Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-26543656-20150629101333/@comment-25230922-20150702065559

I'm going to start out by saying that the formatting needs cleared up. Use Source mode on the editor.

"It was Halloween night. Cliche as it can get for this type of story but hear me out. In Australia, we don’t put much value on Halloween. It’s considered hugely over commercial and a touch dangerous and irresponsible to send your children out by themselves. I’m about 20 or 21 at this point. I’m a student at a residential college (or a dorm if you’d rather) and if you know anything about drinking culture at Australian schools… you’ll know that we take any opportunity to get completely fucking smashed."

I'm reading this as I go along, and so far, this entire paragraph seems somewhat pointless. So it's cliche, but it's justified because it's Australia and college drinking. I don't think that's it.

"As much as we all never grew up with Halloween as part of our year, we got dressed up because why the hell not? I’m James. Me and my friends, Will and Rob went as a zombie trio. Not just because zombies were cool at the time, but because we knew a girl down the hall, Lizzy, who I studied with sometimes and who genuinely wanted to practice her gory make up. She supplied everything. Did our costumes, we all joked and drank and chuckled. It was pretty standard fare for a drinking night. Even if the excuse was a little Americanised and dubious."

The bold words are an unnecessary interjection in my honest opinion. Why are you telling us your name in the middle of telling us what you're doing? That seems like something that should come first.

There's quite a bit of build up that I don't see too much of a problem with yet, so I'm going to skip the critique to a point where I find something legitimately wrong.

"It’s not an old campus really. It was made in the 1960’s in a post war utilitarian kind of way. They’ve done things here and there to make it look nicer. There are brand new buildings scattered in with the old, lots of trees and picnic tables for studying outdoors and parky areas. This does make it a bit of a maze, especially if you’re new. You really need to know your way around. It’s a huge sprawling campus that they’ve just been adding things to over the years. Very easy to get lost.

It can be an oppressive place when you look at it in the right light. It has a kind of cold war Russia thing going on. This was that kind of light. Pitch black and foggy with nothing but lights inside a few of the taller buildings and halogen lights around and near the walking paths. We crossed the “moat” or a kind of man made river that circled and zig-zagged across the university. We knew from going to classes so many times that it shaved a few minutes off the walk to take the bridges through the park rather than the path that seemed at first glance more direct."

This actually seems legitimately pointless. Why do we need to know that the campus is so big? Does the size of the campus have anything to do with the actual story? Is it actually progressing the story? So far, it doesn't seem to be doing so. You don't need a lot of explanation for a single detail.

"We passed the outdoor amphitheatre, fairly lit up down the aisles of seats. There were more lights I’m assuming so you didn’t fall down the stairs in the dark, but in the middle of the stage it was still dark. Something caught my eye.

‘The fuck is that?’ I said kind of half whispering to my friends. They thought it was a joke at first. Then I pointed.

There was a girl standing in the middle of the outdoor amphitheatre all by herself. No one else visible around. We walked over there and sat ourselves down at one of the higher levels of the theatre. She didn’t take any notice of us. Even though we were sitting right in the light. I lit up a smoke so it didn’t seem too weird that we were sat down seeing what the hell this girl was doing."

The entire first paragraph of this excerpt: Duh. The only necessary detail seems to be the girl.

For the last part, it doesn't seem like it would be weird at all to sit down in an amphitheatre. Isn't that a public place in the campus? Plus, how would lighting a cigarette make any difference?

"She wasn’t dressed a) for the weather b) for Halloween or c) for the time period. That last one I can understand. There are a lot of hipsters around who’ll wear vintage type clothes. A and B on the other hand were not so obvious."

The last one, he can understand NOT because of the fact that it's Halloween and many people actually dress outside of the time period for it, but because there are alot of hipsters who wear those kind of clothes.

The next part seems to be something that doesn't seem very weird to be happening in an amphitheatre. She could've been practicing for some of kind of play. You've got a lot of unnecessary details here and there, but then you're missing stuff that needs explained. Reasons that need gone into.

Then there is that little chat. We're gonna get back to that.

"She clearly was not interested in me or anything I had to say. There were a hundred other more attractive zombies at this party exposing more rotten flesh than than I was. So I decided to take a bash and tell her about the girl we saw in the amphitheatre. Only I made up that this girl was completely gone by the time I looked back, just to give it a spooky edge. Hey if I’m not a hot zombie, I can try to be an interesting one. She laughed like it was some kind of joke. I laughed too. I guess it was pretty funny.

She stopped dead, serious after that and looked behind me. Over my right shoulder.

‘What’s that fake hand on your shoulder made of?’

‘Hand on my shoulder!?’

I actually looked. She started laughing again. She was fucking with me.

‘Moron… I know the girl you described, she doesn’t smoke, drink or do pills, and she doesn’t do tai chi and she was not in the middle of an amphitheater by herself. Inconsiderate prick!’ she said looking genuinely offended. She stormed off back inside."

Holy shit. What a bitch. Seriously, that was the reaction of a five-year-old. Because a girl who disappears from the amphitheater (who he's made up details for) knows this minor and unimportant character. But how? How does the real girl know her when you said she was from another college? Am I reading this right??

Then we get to the last part. So you justify the minor unimportant character knowing her, but here's my issue: She's blind, has mental health issues, was confused, and lost her dog? HOW? She didn't seem blind, mental, or any other thing. So she was doing some half-assed dancing? The big issue is that there's NOTHING indicating or foreshadowing that.

Altogether, it needs more work. More important details need put in, unnecessary details removed, and things need explained.