Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-24466828-20151031185433/@comment-26112985-20151103014202

I must apologize for the wait that came shortly after your message on my talk page. I won't bother you with the gory details, save to say that I have been pretty busy lately, and haven't had a whole lot of time to spend here on the wikia, which is a shame, since I really need to get BanningK's Top Ten list out.

Well, I have to say, this is a good beggining to your story here. Is there room for improvement? Oh yes, most definitely, there almost always is, but all the same there were aspects here that I liked.

I've left a list of suggestions on what I think you should change or try to do better on.

SUGGESTIONS

-You said you were considering a title change, and I would advise you to do so, as it is the title is a bit cliche.

-Try to get a bit more word variety in there. Go over your story once again and pick out words that you've used more than necessary, or, words you have used twice in one paragraph. Then, use a thesaurus to replace an overused word with a more appropraite one. I noticed that you used the word "I" at the beggining of many of your sentences. This is a problem, and you should try and reword a lot of that so it is not as redundant.

-Get a bit more descriptiveness in there. You missed out on some great chances for imagery in some places. Talk about how the hooded figure looks. Is he threatening or intimidating? Is he wearing gloves or boots? Near the end, we never get to know what the figure looks like, even when our main character is smashing his head in with a rock.

-Should we know more about our main character? This really depends on how long you plan for your story to be. If its going to be legthened out a bit, you need to include some character development, but if it remains short, putting in too much of this can seem forced. We saw how this character was eager to beat the shit out of this guy in the hood, could you capitalize on that a little? Does this character have anger issues, or something of the sort?

-The whole setup of this pasta is truly classic, and one of the things I really enjoyed. It reminded me of the slasher boom of the 1980s... character goes for a relaxing hike in the woods, only to be harrassed and tormented by a mysterious man wearing a hood. Was this intentional? If so, maybe you could expand on this style. Watch some old school slasher films (I can reccomend a few if you don't know any) and try to fit the style of those movies into this story.

-There were a few minor grammar errors in this, mostly fragmented sentences, but nothing too large. I'm sure you can catch them if you go back and proofread a bit more.

-Maybe we should get an idea of the location where this main character decides to take his hike. Giving you story a setting can help it quite a bit, as it adds a layer of realism. All my pastas take place in North Carolina.

-Finally, it would probably be best, when you are using numbers, to actually spell them out manually. Instead of putting "20" in your last paragraph, replace it with "twenty."

I'm glad I got a chance to review this pasta, and hopefully give you some helpful tips. If you ever get a part II up, leave a message on my talk page, and I'll be more than glad to put in a word of constructive criticism (