Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-31532017-20160918070231/@comment-31532017-20160928081054

ChristianWallis wrote: Do you remember when you were just a child while* walking back* home along* with your friends [this isn’t an independent clause so I wouldn’t use a semi colon here]; you all saw an old lady sitting quietly on her rocking chair in her front porch and staring at you all with an expression of what* seemed* to* be* hatred? '[awkward wording. Explained below.]'

Asterix means you can delete that word and the story makes sense

'Highlighted in bold means the wording is excessively awkward and can be rearranged to be simpler e.g. the old lady began to mumble -> the old lady mumbled. Here’s the first paragraph rewritten as an example. '

Do you remember when you were just a child walking home with your friends and you saw an old lady rocking quietly in a chair on her front porch while staring at you with an expression of hatred?

Deciding to be funny, one of your friends shouted "Crazy old lady,"! [Crazy old lady!”]at her and you all followed* him* and* did the same. After doing it like* you* usually* do* all* the* time*, you all [repetition of ‘all’] began to laugh loudly till you noticed the old lady began to mumble about something; and* after noticing it, you told your friends about it; to which they all told you to ignore it. [don’t overuse semicolons]

Once you all went your separate ways to go back* to your own respective houses [the word home pretty much means “your respective house”]; you felt as if the weather surrounding you has gotten [you’ve changed tenses here – it should be ‘became’ not ‘has gotten’] chillier and you felt the need to turn around; [simple rule, never use a semicolon more than once in a sentence and keep it to less than twice per 500 words] you did, but you don't [didn’t] notice anything behind you. Afterwards, you felt the urge [repetition of ‘urge’] to get back to your house as fast as you can [could]; as you kept going back to your house faster and faster; you felt as if there's [was] still somebody behind you, but each time you stopped running and turn [turned] around* to see if somebody is [was] following you; you'll [you’d] find that nobody's [was] behind you.

As soon as you arrived back to your house; you immediately locked the door behind you [repetition] and checked through the peephole to see if there's [was] anybody outside; but you still see nobody [okay let’s just roundly agree that you’ve swapped tenses and need to keep them consistent]. Thinking you're safe, you decided to head back to your room and rest; as soon as you turn around, you began to hear soft banging noises on the door; deciding to check it out to see if your parents had came [come] back from work; you peep through the hole only to see what appears to be; a quiet neighborhood. [okay I’m officially banning you from ever using a semicolon again – you’ve used your lifetime supply]

Feeling more and more creep [crept/creeped] out; you decided to head back to your room like you intended; but as soon as you turn, the banging noises came back; deciding that you had enough, you desperately attempt to ignore it; but as you walked closer and closer to your room; the banging on [the] front door gets louder and louder; you panicked and hurriedly run back to your room and locked the door.

Inside your room; you began to feel as if the banging is coming from the outside of your room; you tried to open your room's window in an attempt to call for help; only to find it stuck and you can't budge it one bit; you then decided to call your parents only for you to realized that you left the phone in the living room. Without any [way] to call for help; you decided that your only hope is to stay inside your room and hide under the bed sheets.

As you hid under the bed sheets; you began to feel tired till you fall asleep; however you began* to have terrible nightmares about a figure you've seen before; but can't make out what it is. You have awoken next morning after your parents called you to come down stairs to have breakfast; you breath [breathe] a sigh as a relief; as you walked down the stairs, you felt as if everything was supposed to be the way it is.

Once you sat on your chair to have your breakfast; your mother stops you to tell you that you had left something in front of the old lady's house yesterday; she hands it to you and it appears to be a candy that you had bought on that same day and a small note as well; you felt relief about the whole situation regarding the old lady; as you walked towards the trash bin to toss the wrapper around the candy that you had removed to eat the candy; you decided to open the small note; and it said.

"Think before you speak, the next time you see me."

-

Mechanical issues – epically numerous. You switch tenses like eight times a sentence and butcher the semicolon. Can I recommend just sticking to past tense? It’s much simpler. Make sure everything is in the correct tense to save yourself future effort.

Styles issues – it takes a special amount of effort to make something compelling with this many grammatical errors so take it as a complement when I say I still got immersed in your story. Nonetheless the excess of redundant words hurts the story severely.

E.g. as you walked towards the trash bin to toss the wrapper around the candy that you had removed to eat the candy; you decided to open the small note; and it said.

Can just be written as…

<p class="MsoNormal">As you walked towards the trash bin to toss the wrapper you decided to read the note. It read, “blah blah blah etc.”

<p class="MsoNormal">So in the future practice more efficient writing and keep things simple.

<p class="MsoNormal">Plot issues – nothing really happens. The atmosphere is great but these kids piss off an old woman and… their doors are knocked aggressively? Might wanna do a bit more with the premise.

Thanks for the info 'bout the rule regarding the use of semicolons, and I think I have completely fixed the plot/mechanical issues that you had pointed out.