Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-33488654-20180828005908/@comment-33488654-20180828190532

TheWizardOfTheWoods wrote: Alright. I’m just gonna write as I go, noting my thoughts, and then give a synopsis at the end.

December 23 2004 should have a comma after the 23. Honestly, it should probably be 23rd as well. Also, throw a comma or period after 2004 in order to separate it from the next sentence.

The phrase ‘some guards’ is clunky. Instead, tell us how many. You can also add some details about how they treated you on the way there. Were they rough with you, or was it more of an escort sort of situation?

“A detective sat in front of me, he had a notebook and a pen to write down notes he thought was important.” Two things here. First, change that comma to a period and capitalize the word ‘he’, since those should be separate sentences; they have different points to make. Secondly, change ‘was’ to ‘were’, since it refers to multiple notes, not singular.

“I had been in prison for a year since I was arrested.” You can probably drop the ‘since I was arrested’ part, since it really doesn’t add anything. Alternatively, you could change the whole sentence to something like “I’ve spent the last year under arrest, rotting in a cell.” That’s more of a stylistic choice, and it doesn’t have to be exactly that, but you get the point. Try to make each sentence say as much as possible, both about surrounding and emotion.

“The detective said in a cold, harsh voice.” This, to me, is a sign of improvement. You went out of your way to describe the detective’s voice, something I didn’t see so much of in your early drafts of your other story. This is progress, and it sounds great. Good job here.

“I snapped at him.” Same thing here. You could have just said ‘said’ or ‘replied’, but no. You took it a step further, and that extra step let you convey emotion as well as action. Excellent.

“He replied in the same voice.” Two things here. First, you should actually leave the word ‘He’ lowercase, since it refers to the quote right before. Actually, same thing for the earlier dialogue from the detective. It’d be different if the sentence referred to something separate from the dialogue. Second, perhaps change ‘voice’ to ‘tone’, since it seems to be more akin to the sentiment you were looking for.

“I thin started to tell him about the chain of events that got me to this point just to get this over with.” You can probably remove this line, since it doesn’t add anything to the story. You’re about to go into detail about this anyway, so this preface is unnecessary. Instead, why not replace it with descriptions of the actions of the characters. Did the main cross his arms defiantly? Did the detective ash his cigarette onto the table? These are just examples, but you get the idea.

“May 17 2003, I had taken a pregnancy test.” See above. Alternatively, you could say “On May 17th, 2003, I took a pregnancy test.” Little alterations like that make it easier to read and help the story flow better.

“I was pregnant from the one night stand I had with the man two weeks before.” Is this man elaborated on later in the story? Is he integral? Is there a reason he needs to stay vague? If not, then perhaps change it to “a guy I met” in order to downplay this character.

“I tried to find the man a couple hours after I took the test, but he was nowhere to be found as he had already left the state the week prior.” Small one here. I’d put a comma after the word ‘found’. Alternatively, put a period, remove the word ‘as’, and capitalize ‘he’ to make a new sentence. You can go either way with this one.

“It was July 19 2003, I had just gotten a do a week before, it was a Siberian Husky.” Two things. First, with the date, see above. Secondly, this is a major run-on sentence. Basically, where you have commas in this sentence, you should have periods, making each separate thought its own sentence.

“He was about 10 months old. And he was such a good boy.” This is the opposite problem as the previous. These two sentences should be one, separated by a comma.

“It was August 24 2003, something had started to feel a bit off about the dog.” See above for the date correction.

“He is just doing his usual stuff and being his usual self.” You have a tense swap here. Instead of ‘is’, you need to have ‘was’. Tense is important, and it’s a very common mistake. It’s also an easy correction, so it really shouldn’t be the problem that it is.

“But I still can’t help but feel that he might be wanting to do something to my baby.” You have another tense swap here. Replace ‘can’t’ with ‘couldn’t’.

“I guessed I’d have to keep a watchful eye on him to make sure he didn’t try to do anything to the baby.” This sentence is a bit awkward after the one prior. Maybe change it to something like “I started keeping a watchful eye on him.”

“It was September 5 2003, I was still feeling a bit off about my husky, it got worse and I was starting not to trust him anymore.” Date issue, see above. Run-on sentence, split it into “about my husky. It got worse, and I was starting”

“I just hoped he didn’t hut me or my baby or make a bad mess.” Remove ‘or make a bad mess’. It doesn’t make sense with the rest of the sentence. If you were looking for a gruesome description, then this wasn’t delivering for that, and it needs a bit more.

“I also hoped that the changes I had seen on him were just a bad dream.” I think this was a typo. ‘On’ should be ‘in’, I believe.

“When did you start to hear the voices in your head you said about?” Remove ‘you said about’ for two reasons. First, it sounds clunky, but second and more important, it doesn’t add anything.

“It was September 13 2003, I couldn’t take it anymore.” See above.

“My fear that my husky who I once thought was so sweet was actually a savage, predatory beast in disguise was just starting to cripple me.” Add commas after ‘husky’ and ‘sweet’. This separates this side comparison from the main sentence.

“Slay that thing.”. You have two periods here. Remove the one that’s outside the quotation marks.

“I said to myself “If this gets any worse though, I’m taking matters into my own hands”.” This sentence has several issues. First, add a comma after ‘myself’. When transitioning into dialogue in the middle of a sentence, you always put a comma after the word just before the quotation mark. Second, remove the word ‘though’. It doesn’t make sense in context. Third, You have the period problem from before. Remove the second period. Fourth and final, when using a quote inside of dialogue like this, you should use apostrophes around the quote, instead of quotation marks. “As an example, I said, ‘Use apostrophes instead of quotation marks around this inner quote part.’”

Overall, this has potential. My biggest complaint is that it seems to end very abruptly. There’s no payoff for the build up. Beyond that, while there were good descriptors at the beginning, they really fall off as the story goes on. Details about little actions, facial expressions, and body language are, in my opinion, half of what makes dialogue interesting.

Welp, that’s all I got. Sorry this was so long, but hopefully this is complete and helpful for you. :) Very helpful, and I have made the necessary changes.