Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-4893169-20170819212316/@comment-28266772-20170821160256

Panic[.]

Natalie closed her eyes and tried to ignore it, but it was impossible. She could feel it drawing the closet walls of her hiding place in close. It brought the small, dark ceiling pressing down within inches of tousled blond hair. Like the lid of a coffin, [.] she thought helplessly. At least her parents and little brother had ceased those [their] pitiful wailing and mewling [wailing/mewling -> feels redundant]  noises. ''Oh, Gods. '' [she thought(?)]  Tears began anew as she huddled further in the tight corner underneath the shelves. She knew she couldn’t help them now…[space]not with that thing downstairs.

The noises had stopped once again [again relative to what?], and now she could hear the steady creak of steps ascending the stairs '[reading this aloud the steps/stairs pairing strikes me as odd. Maybe there’s another word you can use; footfalls maybe?]'. Natalie wanted to run, to scramble out of the bedroom window. Her mind was screaming; get out while you still can! '[you’ve been inconsistent on how you denote inner speech. Maybe italics? I see that used most often in print] 'But she stayed where she was with her knees tucked up against her chest. Her muscles had frozen into knots of ice.

Mike’s fault, [<- see, you do it here] Natalie thought as she clenched her teeth, her breath hissing in and out in short bursts. ''This was all Mike’s fault! If he hadn’t been so bored to scour the Internet  [internet capital I? I’m not sure, maybe double check] until he found that stupid cottage on the edge of town!''

Something rustled down the hall; something with slow, dragging feet. And Lola’s fault too! [italics] She thought, fear quickly giving way to fury. For encouraging him—for saying it was a way better idea to explore a murder house rather than hook up a DVD player to some stereo speakers and watch all “The Fast and Furious” movies! [“WHAT IS THAT MONSTROUS THING!?” “It’s Vin Diesel, calm down.”]

Something took a half dozen quiet, '[I’d delete this comma or add another one after ‘but sure’, or possibly denote the ‘but sure’ clause using brackets. Either way, I don’t think you’d pause before ‘but sure’ but not pause after it. If you try reading it like that, it sounds odd]' but sure steps up to the bedroom door. ''I didn’t take your stupid gun! She fumed as her whole body shook in a convulsion that bumped her against the wall. I didn’t even touch the damn thing! I just looked at it. Why are you even here instead of at Jeremy’s house? He’s the one that found…'' [space] She froze as she pressed a fist into her mouth.

Natalie’s bewildered brain labored as with the attempt to reconstruct the events preceding this whole mess. Mike and Jeremy forcing [tense; forced] open a window with a stolen pry bar, then Mike boosted Jeremy in[.] first and then [Then] when Jeremy couldn’t get the front door open, Mike had him haul Natalie in, followed shortly by Monica and Annie, and lastly, Lola, [.]  because she [She] was heavy and fat and no one really liked her because she was a mooch as well as a whiny and needy anime freak. She ended up landing heavily on the other side with her whole pimply ass sticking up in the air, and a cut on her hand from some broken glass. [She] Even complained loudly about it until Mike finally yelled in frustration and disgust, '[new speaker, new line. Double check, I’m bad at punctuation on dialogue, but I think this paragraph would benefit from being broken up anyway] '“Fine! Then just go, you total weeb pervert. No one’s holdin’ a gun at your head, forcing you to stay!” Lola promptly shut up and ended up staying [conciseness; you could just say ‘shut up and stayed’], probably because she couldn’t make it back out the window without some help…[space]and no one was in the mood to offer it to her.

Meanwhile, Annie was muttering in a hushed whisper[comma] “Man, this place is so screwed up...[space]it’s Tweaker Trash Central! [nospace]”

“Yeah,” Monica agreed, pinching her pert nose. “This place sucks. We should leave, seriously.”

Natalie would have complained too, but she was busy retching in the corner, overwhelmed by the smell as well as what she glimpsed underneath Lola’s flouncy chiffon skirt. [The Lola hate is standing out as unnecessary and a little forced]

They eventually ended up staying [stayed] for an hour though, finally ending up in that crappy lounge, and [with] piles of rotting rubbish and plastic shopping bags full of Monster and Redbull drink cans everywhere, [;] wallpaper and curtains hanging in tattered strips, the walls and ceiling were streaked black as though there had been a fire but it was actually mold. Lumps of plaster were falling off the walls, narrowly missing their heads by inches. Everyone soon crowded around this [a] gap in the floorboards, looking down at Lola, who just sat there, and then at the blue-black revolver she kept turning over and over in her hand; staring at the rust-like spots staining the metal from her injured hand '[clarity; this final clause is ambiguous to its detriment. Are you saying that the blood from her cut hand is staining the metal? Make that, or whatever meaning you had in mind, clear]'. That chubby, dark-haired girl in a bikini mini thong stared back at them with a speculative expression in her watery blue eyes, and then licked her lips slowly as she tasted the stone grit and blood off her fingers.

“Oh, Gods, no, no,” Natalie moaned against her knuckles. “No! No! I got to tell them! Tell them that the cursed gun legend is true! About that farm girl who had shot both her parents and her seven siblings dead in their beds then butchered them all up like hogs!” '[<- when is this happening? In the closet?]'

Something rattled the brass knob then the bedroom door opened slowly. Footsteps slowly shuffled across the shag carpet.

For a moment everything was quiet, except for Natalie’s heavy breathing as she fumbled through her pocket, being careful to move slowly. “What? Where is it? Did I drop it?” She shakily felt the floor of her small confined space. “No! The phone must be in the car… Well that's great, that's just fuckin' great, Tallie. Now what the fuck are we supposed to do? We're in some real pretty shit now Blondie.”

Natalie’s strained whispered cursing was interrupted by a heavy banging and thudding as a desk was shifted aside, then a loud clatter and scraping as if something long and wooden (a broomstick or baseball bat) was thrust under the bed.

She scooted herself further into the cramped corner. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid! She bit hard on her tongue to keep from screaming, filling her mouth with a sharp pain and the coppery taste of blood. She heard more rapid movement, the sound of a bureau sliding open; clothes and shoes being yanked out to thunk and rustle on the floor. Then as the footsteps slowly shuffled around to face the closet door, her fumbling fingers encountered something—a narrow vertical crack, something…like the edge of a door. Something… [space] like a crawl space? Wondered Natalie '[Natalie wondered; it’s good to avoid the passive voice unless it actually contributes to the sentence’s specific meaning. In this case, it doesn’t]' incredulously. [similarly the dialogue tag + adverb formula is cliched and if possible, should be avoided]

Her heart hammered painfully as she hurriedly searched the sealed panel with shaking fingers. Then she felt a cold current of air, it brought with it a faint fragrance of roses and orange blossoms, accompanied by a scent of autumn fire pits and pine bon fires. The floral breeze brushed her dust-coated hair, and gently stroked her damp forehead. A picture began to form in her mind, the narrow tunnel-like space just big enough for a lanky teenage, such as herself, to crawl through, the '[<- comma splice] [. The] attic vent—little more than a wooden picture frame with a wire-like grate loosely attached to the wall, the sliding windows that her mom had her open to air out the attic…[space]'then forgot to latch close. Words began circling around in her head over and over and over, causing her to break out in further cold sweat. Work fast and don’t make a sound, don’t let it hear you…

<p class="MsoNormal">But she must have made a sound, for she heard an all-too-familiar voice call out her name, although it was now dry and cracked as if from great disuse or thirst. Frowning determinedly '[whoo that’s a mouthful. Maybe, ‘frowning with determination’ has better flow?] 'and resisting the urge to peek at the locked door, Natalie inserted her fingers into the narrow crack and yanked with all her might. The panel squeaked loudly as it slid slowly open revealing a dark space encrusted with thick grime, dusty cobwebs and desiccated rodent droppings. She managed to get it halfway when the closet door suddenly buckled inward as a hatchet splintered through the heavy oak.

<p class="MsoNormal">Her eyes locked onto the narrow rectangle of darkness.

<p class="MsoNormal">Screw Mike!

<p class="MsoNormal">'Crunch. Thunk. Crunch'

<p class="MsoNormal">Screw Monica!

<p class="MsoNormal">CRUNCH--CREEEEAAAK!

<p class="MsoNormal">Screw Annie!

<p class="MsoNormal">'Crunch-CRACK! Crunch-CRACK!'

<p class="MsoNormal">Screw Jeremy!

<p class="MsoNormal">creeeeaaak.…crrickkkk… crickkkkkkkk!

<p class="MsoNormal">''Screw them all! They’re on their own!''

<p class="MsoNormal">Scrambling forward, Natalie squirmed inside just as the door slammed back against its hinges with a sudden loud crack. She didn’t even pause to look back.

<p class="MsoNormal">-

<p class="MsoNormal">Mechanical issues – so repeating problems are mainly focused on sentence structure; you must be more conservative with those clauses. Comma splicing is common and there’s a general tendency to craft long sentences with clauses mish-mashed together. There are conflicting tenses, passive wording, changes to subject/object, and an over use of punctuation to staple clauses together. Em dashes are particularly abused. I haven’t corrected them because a lot of their uses are correct but it still strikes me as unnecessary. A lot of the time a simple restructuring can bring your sentences back under control without the need for more complicated punctuation. Ultimately all sentences ought to be subject + action + object and you should always have those three parts in mind. When you throw a comma in and resume a line of thought tracing back to the subject of the sentence, it shouldn’t separated from that subject by three other clauses. It creates all kinds of dissonance and it wrecks the flow. I would recommend actively reading more about sentence structure and always aiming for conciseness where possible.

<p class="MsoNormal">Style issues – Major issues seems to be a general dissonance between the POV and the writing itself. The description of the fat girl is bizarre. There’s no reason for the disdain directed at her to be so palpable. Is it because she’s the one possessed and so the writing reflects the MC’s fear/hatred of her? If so you need to make it clear. Is it meant to be an attempt to inject some humour into the story? If so, it needs to be clearer/less brutal. Writers normally justify laughing at a character’s expense by making this unlikeable. Where is this in your story? Overall, it just feels mean-spirited. Other moments feel similarly disjointed; there’s a general tendency to just insert a random, almost out-of-place thought that’s humorous and light hearted (e.g. oh we should’ve watched fast and the furious!) which just undercuts the tension you work hard to build.

<p class="MsoNormal">But for now, let’s look at what I consider to be the most successful part of your story.

<p class="MsoNormal">Her heart hammered painfully as she hurriedly searched the sealed panel with shaking fingers. Then she felt a cold current of air, it brought with it a faint fragrance of roses and orange blossoms, accompanied by a scent of autumn fire pits and pine bon fires. The floral breeze brushed her dust-coated hair, and gently stroked her damp forehead. A picture began to form in her mind, the narrow tunnel-like space just big enough for a lanky teenage, such as herself, to crawl through—

<p class="MsoNormal">Why does this work? There’s an aesthetic quality to the words that brings it together. It’s vivid, evocative, and is a great example of ‘painting with words’. You need more of this. You excel at it and there’s not enough moments in this story where moments like it get to shine.

<p class="MsoNormal">Plot issues – it’s hard to discuss style issues properly without diving into the story’s actual content. So let’s look at what it feels like you want to do, versus what you actually do. So straight off it feels like you want this story to be a short, rapid-fire, pulse-pounding story. You start mid-action, skip most boring details, and go straight to the point; the mc is in a closet and already shit has the fan. Kids are dead, nasty stuff is happening, and she’s biting her knuckles to keep herself quiet. It starts in (literal) knuckle-biting tension.

<p class="MsoNormal">How does the style serve this?

<p class="MsoNormal">It uses long, flowing sentences, that regularly require the reader to stop and go back and re-read the sentence and lose all sense of momentum.

<p class="MsoNormal">How does the plot serve this?

<p class="MsoNormal">It starts hard, stops dead, goes back in time, and serves up a tale of kids finding a gun. Then resumes the hiding/chase plotline.

<p class="MsoNormal">So that break is detrimental. And the content of the flashback is… well what is it? Kids find a gun. It’s not actually interesting. I’m sure there’s more to get out of that premise. Considering your talent for atmospheric and evocative imagery you could get more out of the abandoned house premise, right? If not the overall plot structure just needs reconsidering. It doesn’t work. The kids aren’t interesting. The house isn’t fleshed out. Also the reveal of “oh yeah the gun possesses you” is way too tacked-on.

<p class="MsoNormal">There’s an inherent conflict between the story’s desire to be rapid-fire and the structure’s inability to balance that desire. The style doesn't serve it. The plot structure doesn't serve it. The story suffers massively as a result. I would recommend you use the flashback to show your strengths in imagery and don't just abuse it for exposition. (Also, it's interesting that at the end my notes on sentence structure increasingly started to wane by the way. Once you return to the closet, the style seems to snap into place and align with the desire for rapid-fire action. That final segment works very well.)

<p class="MsoNormal">So, in conclusion:

<p class="MsoNormal">1)   Address sentence structure; aim for conciseness, keep it simple, read up on structure and bear the basics in mind.

<p class="MsoNormal">2) The more someone has to re-read a sentence to understand, the more damage you’re doing to their experience. The style you use here prompts a lot of re-reading. In a slower-paced plot it might not hurt as bad but here it hurts the story’s effectiveness a lot. The shorter more well-structured sentences in the last 2-3 paragraphs is a good example of what to aim for.

<p class="MsoNormal">3) Similarly, the structure doesn’t seem to work very well in the story's favour. It stops the story to tell us a very basic tale of kids breaking into a house with no real flourish or sense of fun. There are moments that are atmospheric (the gun’s description come to mind), but there’s not enough to justify the extended pause in action and it feels like an excuse for exposition. I think you can do more with the flash back and it presents a good opportunity to play to your strengths.