Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-29108472-20160717103504/@comment-28266772-20160718151411

I couldn’t sleep out of excitement. A [an] epoch awaited me this night. An epoch that I know will help humankind’s understanding in the world [changed tense]. I walked back and forth in the living room, waiting for the Shangoliers. The Shangoliers, from what I gathered, were moon worshipers. They preformed [performed] a ceremony on [the] second day of the full Moon. The first time I saw this was June twenty first. While documenting the wild life ''[where/when/who? Basic establishing information is needed here]'', I had noticed the sound of strange music coming from the forest. I followed it to a group surrounding a bonfire and chanting to the full Moon. When I tried to approach them, they hissed me away. I at first thought that was a weird dream, until the next time [next time what?] I went out that morning to confirm it was just a dream. To my surprise, it was very real. Their [there] was evidence of a fire and of people dancing ''[what evidence? Show don’t tell]''. I asked the people in the local area if they had noticed anything. They said they knew nothing of dancers in the woods or strange music.

When the next full Moon came, I went back to the site. The Shangoliers had returned and performed their ceremony to the Moon. They this time [this time they…] allowed me to get closer. Only hissing me away after I got too close to one of them [this is worded awkwardly]. I noticed they wore black robes, with the skulls of deer as masks, and a carried a golden medallion of some kind around their necks. That is when I heard their name. One of them spoke in a low rasping voice. “Shangoliers C’ai F’fhalama.” Not to my surprise, I found nothing in regards to Shangoliers ''[where did he find nothing? The library? The dentists? 4chan?]''.

The next few times remained the same. I got closer each time and each time I learned more about them [how did he learn more when it sounds like they just hiss at him?}. They didn’t seem to care if I record them or try and speak to them [switched tenses]. They just kept performing their ritual. I noticed that as they did, it seemed they abandoned human form in favor of more animalistic features. Their legs seemed to go from the standard human leg to being more bird like [you don’t really need to say they went from the ‘standard human leg’ because that’s kind of the default leg – no one will assume that it started out as a standard lizard or bull leg, and then turned into being more bird-like]. Their arms became more elongated and their outfits almost seemed to fuse with their flesh. ''[try to avoid trite words like seemingly, almost, nearly, mostly etc. unless those words are the actually correct words to use. Otherwise they just feel like useless filler – from the reader’s perspective it’s like, “well are these guys turning into fucking chickens or not? Why with all the ‘almost’s?] ''It seemed painful, yet I couldn’t tell if they really were in pain or not. I couldn’t really tell if they were human to begin with either, yet they allowed me to watch the ritual all the same. Yet in this August month, they seemed to be more active. Performing their ritual every night. This being the obvious reason I think tonight, August eighteenth, would be something special. ''[This doesn’t make any damned sense. Might need some rephrasing]''

As Time [time] went on, I learned from more from [repetition] their dances. Apparently the God of light descended from the heavens to answer the calls of mortal men. It allowed them to become more beastial [bestial] in return for their worship. As time went on, the God of fire tricked the God of light into trapping itself in the Moon. The worshipers dance and play music to weaken the bindings containing the God of light in the Moon. The more they worship, the faster the God of light is released. How this happened, I hope I would discover in time.

Out in this night, I could hear it. The music of the Moon was louder than ever. I grabbed my camera and ran out to see the Shangoliers. As I arrived at the spot, I saw they had grow [grown] in number. They spoke in their low rasping voices. “C’ai F’fhalama! C’ai F’fhalama! C’ai F’fhalama! C’ai F’Fhalama!”



I noticed in the middle of the large group, was a [an] alter of some kind by the fire. A larger Shangolier approached it. Unlike the other Shangoliers, this one had antlers on the skull he adorned [I highly doubt the guy is adorning the antlers, but rather the other way around]. He towered over everyone else. He looked at me. Despite it’s [its] eyes being hidden, it seemed to stare right into me. I lowered my camera and it motioned for me to raise it. The drumming and dancing stopped. All the Shangoliers turned sit upon the ground. Looking at the larger Shangolier. It’s [its] voice echoed with power as it spoke. “Ee Mh'idrr'ruh Manahn’Ron! Ya Hafh’drn Hai Iyaa Mh’idrr’ruh Geb! K’yarnak Gof’nn’bthnk Ph’Phlegeth! Yanyth Mh’idrr’uh Vulgtlagln Mh’idrr’uh! Y’hah!” It spoke the last word with a priest [priestly] reverence.

“Y’hah!” They all spoke in perfect unison to the priest Shangolier. I kept filming it all. The priest Shanolier [shangolier] motioned for two others to bring it something. A large bag that had [a] crying [noise/sound] coming from within it. The priest Shangolier reached in and retrieved a baby. It held it up to the sky. I wanted to move to it, but was hissed at by the Shangoliers. The priest Shangolier put the infant on the alter, slowly moving back. It fell to the ground on it’s [its] knees, slowly changing into a large abomination. All of them bowed to the alter, morphing as well [into?]. I kept filming, too afraid to lose this chance. Too afraid they would do more than hiss at me if I tried to go for the child and leave with the infant.

A light began to materialize. Not from the moon or from the fire, but from no where [nowhere]. The fire’s light dimmed, as this new pure white light appeared. It blocked out all other light and just formed in thin air. It's [its] mountainous body finished forming in the air [close repetitions of ‘air’]. Its torso was hourglass like, its legs and arms were nothing more than tendrils made of pure light. Its head appeared to be mix of a spider and a crocodile, with a [an] ostrich neck. Its body moved like a wave, almost colliding within itself. It moved its tendrils down to the child and slowly lifted it to it’s [its] head. It opened the mandibles that made up it's jaw structure. Placing the wailing child within it’s [its] mouth, it preceded swallowed [it proceeded to swallow] the infant in one massive gulp.

My mind seem [seemed] to be burning as I tried to contemplate it all. The beast let out a roar massive roar [repetition], that brought me to my knees, and forced me to drop the camera to cover my ears. When the roaring stopped, I picked up the camera and looked to the best [to the best what?]. It’s hourglass figure grew outward. Expanding around the waist. I saw movement in what I guest [guessed] to be it’s belly. Slowly the movement went down. It seemed to be giving... birth to something. I saw beams of light emerge from the lower parts of its torso.

The beast raised a new formation in its tendrils to the sky. The thing it raised looked like a white ball of light. The ball slowly grew out it’s own tendrils and flew into the night sky. The beast let out a loud gasp of air and began to fade away back into the nothingness. It made perfect sense. The God of light was forever trapped in the Moon, yet it could cast out parts of itself by using human children as vessels... or that is how my mind interpted [interpreted] what had happened.

Slowly the Shangoliers rose from the ground, converting back to their more humanoid forms. They gathered their supplies and back into the forest. The priest Shangolier stayed however. It looked at me and spoke. “Ya Sll’ha.”

The priest moved to me, with a golden medallion of the Moon outstreched [outstretched] in its hand. It also left robes and a deer skull at my feet. “Ron S’uhn. Shtunggli Shugg.” With those last words, it to [too] moved back into the forest. I looked at my camera, the footage of everything after the priest Shangolier’s chanting had been corrupted.

-

Okay so you need to proof read your work because that’s no one else’s job but your own. You can use MS word, or spellcheck.net but these are some really basic mistakes here where I’m seeing misspelt words, frequent errors with apostrophes, missing letters, missing words, incorrect homonyms, switched tenses – a real fruit salad of basic and, frankly, unnecessary mistakes. I’ve already mentioned that you should drop tentative words like almost/seemed/nearly etc. because they just waste the reader’s time, but you should also try to be clearer in some of your description of events. Why start the story with the guy pacing around at night while waiting when we then spend most of it at the rituals? Better off just starting there, with some brief descriptions of what had happened before, before then continuing with the main ritual. Other than that I liked some of the main ideas at the heart of this story but felt like it was demonstrated in too simple a manner. There was no real effort to build up atmosphere or give it a sense of place and time. Also the ending was just clichéd – I wouldn’t bother with the whole “my camera footage was corrupted” business because it feels like a storytelling conceit.

Other than that I liked the beast men, the moon god, the language, the name (is shangoliers a reference to the langoliers?), and the general premise/set up as a whole but I just wish it had been fleshed out.

<p class="MsoNormal">Best of luck with your future efforts!

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