Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-27857924-20160321054104/@comment-24859608-20160321143810

EmpyrealInvective wrote: Forgive me if I overlook anything as there are quite a lot of issues here. I would strongly suggest proof-reading your stories before posting them as you've had a couple deleted so far. There's awkward wording, capitalization, punctuation, typos, and story issues present here.

Awkward wording: “He always blamed his misfortunes for his sick behavior.”, “As it ate, jagged teeth it must have been born with had begun to fall out, making way for more humanlike ones.”, “The thing exchanged a quick glance a Jones.”, “It gnawed at his bone and wriggled comfortably under his skin.”, ". Despite his attempts, and with tears welling up from a combination of pain, frustration and desperation, the worm appeared unfazed.", etc. I would suggest reading the story aloud and finding areas where you stumble as these were present through-out the plot.

Punctuation issues: You also tend to use periods in quotations when you should use commas. A period should only be used if it concludes the entire sentence. ““Now listen. This doesn’t have to get messy.” Jones said.”, ““It’s true.” The (the) man said.”, ““Your villainous deeds end today.” The hero said”, etc. “But boss. I thought we were going to take the dame, not her money.(?)”

Punctuation issues cont.: Apostrophes missing from contractions. “Wont they boys?”, “You wont have to worry”, “It wont be long before the world meets my new sidekick.”, “Why cant ya just mind ya own business?”, etc. You tend to shift between using apostrophes in other contractions and having won't without. As won't (will not) =/= won't (a person in the habit of doing something; accustomed.)

Typos: “Yep. Just fork it over, and nobody has to get hurt. Compeer.”, “echoed through the ally (sic)way.”, “Despite how many criminals Stipendo man caught”, “He lunged for the opening to street beyond”, “something about is face seemed off.”, “Jones grabbed a nearby rock an desperately tried to crush it.” etc.

Capitalization: You have a tendency to improperly capitalize words. ““You Idiot.” He (he) said.”, ““Not so fast!” A (a) triumphant voice,”, ““Boss. It’s him.” One (one) of the thugs”, “ya own business?” He (he) said.”, etc. Not capitalizing proper nouns. “decided to help earth (Earth) by fighting crime.

Story issues: A lot of the dialogue is awkward and feels clunky: “Consider you final moments to be redeeming in a way.”, "He will devour you as slowly as possible to preserve your tenderness.", etc. You also start the story by giving Jones an accent and then seemingly abandon it halfway through.

Story issues cont.: A number of times your description feels out of place and needing explanation. “Its eyes appeared more controlled and thoughtful and its hands looked more human, though they looked more like the hands of a witch.” What exactly do a witch’s hands look like. It’s like describing a voice as ‘demonic’, is it the tone, the manner of speaking, the style, etc. that gives it that appearance? Finally, you take a long time to get into any sense of horror in the story. In fact, when I first read it, I assumed you meant to post it to another site entirely but mistakenly posted it here. This gives the horror element at the end an added on feel.

I'm sorry, but there are a lot of issues present here that were overlooked (wording, spelling, punctuation, capitalization, etc) that when combined with the story issues makes for a story that is not up to quality standards. To add on what Empy said, you started the story with little exposition. Try to paint a picture first.