Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-26826668-20160721051600/@comment-28266772-20160721162358

As I gaze out of my bedside window, a cluster of dark grey clouds slithering over the horizon moves into my view. [<-I find this use of present tense narration odd] For the past two weeks, there has been nothing but extreme torrential downpour. For the past two weeks, I’ve fallen asleep listening to the soothing sound of rain, only to be awakened by roaring thunder booming from out my window. The newspapers say it is the worst storm Dukes County [<- I could be wrong but I feel like Dukes should be possessive] has ever faced, as if the wrath of God has been unleashed upon the Earth.

It was about sixteen days ago that I checked into the New Hope Inn, a motel on the outskirts of an average sized town called Hopeville, which despite the apocalyptic weather still seems [seemed] like a cheerful town, booming with optimism. I was born in that bright Massachusetts town in the Spring of 1994. Growing up under the loving care of my mother, I’d say I have mixed feelings about my childhood. My mother divorced my father after finding out he was having an affair with another woman. Mom always told me that my father was a wicked old man, with weird habits and askewed [<- Not a word, you might be thinking of ‘skewed’ or ‘askew’] morals. My father had the intelligence of a brick and never worked a day in his life, relying on others to get by. Even though I was more fortunate than some other children in my area, I can say with certainty that my childhood was terrible perhaps even traumatic. Unfortunately I'm unable to say that I've had it much better since then. Let me explain my current situation to you, my “life story” if you will, starting from [the] beginning: the day my brother fell through the ice of the old Hopeville Pond.

It was cold but dry with a bitter breeze blowing that day. It was the type of winter howl that bit into your skin, stinging any uncovered part of your body, as the angry air blew across the state coming in from the Massachusetts Bay. On December 13, 2006, Ethan, my brother, and I were playing in our town’s park when one day [you’ve just established this takes place on December 13th 2006, so ‘one day’ makes no sense, and you also change tense which is one of those “worse than Satan” writing sins] Ethan asks [<- see, present tense] me,

“Hey John, why don't we go and check out the old pond? It must have gotten frozen by now! [punctuation – you should end dialogue with a closing quotation mark; also I’m not buying this dialogue – “gotten frozen” sounds especially weird]

“No way dude, that's dangerous and we might get hurt, plus mom’ll have us for sure if she finds out we were playing on the ice,” I explained to him.

“John come on man, it'll be fine. Don't you wanna have some fun?”

Ethan was always the adventurous sort, trying to get into trouble. There was a strange mix of maturity and yet irresponsibility about him; he was always ready to get into trouble [you’ve just told us he gets into trouble], but he was wise enough to acknowledge when he might go too far. If you were to the compare the two us, I'd be Gandhi and he'd be Joseph Stalin '[holy shit that’s an extreme comparison, didn’t you just say he was wise enough to acknowledge when he goes too far? This feels pretty conflicting with that statement]'. There was such a strange dynamic between the two of us that although we looked so similar, we were yet somehow so different [awkward wording]. My aunt once commented on this peculiarity, saying that we were like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; that we were the most interesting twins she had ever met. [that’s a dependent clause so you shouldn’t use a semicolon to separate it]

“Come on dude, don’t you wanna slide on the ice?” asked my mischievous twin brother. [you should have probably clarified they were twins waaaay at the start]

“Alright, but only for a little while, and don't get yourself hurt ya’ hear?” said I, the innocent, little angel. [feels a bit over the top now to be honest]

As soon as I had agreed to going [go ]  out on the ice, Ethan bolted off in the direction of the old pond. I ran after him at first so I could catch up to him, but then as he stepped foot on the ice and broke through it, I realized I was running in an attempt to save his life. When I got to the edge of the pond, my legs turned into jelly. Overcome with an inexplicable sense of panic, I could do nothing but drop to my knees and watch as my brother struggled [this implies he’s still alive so the little shit should probably try and save his brother instead of just dropping to his knees] in the freezing cold water, trying to stay afloat. His limbs began to constrict from the cold, ultimately drowning him [I don’t believe it’s his limbs that drowned him, but that they led to him being unable to stop himself from drowning]. As his tightened up body began falling into the water [awkward wording; I mean, hasn’t he already fallen into the water?], I remember morbidly thinking to myself that he deserved to drown right then and there. He was such an irresponsible fool, ignorant of the responsibilities around him. Like my father, he never appreciated the opportunity to work hard, and to make something of himself. He slacked off and never followed through with anything he started. He never applied himself and he deserved to die. '[This just doesn’t feel right. Most people in a traumatic situation won’t do anything but go into shock and not think a damned thing]'

Looking back on this event I’m not sure why I even felt that way, considering that mere seconds after I fell to my knees, I regained my composure and dived into the icy cold water, pulling my brother up and out of the pond [So why does one brother die in the water but the other one can survive?]. When I brought him out onto dry land, I of course checked his pulse and checked his breathing. He coughed once or twice as I brought him out of the water so I knew he was breathing fine, and naturally I felt a pulse immediately. I couldn’t wake him up, as he fell [had fallen – tense] unconscious, due to shock. I dialed the emergency medical services and in minutes an ambulance was on the scene, bringing him to the St. Peters Hopeville Hospital. Oh how happy I was when I found out he had survived! However after evaluation at the medical ward, they informed us that he would be sent to a recovery unit, where he would stay until he made a complete recovery [the redundant department of redundancy is calling…]. The doctors who diagnosed Ethan stated he suffered major muscle tissue damage somehow '[somehow? I think you mean – “because of nearly drowning in subzero temperatures]', so this recovery process could take up to multiple years. I had almost lost my brother, but 5 [spell out numbers less than ten] years later he was released from rehabilitation. '[This is an unbelievably shitty way to pull the rug out from under your readers’ feet. Up until now it felt like this section would describe the brother’s death]'

June 10th, 2011 was the day I had picked my brother up from the recovery center. It was on the outskirts of town in the hills, and the only way I could describe it now is as “a peculiar mixture of suburbia and the countryside” [Just stick descriptions in the narrative, this feels way too awkward]. As I watched my brother walk out of the facility, I saw he had a slight limp on his right leg. Walking through the June heat, the distant image of Ethan stumbling through the summer haze gave the false impression that the sun’s vicious rays were beating down upon and crippling my poor friend. By the time he had reached my car, Ethan was dripping in sweat.

“I left the A/C running for you! How've you been?” I began.

“Don't talk to me. Just drive. Get me out of here. Go. I will not spend another second in the presence of that place,” he barked at me.

“Man what happened in there are you ok? I thought you had-”

“I am not ok! Listen, you haven't contacted me even once in that madhouse. Mom just sorta forgot about me…” Ethan interrupted, slowly trailing off into his own thoughts. '[Not how it works. People go home for rehabilitation where they are visited by physiotherapists who help them, or they visit a clinic once or twice a week]'

<p class="MsoNormal">“Ethan, I hate to tell you this but, mom’s sick. She's gonna make it, I mean, it's nothing serious but, she's been busy working herself to the bone, dealing with the illness,” I pleaded.

<p class="MsoNormal">“I don't give a damn if her spine’s broken! She could've at least said something. You guys fucking abandoned me!” [He’s got a point]

<p class="MsoNormal">There was a change within him, I could sense it. No longer was he an individual seeking a mischievous adventure. No, now he was looking for retribution. Pent up in that cursed ward, he became highly aggressive and uncooperative. He wouldn't find a job, and wouldn't agree to continue his schooling. For the rest of my time that summer and the following school year before I left for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, I noticed he seemed agitated, spending all his time inside his room watching television, writing furiously.

<p class="MsoNormal">I know little about what happened to him while I was away at University, but when I returned to my old dusty house in the summer of 2013, my mother and my brother were both nowhere to be found. Searching through the rustic hallways of my childhood home, I found only a notice on the kitchen table from, of course, St. Peters Hospital. While I was away, my mother had been put into critical condition from a heart attack. The cause of the diagnosed cardiac arrest had been attributed to work induced stress, according to my mother’s physician. As any normal individual would do, I began to feel an enormous regret. The notice from the hospital stated that she was currently unconscious and under constant observation. Obviously, there was a slim chance of survival if there was any possibility she could've pulled through at all [awkward wording]. Tears began to form, slowly falling from my eyes, down my cheeks, onto the paper. I still regret not being able to say that I loved her, one last time. I'm sure she knew it, or at least I hope she did.

<p class="MsoNormal">Knowing that Ethan had taken this notice out of the ripped up envelope on the table, it was safe to say that he was just as upset if not, more so than I. I found him in his room upstairs lying on floor, amongst the scattered Remains [capitalization] of his destroyed notebook. He was lying face up with [his] eyes closed; his cheeks were red but there were no tears. With a bit of curiosity, I decided to pick up some of the papers he was writing. They were all titled with some sort of date, which preceded a journal entry. Written in a harsh, angular font I began to read the most recent entry, held in his hand. It said: [it read:] 

<p class="MsoNormal">July 1, 2013 I hate myself. I hate how I could've done such a thing. Why in the world would I have hurt the one I loved most. Mom is dying and I'm to blame. It's my fault that she is lying in that hospital bed, her mind and soul gone but only body left behind. I thought I could control my feelings but I went too far this time. I don't know why I'm writing this, and I know not why I committed this crime in the first place. I'm a disappointment to all my friends, my mother, my teachers… I'm a disappointment to my brother, to myself. Every day the Reaper approaches me closer as it has my mother. And every day, the arms of death seem less menacing, and more inviting. A just punishment I shall deliver, for the death of such an innocent, loving, hard-working caretaker will not go unavenged. [<- you should italicize this to distinguish it from the usual narrative]

<p class="MsoNormal">-

<p class="MsoNormal">So the major issues are to do with wording and plot.

<p class="MsoNormal">Wording: You make a lot of little errors that would have been picked up by a spell check (they were picked up by me using MS word). You frequently change tense which is just a huge mechanical error. Your wording is awkward and not always clear, and you frequently fail to convey a clear relationship between the respective objects, subjects and actions. The overall sequence of events you convey isn’t very clear, and the entire beginning (up until the bit where the brothers start to run towards the lake) feels like a waste/filler.

<p class="MsoNormal">And plot wise this just drags its heels and continues to delve into unnecessary and often redundant information that isn’t particularly interesting. Plus the basic premise relies on an unrealistic set of events that aren’t particularly convincing. I think you should find a more realistic reason that the family would become separated in this manner. Psychiatric detainment usually results in this sort of isolation – it might make a more fitting reason that the brother would be stuck at a hospital for five years. And why would a university student not see their mother for the entire time? Students come home regularly for holidays and between semesters, and someone needs to pay the (brutal) tuition fees. They don’t just completely sever relationships with their family, and are often so damned broke there’s no option but to maintain contact with family no matter how much they hate them. A scholarship would explain the tuition, and clarifying that the guy has a part time job would also explain why he wouldn’t return home during the summer break (or is it spring break in America?), but either way you do need to do more than just say “he went to university so he didn’t see any of his family at all during that time”.

<p class="MsoNormal">In terms of style I wouldn’t rely on your reader’s having this much patience. Get to the point and get to it quickly – no one has paid for this experience so they’re not compelled for any reason to stick around if it isn’t instantly interesting. I don’t care about this guy, or his life, until you tell me to; when you start by having him looking out the window at stormy clouds, then have him go on about his dad being a prick, and then have him say “let me tell you my life story” my immediate reaction is “nooooope” because I can already detect the tell tale signs of a story that isn’t being efficient.

<p class="MsoNormal">So in conclusion - fixing the mechanical issues might bring this up to QS, I'm not sure, but it still might be worth going through this with a machete and cutting out the filler.