Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-25947144-20150207182546/@comment-26007602-20150207190912

Alright, I've noticed a few issues here.

First off, your grammar is fairly choppy.

"It wasn't anything very strange at first. Just some random noises in the walls. Not even abnormal noises." This can easily be combined into one sentence giving the story a less fractured flow. ==> "It wasn't anything very strange at first, just some random noises in the walls; not even abnormal noises." In fact, there are many sentence fragments present throughout the story; ("And a plate simply broke when the house was empty", " But something prevented me from doing this. A blue, glasslike silhouette walking to the bathroom door." ) you'll need to combine these into more grammatically correct sentences to give the story a better flow. Currently, they break up the flow of the story and give it a choppy feel, not the suspense you're intending.

"It moved inside the house soon." This doesn't sound right. I'm not entirely sure why, but I think the past tense mixed with soon sounds wrong. Try this instead: "It moved inside the house soon after."

"The strangest of all was, maybe, that any open window would close itself." This also doesn't sound right. Try: "Perhaps the strangest thing of all, however, was that any open window would close itself." This line also doesn't make sense from the story's standpoint. Why is this the strangest thing of all? You highlight it, but it doesn't play into the story at all.

"The day I found out why those things were happening is a cursed and a blessed one at the same time." This line doesn't sound right either. Try: "The day I found out why those things was both a curse and a blessing.

"I love being dumb right now." This line just doesn't belong in a serious story. I get that he was lucky, but saying "I am dumb" in this case just looks ridiculous. Nix it.

Also nix the ellipses used outside of dialogue; they are melodramatic and unneeded.

I'm sorry, there are many more grammatical errors present throughout the story (Which would cause its deletion based on those alone), and I'd rather not go over all of them. You should run this through Word or any other word processor to catch them. These definitely need to be fixed in the final draft. Let's talk plot.

Unfortunately, this story is rather clichéd and at some times nonsensical. The whole "I was the ghost the whole time!" gimmick has been done quite a lot; you're either going to need a new spin on it, or scrap this project completely. I can see the poltergeist approach having some potential, but it needs to be developed much further. In this story, there is no end result to the strange things happening in the protagonist's home; you need some explanation as to why these events occurred. If Alex is the ghost, who is performing these events? Is it human Mark? Is Alex doing it? If it is, explain it. Also, what exactly is the silhouette? You seem to abandon this figure; is it Mark? Imply at its nature.

Don't start your story with, "Hi my name is..." This isn't an interesting way to start a story, nor is it particularly needed. Not every protagonist needs a name, and if they do, you can reveal it through dialogue.

The ending is rather weak as well. The protagonist simply goes to Heaven and leaves us some words of wisdom. It seems rather abrupt and unfulfilling; I think you could have done more with it, especially with the sign's message. "Welcome to the skyes (skies) of heaven. A place of everlasting peace in the power of your own mind's illusion." That's not actually too bad. You could totally use it to screw with the main character's head. Maybe it wipes his memory and sends him back down to forever haunt his friends in a cycle, unable to find piece. Or he could wind up trapped in his mind; a constant loop of his prior life (distorted and "creepified" of course). Just something better than, "I went to my happy place".

The story itself isn't very creepy. Some paranormal events happen to the character and then the story ends. It's too short for your attempted build up to work. You can't just describe some events and expect the reader to be unnerved. Give us the character's reaction and give us some more details as well. It's good that you included build up, but it needs to be expanded on.

Actually, that's a thing you should work on: your descriptions. Currently, they don't add anything to the story and are just there to give us the most bare bones details possible.

I feel this review is long enough. If you need me to expand, I'd be glad too. I can see the story having potential, but it currently needs a good amount of plot work and a complete grammar overhaul.