Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-26109347-20150214172104/@comment-26007602-20150214194411

Okay, I forced myself through it, it'd be a waste not to leave my thoughts.

First off, and this is huge, capitalize your sentences. The first word of every sentence needs to be capitalized. Also, you'll need to space out each individual paragraph, this includes the dialogues; you need a space in between each sentence. Your tense changes from past to present about half way throughout the story; keep it in past. Nix all the ellipses outside of dialogue; they are unnecessary and do not add the tension you think they do. Additionally, someone who is writing their story down is not going to attempt to be dramatic with ellipses. Also, nix the all caps "IT'S ALL MY FAULT"; unnecessary and unprofessional.

This does not read like a journal entry. There is no way someone who is fearing for their life will write this whole thing out. The fact that he dies in the middle of it is not only cliché, it is illogical. I also find it hard to believe that he remembered verbatim all of these conversations.

Here are some more redundancies and grammatical errors I noticed:

"It's started after a suicide. That was the start of it" First off, It started.  Second, You don't need the "That was the start of it" line, you literally just said that prior.

Second paragraph has a weird spacing issue in the middle of it where the narrator talks about the school shooting.

Let's talk story. Oh, the story.

I don't know where to begin. There's nothing remotely creepy at all about this story. The first half of it reads like a lame sob story (I don't feel bad or any sympathy for our protagonist, but more on that later),it isn't until the second half that you actually introduce our main antagonist, albeit very sloppily. You need to introduce Marcus earlier to ease more tension into the story (As it lacks any).

Introducing him halfway through makes me wonder what the purpose of the first half of the story was. It's mainly backstory, but not useful backstory. You could have summed up the first few paragraphs with the phrase, "I was truly all alone". I don't need to know that his best friend committed suicide and his other friend took a bullet for him. This is because neither event is important to the story. You spend a great deal of detail on these events instead of on the supposed horror that Marcus is supposed to be.

Let's go through the nonsensical bits about the story (This goin' be LONG).

If you're going to mention that his best friend committed suicide, then you need to go all in. If my best friend committed suicide, I'd at least write their name down. You can't portray this as an important event and then not elaborate on it at all.

I don't really like your inclusion of a school shooting here. It seems forced to add drama to the character's woes, plus it never plays into the story at all. Also, why would someone shoot themselves in the throat and then the head? Seems like you added unnecessary brutality here.

The main character doesn't seem traumatized by these events. You may say that he is, but you need to show it through his actions for it to be believable.

So you're telling me in the next paragraph, that this character's friends left him because he was different? After his best friend killed himself and he intervened in a school shooting? They seem like unbelievable assholes to me. Are they not affected by either event? I imagine everyone at a school would be affected by a suicide and definitely by a school shooting. This just isn't a good reason for them to leave him.

"We were walking into a store because jake wanted a slim jim..." First off, capitalize Jake. Second off, what? Just say they walked into a store. I have no idea who Jake is (You could at least introduce him as a friend) and the added Slim Jim bit just comes off as ridiculous.

Who hears about a school shooting, and decides "I need to shoot the guy who stopped it?" These guys are evil for the sake of being evil. You can have the character's friend shot in the midst of a botched robbery, but it's ridiculous that the robbers actively hunt our protagonist. Nobody likes a school shooting, not even other scummy people.

This protagonist is too strong. I don't believe that he was previously overpowered by the school shooter and then proceeds to take on two adult men armed with a gun. The fact that one of the robbers is too "Flustered" to do anything is also ridiculous in itself.

"I kicked him in the nuts." All likability for our hero, gone. Nobody likes a hero who goes for the weak spot. Imagine if James Bond disarmed every opponent by attacking their groin; he would not be the likable hero that he is. (I admit that this issue is very nitpicky; if you want a relatable and likable protagonist however, this needs to be addressed.)

"when I came to my friend was pulling me off of him." Who's this friend? I thought it was you and Jake? Is Jake alive or dead? Also, the fact that this guy beats the robber' face in is also a bit unbelievable. Bone is very difficult to break, especially the skull. You contradict this bit in the next line when you state our protagonist is the brains of the pair. He hasn't shown any quick thinking or cleverness, instead taking on every single bad guy on his own. I'd just switch his role with Jake's.

If you're trying to create an unstable protagonist, it's generally not a good idea for them to kill people that deserve it. That makes him more of a vigilante than a crazy person.

"... the reason he tried to shoot me is he didn't want to leave his daughter without a father." I see you're trying to create some sympathy for the robbers, but it just doesn't fall through. Also, this reason does not explain why he shot at the protagonist.

"One by one my remaining friends left and forgot about me." These friends are assholes. this guy has been through Hell, and they just leave him. At least we're back on topic to why he was alone now.

I think you need to introduce Alison's name earlier. It seems strange to wait to include it when she is integral to the rest of the story.

"the only thing that was worse than what I went through was that she was raped by someone she knew for many years and was actually her best and only friend" This is a run on sentence. Also, don't use rape so nonchalantly. I'm not saying you can't use it, but it seems rather tasteless to use as a way to drum up sympathy for the character. It will also offend a good deal of people.

"she cut off his dick and shoved it in his mouth while he screamed" Dude, what the fuck. This line is utterly ridiculous. It's disturbing, but not in the way you want it to be. I know you want the rapist to get his just desserts, but this is not only detrimental to the character (Alison never stands up for herself again), but also completely unexplained. It's a bad line. Get rid of it.

"it was uncharacteristicly cold for San Francisco" Uncharacteristically.  Also, you said this exact thing in the first line of the paragraph. Redundant.

"they decided they would have fun with Alison. and that threw me over the edge" There we go, just using rape as a means to move the plot forward. Don't do this. Or, if you must, put some more though into it. The second bit, "They threw me over the edge," doesn't make any sense. First, I thought they were on the ground? And even if they did throw him over the edge, how does he survive and climb back up?

It seems rather strange that our protagonist runs into so many bad people in the story. I don't think this encounter is necessary at all.

At this point, the story sounds like a power fantasy. Every conflict you introduce is immediately solved by our god-like protagonist. If that's the case, why introduce them at all? All he does is kill the bad guys and act like a badass while reminding us, "Oh, I didn't want to do it." Seems contradictory to the character.

What is up with Alison's reaction? She was almost raped and now she says, "No, let them go." Why? Earlier, she cut some dude's penis for raping her and now she suddenly wants to forgive them? No. Also, why isn't she at all grateful? She gets all dramatic, "I don't like what you've become." He just saved her life. And then he bags up the guns and leaves them there... okay? Why...?

Then Alison leaves. Okay sure. But why go through the part before that? The incident with the thugs adds nothing to the story.

And then Marcus shows up. I won't go into too much detail here, as I already explained this earlier. Marcus is evil though for the sake of being evil. If you give a villain character, then they must also have motivation. Imagine if The Joker killed people because "I want to rack up a kill count higher than Hitler." Ridiculous.

The ending is clichéd and pointless. It doesn't relate to the first bit of being "All alone". Marcus needs to show up earlier to be an effective villain. He also needs to be explained a bit more. Is he a ghost? You can't be too vague here.

That's certainly long enough. I don't know what to tell you. I'd recommend scrapping this story or heavily editing it.