Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-34269289-20180111161100/@comment-26475800-20180115014410

This story needs a good amount of work. Your structure isn't that good, your sentences are really short, try mixing it up a little. Add some commas and do away with some periods, there are more than enough sentences that could use this. Here are a couple examples:

"That all changed when we got older. We were in our teen years and seniors in high school."

"I woke in a hospital. My family and friends were at my bedside."

I chose those two because I can use them for some of the other problems as well.

Also, you're going to want to separate your speech from your narrative, it makes it easier to read. When someone is talking, give them a paragraph to themselves, don't add it on to another paragraph unless that paragraph is giving more detail about what is being said. You also have two people talking in the same paragraph, and that really needs to be fixed to prevent confusion.

Get rid of some of the repetition.

"That all changed when we got older. We were in our teen years and seniors in high school."

This sentence is a great example of that, you're older, teens in high school. Great, it would make sense that you're older, and if you're in high school the likelihood of you being a teen is very high. you could reword it to be more along the lines of something like that:

"That all changed our seniors year."

See how that looks cleaner? It takes eighteen words down to six, and there is no repetition there. It flows nicely and the reader can get the idea in less words, with the same impact, if not stronger. There is a ton of extra words in this story, that do nothing but clutter the page. Trim the fat.

The story itself isn't really that strong either. Sure, you have someone that can see into the future, great idea. Her being dead is an okay twist, but there could and should be more to build up to that. It comes from left field. If you mention that when you were younger she had gotten really sick, or that she was in an accident or something like that, it may work better. Even if you say that the two of you didn't talk as often any more, and you hardly saw her, that would have a stronger impact. But as it stands now, it's just a echelon above "it was all a dream", if that.

Your characters aren't fleshed out at all, which can work with some stories, but not this one. Give at least the main character some depth, some emotions or something. You could do that if you go into how he feels about not seeing his friend so much, if you decided to go that route, or if she gets sick, how that made him feel. Get deeper into how he reacts to what his friend is doing when she is in the trance. What does he think about that, does it still freak him out even though he had seen it so many time? Does he ignore it? Give these people at least a little meaning so we can relate to them.

Here's a quick example of how to make this story better, with just trimming the fat from it and making it flow better. It still most likely won't be up to QS, but it will give you an idea.

"

I had a childhood friend who was a little strange. She would have spells when she seemingly would just stare into space, becoming completely unresponsive for a time. When she did finally snap out of her trance, she talk about the future. Back then, I didn’t understand what she meant, it was all nonsensical.

That changed when we got older. We were seniors in high school, school finished and we were walking home when she had a trance. It happened so suddenly, catching me off guard.

“Janice? You okay?” I asked.

She said nothing.

I tried to shake her out of her trance, but to no avail. When she snapped to her eyes drifted downward.

She said, her voice void of emotion. “You will die soon. It will hit you without warning, and your death will be slow.”

Disturbed by what she said, I took a few steps back, feeling like the ground just crumbled beneath me.

“Janice, are you joking?”

“It’s not a joke, Tristain. Have I ever been wrong before?”

No. She hasn’t been wrong before. But I couldn’t believe what she said. Surely this had to be false. I refused to accept what she said and started to cross the street. That’s when it hit.

Crash.

It hit like a sledgehammer. The sound of glass breaking rang in my ear as my world seemed to spin endlessly. Everything was a blur, and when I finally could see, I was lying on the road. Ahead of me, Janice stood still, silent. Then someone ran past her, and she vanished. Confused and disoriented, I called to her, hoping she was still near. Soon a crowd surrounded me. Everything faded to black.

I woke in a hospital, my family and friends were at my bedside. When my friend Tyler saw I had regained consciousness, he alerted everyone else. They were relieved to see I was awake and my mom wrapped her arms around me. Her eyes red and wet, pressed against my cheek. “Tristain," she said "thank God you’re okay. What happened?”

“Janice and I were walking home from school. Janice...she just stopped all of a sudden and said that I would die.”

“Janice?” Asked someone. Everyone looked at each other, puzzled.

“Who’s Janice?” My mother asked. I shook my head in disbelief. What’s going on?

“Janice, my friend that I’ve had my whole life.” They now looked at each other with concern. It was almost as if they thought I was crazy. Sean shrugged and looked at Tyler, who shook his head.

My dad looked at me and spoke softly. “Tristain, Janice has been dead for 10 years.”

"

That was just about a ten minute edit, and it makes it flow a lot better. There are a lot more things that could be changed, but I didn't feel like working on this story that much. It was just to give you an example of how to trim down what's not needed and things that could be cut to make it flow a little nicer. Take the time to read your story out loud and change anything that doesn't sound good. A little editing and rewriting can go a long way.

Hope this helps.