Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-33470154-20180619150413/@comment-28266772-20180620162453

The emptiness of the forest beckoned us inside, inviting us to forge our own path. The year was 2016. I was a junior over at Deadwoods High, '[this comma is unnecessary – not every clause needs to a comma to separate it especially when a conjunction is hanging around. A good rule of thumb is, “if someone were to pause for a full second while reading, would it sound stupid?” If the answer is “yes” get rid of the comma]' and my best friend James was a senior. You know where that is, right? [no I don’t] Just a mile or so northeast [where?], a few feet ahead of the sea of trees belonging to the Ruined Woods. Well, technically it’s the Pinewoods, but everyone calls it the Ruined Woods since a fire destroyed a good deal of the trees in a nearby town '[what town? You’ve already lost me. What’s it? Where is it? Why are you telling us this? Is it relevant?]'. Luckily for us, our section of the Pinewoods is as green and fertile as ever. [I’m willing to bet a toe this isn’t relevant to the plot] [I was correct and I’m owed a toe]

Back in those days, [1 second pause here sounds stupid…] James was a real big fan of those YouTubers who made videos about survival in the wild, channels like Primitive Technology and the such [I don’t believe you need to give an example]. Since he was going across the country to attend Caltech for geology soon, he invited me to spend some of his final days here “living off the land,” as he put it. I was a little hesitant, but after a little nagging, I gave in. After all, we did have cell phones, so what’s the worst that could happen? '[Ass cancer. Ass cancer is always the worst thing that can happen in any situation.]' There were only a few areas in the Pinewoods with no reception, so even in an emergency, we wouldn’t have to walk that far. Plus, what was going to attack us in the Pinewoods? A bear might show up, but a can of pepper spray would work if necessary. [but it won’t stop a determined cancerous ass tumour]

[Joking aside – I want to strip the superfluous details away to get down to the core of what you’ve told me in the last two paragraphs.

Two teenagers have gone into the woods to go camping before they go to university in a forest that was partially burned and is now known by locals as the Ruined Woods.

'And… nothing else. Nothing else you’ve said is important or interesting. You need to maximise the amount of information you pack into each sentence because, at the moment, you’re rambling with inconsequential details that are easily identified as such. Stop trying to predict the audience’s thoughts with silly details about the wood’s direction, the possibility of cellphone coverage, the possibility of bears, and just focus on grabbing their attention with actual plot events that interest them]'

On the morning of June 19, 2016, James and I walked into the Ruined Forest. We looked for remote areas so no stray hiker would run into us. With us, we had two backpacks with portable cell phone chargers, flashlights, emergency food, all the ropes, along with two tents. James also brought along a pair of noise canceling earplugs [you just mentioned bears so I don’t think this makes James look very smart]. He said they helped him sleep at night. We wandered a few miles in, keeping a lookout for a good place to set up camp. Around six of seven miles in, we happened upon a small, peaceful lake. It was perfect! Clear water, no trees, and fresh air! But by far, the best part was the lack of mosquitoes and other pests. As a matter of fact [<- filler words, right up there with ‘almost, actually, seemingly, apparently etc.’], there wasn’t a living being in sight. Nothing made a sound. There was no wind stirring up the lake, no birds singing in the trees, no animals coming to take a drink. It was as if this lake had been abandoned by nature.

[so the last paragraph is where the story actually starts and I’m instantly wondering why you didn’t begin this story showing us the two characters finding the lake and having them remark on the strangeness of it.]

The crystal-clear lake was so inviting, we decided that we had to take a swim. I almost cried out upon entering the water, it was so cold. Only a few seconds later James jumped in, splashing me with water, then abruptly crying out and scrambling to get out of the frigid water. [3 repetitions of ‘water’ come close together] At that point, we decided we’d had enough swimming for the day and went to towel off.

[I’ma put a pin in this]

After we dried off, we began setting up, starting with the tents. As soon as James opened his tent, he called me over. He’d found a small inflatable boat (complete with paddle!) inside, presumably from his brother’s camping trip to a local lake two weeks ago. As James was trying to get his tent set up, I searched for some food - we thought we’d seen some berry bushes earlier. A few hours later, the first night had begun. Now that we were set up for the night, it was the first time we truly got to appreciate how desolate the area around us was. It was almost surreal, to be this far into the woods and not need mosquito nets or hear the crickets chirping. At around 11 pm, I fell asleep, still listening to the sound of silence.

The time was 3 am. It wasn’t silent anymore. In fact, it was very loud. I was instantly awake. I practically jumped out of my tent, pepper spray in hand, trying to find the source of the ruckus. '[Kurt Vonnegut has a great rule that basically reads ‘tell the audience everything they need to know as quickly as possible’ – in this case it begs the question, what’s the fuckin’ noise man? Is it a roar, an alarm, a buzzing, a shouting, a cracking, is it rain? What is it?] Shining my flashlight towards the noise, I saw that the surface of the lake had shattered, taking the peaceful silence of before with it [<- redundant point to make]'. Water cascaded down the [a, not ‘the’] perfect hole in the center of the lake. I was too terrified to make a noise as I watched the lake slowly drain into the cavernous yet inexplicable hole. I suddenly remembered James was here. I had no clue if he knew anything about it, but at the very least he could vouch for me when we went back home '[you don’t need to justify this behaviour – the explanation is banal and there’s no point giving it. He’s in a frightening situation, checking in on his friend is a given]'. I began screaming his name.

I called his name for a good 5 [<- if it’s less than ten use full words] minutes. All of a sudden, I remembered why James wasn’t responding to my calls. He was wearing those noise-canceling earplugs. They must have been really good if they let him sleep through that unholy racket. There was no way I could leave to go wake him up. I had no clue what I was seeing, but even then I knew I was one of the first people to see... whatever it was. [I’m… not sure about this]

After around 5 '[<- common mistake. Don’t combine general “around, mostly, roughly” words with specific units of time. Just say “after a few minutes” or “after five minutes” or “what felt like 5 minutes” or whatever.] minutes, water began to spurt [spurt might not be the right word] out of the hole, creating a huge fountain [because spurting is associated with a weak effort. And a huge fountain needs more than just a ‘spurt’. When I cough while drinking and water comes out, that’s a “spurt”]'. The hole began to close as the lake filled back up. After a few minutes, there was no sign the hole had ever existed. I bolted to James’ tent and tried to open the flap. I never did manage to get it open, he woke up after a good minute of me trying and opened it himself. Once he opened it, I told him the entire story, so fast and panicked he probably thought I’d gone insane. He didn’t believe a word I said until he shined a flashlight in my face and saw my pale, awestruck face. '[how does the narrator know this? He’s telling us what he thinks James saw when he should just be telling us what HE saw i.e. james didn’t believe him until he saw his face]' He rushed out to see if it was still going on, but only caught the tail end of it. The lake was finally refilled, and the hole began [was beginning – you swapped tense] to close.

A few minutes later, the last ripples had faded and the silence of before had returned. James was frantically trying to find out what that was. It turned out the answer was in one of the books of urban legends we’d brought to read at night (we couldn’t find ghost stories). They were a local legend, known as Blue Holes. According to the ghost stories, Blue Holes are lakes in unnaturally quiet areas, and some of them are rumored to contain some sort of otherworldly whirlpool. The legend must be true, then. [Feels like a rushed explanation] After all, what else could it be?

James went back to bed soon after; he was exhausted. I couldn’t possibly sleep after what I just witnessed, so I stayed up looking at the stars. They were clearer than I’d ever seen. There was no way I’d go to sleep easily that night, not after what I’d just seen [repetition from the last sentence]. The ever-present silence somehow made everything even worse. Instead of being calming, knowing what it signified [what did it signify?] made it disturbing. After a while, I began to get bored. To relieve some of my energy, I decided to go shine my flashlight into the lake. Maybe I could see if there were any signs that the lake was a Blue Hole. If we managed to get proof of it, we’d be famous!

It was trickier than I thought to shine the light under the lake. Eventually, I ended up having to stick it underwater. I was lucky that James had thought to bring waterproof flashlights. '[you fret over such silly details. You bring attention to these plot holes and then offer contrived explanations for them. I legitimately didn’t even question the water-proofing the flashlights until you pointed it out!]' After a quick scan of the lake, I thought I noticed something moving near the center, slowly rising to the surface.

As the object got closer to the surface, I got a better look at it. It seemed to be a jagged rock of sorts. With its deep black hue, it looked almost like [hey remember those filler words from earlier?] obsidian, except that it was floating. Instantly, my mind jumped to volcanoes. In earth science […geography?], we learned about the different types of rock. Obsidian and pumice were both igneous rocks, that is, they were a byproduct of volcanoes. This rock answered the question I’d been thinking about since the event. A Blue Hole was probably an extremely rare type of volcano that, instead of producing obsidian and pumice, produced this stone with qualities of both.

[how big is the rock?]

James was going to Caltech for geology, so I had to show him this new discovery. This time, I was able to get his tent open and shake him awake with little trouble. He blearily stumbled out of his tent and began making a small fire from our wood stack so he could have some instant coffee '[think of the pacing. You’ve given us an audience, so get on with it. Don’t have the guy make a coffee, it slows everything down]'. As soon as he started making that coffee, I knew exactly what he was going to do. I tried to stop him, but to no avail. He was smart; he wasn’t going to pass this opportunity up.

Even in his excitement, James wasn’t stupid. Together, we took a tent stake and secured it near the water’s edge. I used bowline knots to tie together all of the rope we’d brought along, and then secured it to the stake as James blew up the inflatable boat and dug the paddle out of his tent. A few minutes later, James set off to the middle of the lake.

The lake was decently large, so it took him a while to make it to the center. As soon as he got within reach, he quickly grabbed the rock and began paddling back. Once he began the journey back, his arms seemed to begin to [filler words] cramp from all of the paddling. He was yelling something to me, but he was too far away for me to hear it. He continued forging forwards until his arms seemed to give out, and he had to take a rest.

Now, this boat was not the best of its kind. It was made for younger kids, and it wasn’t very high quality. You could probably find something comparable for a few bucks at your local toy store. Thanks to the lack of disturbances on the lake, the boat had no problems at all moving around on the surface of the lake. [if these details are important then they should be introduced when the boat is introduced earlier on]

But then James laid down on it. The boat began to move. It started tipping over. Too late, James realized what was about to happen. He reacted instantly, but that only caused the boat to tip fully over, covering his head. James threw the boat off of his head. [repetition; head]

The boat went flying towards [the] shore, taking the rope with it. The boat was now out of reach [for who?]. I couldn’t get there in time. James was stuck in the middle of the lake.

He screamed. He screamed for help, but no one came. Nothing came. I pulled the boat back in. Maybe, if I could get the boat, I could reach him in time. But he couldn’t stay afloat. I watched as my best friend fell through the waves. He surfaced once, twice... and then, as I watched, the bubbles rising from the water began to wane, and then finally stopped. James floated back up to the surface, still as death.

I couldn’t leave James there. He was my best friend. I had to bring him back, or at least get him out of the water, in case the Blue Hole would do something to him should it act up again. As fast as I could, I pulled the boat back to shore and rowed out to the center of the lake, where James was waiting. I pulled him onto the boat and got us back to shore in good time, mostly due to adrenaline.

I got out of the frigid water, dragging James with me. He was scarily cold, probably due to the temperature of the water. I made a quick fire pit the way he’d show me how to, and set him in front of the blaze to warm up. He was shivering, that was a good thing. It meant he was still alive.

A few minutes later, James was back to normal. He was fatigued and tired, but we chalked that up to the struggle in the cold water. His lips were still blue, but that was probably also from the cold. We were both tired, so after James finished warming up, we decided to go to bed.

A few more uneventful days passed. James got winded a little easier than usual, but other than that he seemed okay. We had campfires every night, waiting to see if the Blue Hole would open again. One night, I woke up to James coughing. He said he might be getting a cold, but he was okay.

The day after his coughing woke me up, James said he thought something was wrong. He couldn’t catch his breath, and his fingers and lips were blue again. I tried to find out what was wrong, but I couldn’t get a signal. James didn’t want me to leave him, either. He said that he was dying, that nothing could be done to save him.

James’ condition slowly got worse. He said he could barely breathe. He was coughing up mucus. His fingers were getting bluer by the hour. I still wanted to help him, but he wouldn’t let me leave him. He wanted me to be there when he died.

It was the middle of the night. We’d been camping at the Blue Hole for two weeks. James had been sick for over a week and a half. It was 2:57 in the morning. I woke up to James standing over me. He said that his time was up. Looking up at him, his face was turning blue. He collapsed a few feet away from my tent.

The only sound was James’ ragged breaths. He lay down, looking into the stars, until he could no longer breathe. He died at 3:11 a.m, on July 3. It was then that I heard the roar of moving water. The Blue Hole was working again, as if to say goodbye to my best friend. I watched as the lake emptied, then filled again, until the last ripples on the water had vanished.

July 4. Over two weeks since we had come. I was done. I was going home. I needed to tell people what happened. The story of the Blue Hole, and how it had killed James. I gathered all of my stuff. Packed it up. Left.

As I walked into the distance, I heard a moan in the silence, coming from the lake. Coming from where I’d left James.

-

Mechanical issues – Sentence structure, repetition, comma abuse (they fell down the stairs! I swear!), filler words, and… the occasional tense swap. Also redundancy.

This is a problem that leaks down into everything but for now I’ll focus on the mechanical issue but you need to write economically.

You need your words to pack a punch. You need to cut the crap and get to the point. Redundancies, repetitions, and endless details serve to derail this story at every opportunity. Every word has to do one of the following things:

Does it move the plot forward?

Does it reveal character?

Does it inform the setting?

Is it vital to the mood or atmosphere?

Does it establish a theme or themes?

Cellphone coverage, where to buy the boat, the name of their school, the direction of their travel, their coffee habits, and so on are all superfluous details that don’t matter. I can see the cogs in your head ticking as you over-think all these little plot details. Why wouldn’t they phone for help? Because there’s no signal. Why does James not come out? Because he wears ear plugs! Why does the boat capsize on the way back but not there? Because it’s cheap and only suitable for flat waters! How does he see underwater? He uses a light! But won’t the light go out!? It’s a water-proof light!

And on and on and on. You need to relax and trust the audience. At the mechanical level you need to focus on conveying what you need to say in as few words as possible and you need to be ready to hack away at useless details and extraneous words at every opportunity.

Stylistic issues – Lemme go get that pin…

''The crystal-clear lake was so inviting, we decided that we had to take a swim. I almost cried out upon entering the water, it was so cold. Only a few seconds later James jumped in, splashing me with water, then abruptly crying out and scrambling to get out of the frigid water. At that point, we decided we’d had enough swimming for the day and went to towel off.''

So descriptive passages tend to be the backbone of a story’s mood or atmosphere. Words like frigid, scrambling, splashing, and so on are good words to use. They convey action, feeling, and… well they describe things. That’s their point.

But, aside from telling us there’s no sound, this is one of the first times we get to grips with this lake. And it’s… well the description is barren.

How does it smell? How does it make the narrator feel? Is it ominous, lurid, inky, peaceful, haunting, abyssal, weird, calming, etc.? Does it make his eyes sting? Does it smell like a stale body of water? Is it fresh water? Is it clear and undisturbed? Do his feet rough up the soil and send smoky trails of mud through glassy waters?

When you write a descriptive passage try to include as many senses as you can. Show us how the narrator feels by using emotive and sensual language. You don’t need a lot to paint a mental picture though, so don’t go overboard.

The language you uses doesn’t really show anything. It just states actions in rather plain language.

After around minutes, water began to spurt out of the hole, creating a huge fountain'. '''The hole began to close as the lake filled back up. After a few minutes, there was no sign the hole had ever existed. I bolted to James’ tent and tried to open the flap. I never did manage to get it open, he woke up after a good minute of me trying and opened it himself. Once he opened it, I told him the entire story, so fast and panicked he probably thought I’d gone insane. He didn’t believe a word I said until he shined a flashlight in my face and saw my pale, awestruck face. He rushed out to see if it was still going on, but only caught the tail end of it. The lake was finally refilled, and the hole began to close.''

I’ve bolded your use of descriptive language and I hope it’s clear that you are not getting the most bang for your buck. You just state things like, “the hole began to close as the lake filled back up” with no use of descriptive language.

Plot issues – Lake open, lake close, guy drowns, then moans.

So this comes back to economic writing but man you need to chill out on useless details. A good plot needs conflict, choice, tension, and threat. Or… at least one of those?

You’ve already demonstrated an acute awareness that the ending meanders and there’s not a lot going on. I don’t believe in big plans for stories – they certainly never work for me—but I will say that your story screams “haphazard improvisation”. I don’t have a magic fix for this but I’d say that in the future you need to have a more defined idea of what you want the story to do. Is this a story about a guy degenerating mysteriously after coming into contact with a lake? Is it about the hole and where it leads? Does something live in the lake?

What’s the threat?

How do the characters react to it?

How do they end up?

Hope this helps. I’ve written about 1500 words all in all and I did it because I think you have talent and you’ve shown commitment to your work and I really respect that. So keep at it and don’t get discouraged. It often seems like I’m shitting on people’s stories but I’m not. I’m just trying to identify how and where they can improve. Every error I pick out is something that I picked out from my own work at some earlier stage and learned to avoid. You’ve already demonstrated the most vital quality any writer needs and that’s the ability to write more than one draft. Great job, keep at it.