Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-25382945-20150926180900/@comment-26475800-20150927024847

Okay, so let's look at this again. This was much better but still needs a lot of work. On the plus side, you are willing to improve your writing and not get too upset about what people have to say about it. That is more important than being able to write well for the first few scores of stories you try to pump out. Trust me, it takes a lot of time and willingness to be told that you need to work on something before it is good.

So with that being said, there are some other things that I would like to point out to you. Nothing really grammatically this time, although there were a few errors in there, mostly added words or omitted words. When you rewrite this story again, if you plan on it, just read it over a few times, once out loud and once in your head, and you should catch all the errors with grammar.

The main issue with your writing now is you tell people what is happening and don't show them. With every emotion the protagonist felt through the story you said what it was, he was scared, in pain, yadda yadda. Don't do that. think of how you would act if you are frightened by something, what reactions will come to you? Some of the most used ones are sweaty palms, and rapid breathing/heart rate. Those things really happen when you are scared, no?

So instead of saying how scared someone was, use something like that. I know, if a person is scared enough they may feel sick, they may puke. Some people become dizzy, fell like the world is crumbling beneath them. Become so disoriented they have no idea where they are or how they got there.

So that is how you show emotion.

Now, showing surroundings is just as important. You can do that in a different way. let's take this line from the story and rework it so it is showing you something as apposed to telling you something.

"I proceeded to run outside of the school. I was horrified at the sight of the sky, this sky was a dark shade of red with many aggressive-looking clouds surrounding the black sun."

Now that tells us what the sky looks like, but what if it was written like this:

"I proceeded to run outside, my heart caught in my throat as I looked into the sky. A red glow was cast over the landscape as one of the crimson clouds passed before the black sun."

Or something like that. Remember this is just a quick example and not trying to be Shakespeare with that line. But do you notice how one passage is telling you what is happening while the other is showing you what is happening? It shows emotion as well as landscape, and brings the reader more into the story than just telling them what was happening. Don't you agree?

There is also another thing that you may want to work on, character development. This Ami person is of importance in the story, but she isn't mentioned until we are in the other world. Make some dialogue to go with the story. Build the people a little bit, flesh them out. Make a person in the story be cared for by the reader. At this point I don't give a shit about anyone in the story. In fact, it seems more like a ritual than a story, but than goes into a story.

All of that is fine, just make it feel a little realer.

As far as grammar, Mosh said that you shouldn't stop a sentence before starting dialogue. That is incorrect, depending on what you are saying.

If I am going to make someone talk in my story, and I feel that dialogue is one of my stronger skills as a writer, I normally always start a new sentence. In fact, I cannot think of a single time where I hadn't started a new sentence for someone talking. So, unless you mention that someone said, like one word and decide to have that person say it, always end the sentence and start it as a new paragraph.

It is okay to leave the spoken words in the old paragraph if it is a short sentence or something. But if you want to check out some dialogue I have a few stories on this site that are told in almost all dialogue. If you wanna see examples of that hit me up on my privet page and I'll let you know which ones they are. But that is neither here, nor that. You don't have enough dialogue in this story to really matter.

Punctuation needs work, but as I have been writing this for a while, I have forgotten where and how often it is bad. But the biggest thing that stood out to me with grammar was the duplication of words and sentences. Saying the same thing over with different words and just omitting words all together. If you read this story over before posting it you should find most of them.

keep up the work and you should be able to enjoy your story on this site before too long.