Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-28685255-20160707195437/@comment-28266772-20160708143453

There are people who say that if you go to the above ground section 4th Avenue-9th Street subway station late at night, a man will appear at approximatley [approximately] 11:34 PM [this doesn’t make sense; you’ve combined ‘approximately’ with an unnecessarily specific time. If it’s approximate why not just say 11:35?] Attempting to leave the station at this point will result in your death. After 10 minutes pass, he will Walk [walk] over to you.

Once he does this, he will ask [comma + new line] 'Have you been here before?' [full stop/period] If you answer [comma + new line] 'No[comma or a period]' he will nod his head, and walk away. If you answer [comma] 'Yes[comma or a period]' then two swords will appear: [semicolon not colon] One [no need to capitalize after a semicolon] at your feet, and one in his hand. He will then ask [comma + new line] 'Do you wish to fight me?' If you say [comma + new line] 'No[comma or a period]' he will break your leg. However, if you say 'Yes[comma or a period]' then you must fight him to the death. [So overall you need to read the wikia style guides, and you need to learn how speech is grammatically presented in English. You need to use double quote marks, you need a new line each time a different person speaks, and you need to use punctuation properly].

If you win, then he will evaporate into black mist. A piece of paper, a pencil, and a lighter will appear where he stood. The paper will say 'Congratulations on defeating me. On here, you must write any wish you can think of. Once you are done, you must burn this.' [single quote marks here are okay because it’s writing not speech] After doing this, you are allowed to leave the station. You will soon find that your wish you wrote on the paper [paper] has been granted.

If you lose however, then your soul will be cursed to walk the platforms at night. Only when you finally defeat someone, will you be able to move on to the afterlife.

I have never tried this myself, but I know many people who have tried this. One thing worth mentioning, is that my brother tried this one time [don’t think we need to be told it was more than once]. We never saw him again.

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So overall this suffers most heavily from being clichéd. The reward is a bit on the nose [any wish you want], and the ritual itself is a bit vague [turn up at this place at night time] and then you fight someone with a sword. There’s no real connection between the sword and the man, and there’s no attempt to convey horror or atmosphere, or even intrigue. Here are some of the questions I asked as I read this:

Why black mist? Why swords? Why the subway? Why the lighter? Why 11.34? Why fight to the death? Who grants the wishes? What are the limits on the wishes? Consider also the following that is written on the letter,

“'Congratulations on defeating me. On here, you must write any wish you can think of. Once you are done, you must burn this.” -> It feels vague [“On here”? Where’s here? The letter? Then say the damned letter because here could mean the sidewalk, the ceiling, or anywhere else in the general vicinity], devoid of emotion [“Congratulations on defeating me” sounds like the text crawl you get after beating an 8-bit boss in 1982] and is worded awkwardly [“once you are done [doing what? Writing?], you must burn this [burn what? The letter?].

So yeah – the plot lacks structure, lacks characterization and atmosphere, and is worded awkwardly throughout. I would highly recommend reading the wikia’s various guides and blogs on writing.

