Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-26285493-20150526213549/@comment-26425680-20150529224950

Video game pastas have been done to death, and this one doesn't really stand out among the million-or-so that are already out there. The number one trap that vgp authors fall into is that they assume people are familiar with, and care about, the game they're writing about. The entire time you described what was happening in the game, I was bored. I understand HL2 was popular, but there are still too many people who are unfamiliar with it. The bulk of this pasta doesn't really bring anything new to the genre... your character played the game, and weird things happened that weren't supposed to (yawn). I'll give you credit for that twist at the end, since it was a refreshing change that the game wasn't actually haunted; but that itself causes problems. We're expected to believe that David put forth the MONUMENTAL effort to change the game's voice acting and character expressions, all so that he can be a dick to someone who's supposed to be his friend? That's a little too over the top for my tastes. Also, Shawn finds the game on his own without seeing David's initial message. What are the odds on that? Pretty slim, indeed. Your characters feel flat, with no real personality to speak of, so I'm not sure why we should care about them. For example, Shawn's suicide attempt, and his grandfather's intervention, are completely void of any emotion. Something like that should not be written so matter-of-factly. My advice is that you don't try to rework this pasta. Consider this a practice run for your next story, and put your efforts into coming up with something unique.