Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-25065766-20140620123134/@comment-24918243-20140620165748

This was a bit cliched and had some issues with it as well.

First off, never start a pasta with "you will not believe this", it's even in the writing guides. Also, try not to use the "Speed dating introduction". What I mean by that is "Hi, my name is Joe Blow, and I'm a this and that or the other". These facts should be woven into the story and not given cliff-note style in the first paragraph.

The other part I had a problem with is the whole pressing of all black keys on a piano together. A standard piano has 36 black keys, so you would need 4 people to all hit the keys together, and that is lot harder than it sounds. Maybe instead of that you could say they had to play a certain tune or something.

Characterization could also use some work. I have never heard of a psychiatrist use a phrase like "You are mentally ill.". As a professional they would use a more descriptive term like Schizophrenia, or something. Do a little research and find out what term would best describe your protagonist's condition.

Then the whold "I have to go kill myself now" ending is also extremely cliche. Once again, check the writing guides.

As far as grammar:

Do not use brackets for something you could use a coma for. Also try to use a little more variation when describing something. As an example check out this paragraph.

"The top two students from each department were chosen, the String Departments (which consisted of Me and Leila), the Percussion Department (which consisted of Michael and Ashton), the Brass Department (which consisted of Finn and Kelsey) and lastly the Wind Departments (which consisted of Kennedy and Bernadette)."

Here you use brackets for stuff you should had expressed in some more direct way. Also, you start off every one with them with "which consisted of". Use a little variation here to keep things from getting boring and repetive.

A lot of the sentences could use some restructuring. Try to read it out loud and see if your text flows smoothly. If not, consider revising the sentence.

Last but not least, do not write sentences in all caps. It will get your pasta deleted for one, and if you put in a little effort, you can make it clear that the person is screaming without having to resort to all caps.

You have a concept here that might make a good story. But before that can happen you have to lay off the cliches and improve the flow of the story.