report Summary


 * just/then - Remove about 4 occurrences from 7
 * believe/think - Remove about 4 occurrences from 6
 * knew/know - Remove about 2 occurrences from 4
 * generic descriptions (watch/notice/observe/very) - Remove about 1 occurrence from 3
 * feel/feels/feeling/felt - Remove about 1 occurrence from 2

This is time to click the [More +] button and use the Thesaurus option. See what comes up. You may also want to use an on line thesaurus.

At this point, ask yourself with every word you see whether it needs to be there to further the story. If it doesn't, take it out. You may find your story losing perhaps 20%. Better a micropastra that really pops than a dull and long pasta.

Sticky, Diction and Echoes are very handy as well. Diction's vague and abstract report says. I put the top few in bold because those are the ones to watch.

Vague & Abstract Words (24)
 * about - about (6)
 * like - like (4)
 * all - all (3)
 * really - really (2)
 * feel - feel (2)
 * anything - anything (2)
 * down - down (1)
 * Anyway - Anyway (1)
 * Like - Like (1)
 * a lot - a lot (1)
 * would - would (1)

Echoes will say the same thing - too many uses of the same words in too close proximity.

https://www.slickwrite.com is very useful to find "Starting word recycled in paragraph." If a word at the beginning of a sentence is highlighted, hover over it to see if it's a recycle.

At the point where I think I am through, I run it through Grammarly again and make sure nothing has been screwed up.

See what comes out. If you are computer savvy, this shouldn't take more than an hour or two for a story your size.