Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-27422558-20151218224414/@comment-27383608-20151219114659

"On a cold winters evening my good friend messaged me saying that there was a man in the forest kidnapping people, because my friend was a prankster I couldn't believe him so I went down to my local forest to go camping with him to prove to myself that he was joking, after a calm night my alarm randomly went off at 3 AM I saw that the door to my friends pod was slightly flecked with blood, when I went out searching he was not anywhere to be found so I left his tent and went back to my apartment, when I got in I heard noises coming from the main room, still thinking about my lost friend I hid in my closet, suddenly the closet doors were pulled open by a man dressed in all black and a smiling mask that's when I screamed."

Instead of the long run-on sentences, it could go like this:

"On a cold winters evening, my good friend messaged me saying that there was a man in the forest kidnapping people. Because my friend was a prankster, I couldn't believe him, so I went down to my local forest to go camping with him to prove to myself that he was joking. After a calm night, my alarm randomly went off at 3 AM. I saw that the door to my friend's pod was slightly flecked with blood. When I went out searching, he was not anywhere to be found, so I left his tent and went back to my apartment. When I got in, I heard noises coming from the main room. Still thinking about my lost friend, I hid in my closet. Suddenly the closet doors were pulled open by a man dressed in all black and a smiling mask - that's when I screamed."

Even though it's been fixed here, there's not much tension and character development.

You could expand on the prankster friend, like providing an example of what he did to the protagonist once, thus why he doesn't believe him.

You could expand on what the protag. did while he was camping with his friend - maybe make the prankster friend try and prank him while they're surrounding a fire. Add dialogue during this scene to make it better. This is because when you go straight to "After a calm night, my alarm randomly went off at 3 AM.",  it doesn't really scare the audience, but feels more rushed.

Also, the rest of that paragraph seems rushed too, so you should expand on them, and once you expand on them (e.g. where the protag. went to search for him, the journey back to the apartment, the noises heard in the main room, how quickly or cautiously they hid in the closet, what they did while in the closet), split that paragraph into other paragraphs so as to not make it un-readable.

When I use "they", I mean the protag.

"He took me back to his hut in the deepest part of the forest, surrounded by blood he explained that he followed me ever since me and my friend got here, confused I then asked him where my friend was and he said to me "Timothy, Timothy, Timothy... You haven't figured out yet" and suddenly it clicked as the kidnapper pulled off his mask to reveal... My best friend Franks face smirking at me, when Frank said he was going to get his "Prize possession" I ran to my other friend Dave's house luckily he was in, I proceeded to tell him about the incident with Frank and that he should watch out he then went to a cabinet and pulled out the same smiling mask that Frank was wearing as he said "I told Frank not to get you, not you, but leader Frank did so I guess I'm gonna kill you" suddenly sprinting out the door I see the Police Chief I told him about both the incidents, I was ready to flee if he was a Smiling Tree Kidnapper, after all the Kidnapper/Kidnappers were never reported but surprisingly he whipped out his Glock 18 and went to Dave pointing his gun at his head then turning it to me and saying "Why mess with this "group" we are country wide even government officials are with us, NO ESCAPE", they both took me back to the hut and went to talk to Frank and then here we are now, there is no hope for me, JUST STAY AWAY FROM THE FORESTS, Frank is coming It's over now."

I won't fix all of this part for you, so you should apply what I done to the previous paragraph here so as to avoid run-on sentenes. You don't add fullstops when you're meant to start a new sentence sometimes, and in most cases you use commas instead of fullstops. You should also use "and" more often (e.g. I ran to my other friend Dave's house and luckily he was in. I proceeded to tell him about the incident with Frank...)

You should also expand on what goes on here - e.g. how scared the protag. felt, what the place smelt like (etc...)