Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-30229327-20161015042641/@comment-28266772-20161017161343

It hurts… The never stopping ringing [awkward wording that is clunky; try ‘never-ending’ or just ‘ringing’] in my ears and the pulsating ache throbbing from my head. I woke [woah you’ve just changed tense, keep an eye on that] up feeling these things [try to be specific when writing]. It’s dark. All I could see [hey another tense change] is the surrounding void of darkness around me. The best I could make out in my situation is that I’m laying down on a bed, and yet I don’t remember how I got here '[okay the tenses you use are incompatible within this one sentence. You can say ‘The best I could make out in my situation WAS that I was laying down’ or ‘The best I CAN make out in my situation is that I’m laying down’]'. It hurts to [too] much to even think. The vague scent of sickness and mortality, and the steady beeping beside me can only explain [doesn’t make a whole load of sense – I think you mean ‘can only be explained by] one thing. I’m in a hospital. And the darkness is only the cause of my eyelids being shut [other way around; shut eyelids cause darkness not vice-versa]. But I couldn’t move a muscle.

 Suddenly memories began [begin] to pop out one after the other flooding me with graphic scenes I do not wish to see. I remember vaguely of [no ‘of’] what happened, but the most I could get out was the sound of metal on metal, and a loud crash echoing from the inside of my mind [you literally just state that the guy is overloaded with images but now all he can think of is metal on metal?]. Then I saw myself flung onto the rigged road, facing my unconscious mother. We were in a car accident. Just the image of my mother like that upsets me. I want to go look for her, and hug onto her tight knowing that she’s okay. But I can’t.

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 Okay so before I move on ahead I’m just gonna skip to the end and state the following;

 Write in a consistent tense. As a beginner I recommend you pick past tense. '''Present tense is difficult. '''So just bear that in mind. Past tense is the default writing mode for a reason and that reason is that it’s the simplest to keep consistent.

 Carefully check your wording to make sure it makes sense. Write carefully, and deliberately, and proof-read your own work for these sorts of errors. Try to make your wording flow, and feel like it makes sense. For example,

“My mother came one day, but she wasn’t speaking to me.”

She wasn’t speaking to me -> This specifically indicates that the mother IS speaking, just not to the narrator in particular. It’s immediately obvious that what you actually mean is “but she didn’t speak to me.”

It’s rare to see a single sentence go past without one of these obvious wording mistakes and I simply can’t commit to highlighting every single one. Also use a spellcheck service like the one built into MS word or the free one on spellcheck.net (you can also install one onto either Mozilla firefox or Chrome). Try to be more careful. Presentation matters.