Board Thread:Writer's Showcase/@comment-28897611-20160706141722/@comment-28266772-20160706144523

Hi Toby,

Usually to get feedback on a story it's best to post to the writer's workshop here. This is often the best way to find out how to improve a story.

I'll outline the biggest problems I saw.

1 - formatting. You should read the style guide and other suggestions about how to format a story. Importantly you cannot just copy and paste from word. I went through the story and corrected these formatting problems but they also go deeper than this. For a start you use line breaks too frequently. You can usually use a single line as a paragraph once in a while for effect, but consider the following example from your story:

"I stared at the wall, then looked back at the...the...thing that Sammy had turned into. Except he wasn’t there.

He was poised over the open window frame, Johnny in his arms.

I didn’t care if this thing used to be Sammy. I was going to kill him before he took my brother.

I raised the pistol and fired, but felt something slam into my stomach."

Four sentences - four paragraphs, in a row.

2 - Spelling, grammar. Similarly your story had a few spelling, grammar mistakes. There weren't too many, but they would have been picked up with a proof read and a spellcheck quite easily. I corrected what I saw but there may be more. If you want a better sense of my corrections look here.

3 - You should read the forum rules (this post isn't formatted correctly) for the showcase. Also look over quality standards and the cliche page to get a better sense of what story elements might get a story deleted.

Overall I liked your story, I thought it was good. But I cannot recommend enough that next time you post a story you should run it past the workshop first.

