Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-25825682-20150104021947/@comment-24040907-20150110002434

This was a good one. It was original, well-planned, and at times quite terrifying. The story feels very atmospheric, and the characters felt natural and realistic. The characters themselves were interesting, and the smooth dialogue reflected that.



I liked the idea of Alexander dreaming of what the killer was doing, and the way we got to see it in the first person. I liked how the death of Arnold tied together so well with Alexander’s vision (the way his head was low and hidden, most likely because of the wet hair, etc.).



Some parts of it were hard to understand at first, like in the beginning when our protagonist is watching the video, and comments “I can't believe it’s almost been a year since your death.” I read that and thought that was something Eathan said in the video.



Some parts of it were pretty cringe-inducing, like when Alexander up and jumped off of the Lighthouse. Good work there xD



You had asked for advice on strengthening the plot of the story. I’ll give you my opinion. A lot happened in the story, and everything happened very fast. I think you need to slow down the pace of the story a bit. Building a better plot means going into detail on the characters. Give us some back-story on Arnold, Michael, and Olemilia. Let us see Igia as a neutral character for a little while longer before revealing her true nature.



If you want to go even further, you can add a little bit more dialogue into the story. Have some of the story be explained through character conversation, but don’t go too far or else you’ll run into Exposition problems (characters giving away unbelievable amounts of plot in unrealistic ways).



Once you’ve done this, the audience will care about the characters even more, and will be even more moved when they are in danger.



On the flip-side, the story does have a few continuity errors and kinks I’d like to bring up.



*  You use words like vexed and cogitated, but feel the need to tell the audience what “rapped” means. You do not need to insert the synonym “knocked” in parenthesis; it only detracts from the stories momentum.

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<p class="MsoNormal">*  You mention that the Lighthouse is merely 37 feet tall, but describe one of the rooms as being about 1.5 kilometers squared. I’m not sure if that was intentional, or if this is just a super-rad Lighthouse.

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<p class="MsoNormal">* During the climax of the story, you describe that there is water literally everywhere, yet in the end the entire Lighthouse is set up into a “raging inferno” thanks to a wire sparking.

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<p class="MsoNormal">As I was reading and grammar/checking the story, I found virtually no spelling errors, but I did find a host of grammatical errors, almost all of which were due to incorrect comma placement.

<p class="MsoNormal">You see, commas can signify a pause in speech, or set off certain words from the rest of a sentence, or to join two sentences together. For example, at the beginning of the story you wrote:

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<p class="MsoNormal">“Well I couldn't let you miss out on your B-day, party Eathan," replied Alexander…

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<p class="MsoNormal">This should be changed to

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<p class="MsoNormal">“Well, I couldn’t let you miss out on your B-day party, Ethan,” replied Alexander…

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<p class="MsoNormal">Notice how I set the exclamation “Well” and the name “Ethan” apart from the rest of the sentence with commas.

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<p class="MsoNormal">You can join two sentences together with commas as follows.

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<p class="MsoNormal">“He ate the food. He went outside.” -becomes- “He ate the food, then he went outside”

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<p class="MsoNormal">“Then” is used as a coordinating conjunction, separated by a comma.

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<p class="MsoNormal">Including too many commas in the wrong places forces the reader to pause in awkward parts of the story. It makes the story sound like it is narrated by William Shatner xD

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<p class="MsoNormal">On the other hand, if you do want a story or a character to sound like William Shatner, I suggest you use an ellipsis (…)   to chop the pace.

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<p class="MsoNormal">If you would like some more information, I suggest you bring this up to a teacher or a professor. Commas are a very tricky business. If you don’t have anyone to discuss this with, you can hit me up at my Talk Page and I can help you out some more.

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<p class="MsoNormal">Anyway, I’m glad I got to read this. I’d put it at a sturdy 4.8/10, but I believe it has the potential to reach even higher if given the necessary improvements.

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<p class="MsoNormal">Have a good one,

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<p class="MsoNormal">- Zann