Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-28393265-20160926161646/@comment-24101790-20160926175804

Punctuation: Punctuation missing/improperly used in dialogue. “Just leave me alone(period missing)”, "“I know you’re in there. You cannot hide from me. You, are MINE”.", “I told you, you’re MINE”, etc. Remember that dialogue needs proper punctuation.

Punctuation cont.: "(It happened at exactly 10:00 PM(.))" If you have a complete sentence in a parenthetical, it needs proper punctuation and capitalization. "I arrived at James’es (James' or James's) house at around 7:35 PM", "it’s (its) red, piercing eyes", "I turn my head towards the cross, only to see the same sentence I head (heard) from James in my sleep". Additionally I would suggest cutting back on the ellipses as you use them 20+ times in the story and it really weakens their effect.

Wording: "He brought six cans of beer – Desperados – our favourite." Do you mean a mean a six pack. Six cans sounds a bit clunky. "While James wasn’t the most punctual person in the world, on that rainy evening, he showed up at exactly 8:00 PM – like clockwork." Using like clockwork doesn't make much sense contextually here as like clockwork generally refers to events repeatedly occurring enough to be predicated by time. "He behaved just like the people you see in the horror movies, but as I already mentioned, I didn’t believe in all the fairy tales, it was all bullshit to me." Comparing horror movies to fairy tales needs a bit more explanation here. ETC.

Awkward wording: "After ten minutes since his departure, I finally managed to defeat the boss on my own, however, the excitement quickly wore down as I had realized it has now been over ten minutes since James went downstairs to investigate the noise, and I didn’t hear from him yet.", "Goat like legs, thin waist expanding to a broad, human like chest. Horns sticking out of its shoulders and head… which resembles that of a ram, and it’s red, piercing eyes, staring right at me. It’s slowly extending its long arm towards me and...", etc.

Tensing: "I ran up the stairs, into the main bedroom to look out the window, to see what that lunatic is (was) doing and… he just stood there.", "As the door gets ripped from the frame, I can see James standing there, except he doesn’t look like himself anymore. He looks like the devil himself", "I fall down to my knees, feeling the same dread I experienced in my dream. Tears streaming down my face, onto the dark, blue carpet and at this moment, an incredibly sharp claw taps me on my back, on the same side where my heart is and I can feel every muscle in my body, flexing and relaxing rapidly, over and over again.", etc. Remember you are telling this story in past tense so it feels awkward to randomly shift to present tense (especially since the last given date is Sept. 30th, 2016)

Run-on/overly complex sentences: "As I was playing the game, I looked at my watch to see how long it’s been since he went downstairs, and it’s only been five minutes at the time, so I figured there was nothing going on and James just decided to have a cigarette’s all.", "After ten minutes since his departure, I finally managed to defeat the boss on my own, however, the excitement quickly wore down as I had realized it has now been over ten minutes since James went downstairs to investigate the noise, and I didn’t hear from him yet.", etc. I would suggest reading the story aloud and cutting down sentences and breaking them up if they feel overly long.

Story issues: The fact the protagonist repeatedly states that he doesn't believe in the paranormal ("I was never the one to believe in the supernatural (such as ghosts or demons).") makes his immediate jump to that conclusion ("What if James is fucked up? My first thought, followed by: What if James is POSSESSED?") seem really out-of-place. If he's such a staunch disbeliever, why does he immediately come to that conclusion (even before seeing the more spooky signs)?

Story issues cont.: "His eyes seemed… unresponsive, as if… dead. My first thought was that James had smoked weed again, which he allegedly quit, but surely I would smell it, had he really smoked some, right?" Comparing a stoner's bloodshot/red eyes to a dead person's feels like it needs more detail. Did you mean to say glazed over?

Story issues cont.: "I told the police what had happened, except I left out the more unbelievable parts… It’s not like they’d have believed any of it anyway, I know I wouldn’t. They wrote everything down and told me not to worry, one officer was nice enough to offer me a ride home too, just in case James was lurking around, waiting for me to get out of the house on my own." If the police took him down to the station, this should be mentioned. Additionally if you're going for a more believable story, you might want to flesh out the officers' investigation as they'd likely investigate the house.

Story issues end: The biggest issue however is that this story feels relatively generic. There's nothing really original about the plot and it hits a lot of the common tropes about possession (deep voice, inverted cross, super-human abilities, etc.) There are other issues present here, but I think this is enough to get you started.