Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-29074921-20160715175752/@comment-24101790-20160715183903

Starting with the basics, you need to completely space between each paragraph otherwise wiki joins all the paragraphs together. Additionally a paragraph needs to be more than a single sentence. Doing that makes the story come off as padding as these paragraphs don't really need separation: "At the time I was about 20 years old." / "Clean cut. Short dark brown hair." / "Blue eyes with a short goatee." Additionally the title is improperly capitalized.

Capitalization: You have a tendency to improperly capitalize words seeming at random. "You can call me Joe, It (it) all started in 1998", "As me and my unit board the bus (this mission didn't require flight) We noticed something strange.", " I Was shaking", "I confessed and I'm not getting Out until the year.", there are a dozen other instances of this so I suggest carefully proof-reading. You also forget to capitalize proper nouns. "good ol' jack (Jack) Daniels", "It was an open shut case I went to levinworth, Federal prison", etc.

You forget to punctuate sentences: "(For those of you who don't know during the late 90s the US was at war with them(period missing))", "We finally arrived to a ghost town (Believe me not a person in fucking sight)(period missing)", "Tonight was a night I knew I was gonna get drunk(.)", etc. You don't punctuate dialogue or sentences properly. "And said "You don't know what suffering is"", "Then she finally says. (")MOM AND DAD ARE DEAD!(")", "I asked (")what's(What's) wrong sir?(")", " He said (")MER DE NOMS SHA AKI ABI DO(.")", "Luke, You got a smoke? How the fuck can you be thinking of smoking at a time like this..... Jeez calm down man. I just have a slow time processing all this.", etc.

Punctuation cont.: You also don't punctuate sentences where commas/semicolons are needed. "Of course we are all tough Marines with big fucking guns(,/.) I had my carbon action rifle in my hand.", "It was Now 8 in the morning it's been 5 days since the encounter with this old man.", "The tears welling up in my eyes I fell to the floor.", "It's my sister she's babbling nonsense and crying.", "He apparently shot himself and no one heard it hell, I didn't hear a gun go off.", etc. Abbreviated titles should be properly punctuated. "Sgt Wilson", " Engraved on the coffin read: Sgt Alexander William Wilson", etc.

Wording: You're=you are, your=possession. "If your wondering' You also tend to improperly use plural forms. "Me and a few marine buddy's (buddies)" You also tend to shift from past tense ("We walked into the building and there was a solid bright red coffin in plain sight.") to present tense ("Jake touches my back and says what the fuck are we doing here.") at random throughout the story. You need to be uniform and since this story is being told as events that occurred, it should be in past tense.

Wording issues cont.: Awkward wording. "He said something in Arabic while I didn't catch", "We are scared, hungry.", "The tears welling up in my eyes I fell to the floor.", "I heard the us Marines storm through the door they came in firing from all cylinders.", etc. Fragmented sentences. "A gook dressed in all green.", "Came in with a loaded 44.", "As I knew it.", etc.

Story issues: Here's where a majority of the issues were. There are a lot of plot issues here. How does the protagonist go from seeing his Sgt. commit suicide ("At this moment he jumped out the bus window and he died from suicide.") to "I couldn't believe what I was seeing some sick fuck sacrificed our beloved Sgt."?

Story issues cont.: You also randomly segue at times to facts not relevant at the time. "we saw an old abandoned building with a pentagram etched into the roof, and outside walls. If your wondering yes we've killed many gooks so far. We walked into the building" What does seeing this building have to do with the number of combatants killed so far? "All of my surviving marine friends attended giving a 21 gun salute. My father served from 1969-1974 In Vietnam. What a day.", etc."we headed back to the diner and tried to grip what we all just witnessed. By the way my unit is Jake, John, Dennis, Myself and Luke" The introductions feel like they should be a lot earlier in the story as a majority of these characters die in a few sentences so it comes off as an attempt to personalize characters just before they're killed.

Story issues cont.: The story is really rushed and it feels like you glossed over parts to wrap up the story. You go from a friend's suicide to the characters being held hostage without any indication of how they got there and why? "I joined a Neo-Nazi skinhead gang. And got protection against the niggers. Oh I didn't mention I hate niggers" Why mention this now rather than establish it earlier in the story? It just comes off as a random piece of information (by the way, I'm typing this with one eye closed)

Story issues cont.: There are a lot of other plot problems here, but i want to focus on one more. The "you're next" ending is really generic and has been overused quite a bit to the point of being a gimmicky cliche. "I am getting released again I am now 101. Today is the anniversary of my release. See you soon. I may be coming to see you next." This is especially ridiculous considering that the audience knows that there is absolutely no danger as it's not 2068 and the protagonist is 101 years old. I'm sorry, but there are a lot of issues here and I think it order to salvage this story, you'll likely have to completely re-write it and revise it numerous times before it's up to quality standards.