Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-25825682-20150606141940/@comment-26007602-20150731235533

It took me awhile to get to this review, but here it is.

"Haunted by everything that transpired, he began to think about his life and wondered was it worth anything." I would change the second part of the sentence to give it a better flow: "Haunted by everything that transpired, he began to think about his life and wondered if it was worth anything."

"The unreality of it all and numbness alternated with agonizing sadness."

"“They d-d-do whatever they can to g-get away (I'm not sure this is the correct term. They do all they can to get away from him?  Shouldn't it be something like to get at him?) from me! Eathan, P-Padma, Ken, my f-father and now my m-m-mom, what did I do to make them h-h-hate me?”"

"On the ride home, Alexander sat back in his seat, gazing at the window. Everything felt surreal, nearly every noise was drowned out. A darkened, phantasmal face appeared in the window. The face resembled the ghastly shadow. Alexander sat up, moving away from the window. He looked at Olemilia trembling weakly." I think you could have a more effective transition to the face on the window. There's no real build up to it, and something simple like, "He noticed something off about the window. Peering closer, Alexander saw a darkened..." would give it a better presentation than having it come out of nowhere.

Glancing over, “What happened,” she attentively questioned." Missing question mark.

How does the face resemble the ghastly shadow if you never gave us any description of it? You say the shadow had no discernible features, yet you equate the face to it. You need to describe on of the two, as I have no real image of what the face is supposed to look like.

“What do you want from me,” he shouted" I think you need an exclamation point or question mark (or both) here.

I popped the foreign text into Google Translate and found it to be Dutch; not sure why it's that particular language. Did I miss something earlier? I don't remember any Dutch-speaking people or families in the story, so I'm not quite sure why that language was chosen. Whether you want to translate it or not is really up to you. It's pretty cryptic even when it's translated, so it doesn't spoil anything. Well, I just read the part where Jack admits that he and Igia conjured up some demon thing using the book. I think you should go into a bit more detail here, as the current version is fairly abrupt. Discuss the desperation and emotions that led them to summon this demon, and the ritual that took place. You're throwing a lot of information at the reader and should slow down and explain it so the reader understands exactly what is happening.

"Observing his surroundings, he walks onto the porch and rings the doorbell." This needs to be in past tense.

I'm curious if this witch's ghost is a real thing or something you fabricated. I think the curse switching ability is a bit... convenient for the story. It seems like there should be a better reason why the curse switches people, something more than, "he heard his name."

I'm going to finish with this: you're introducing a lot of characters that are almost immediately killed off. Ken, Arnold, Alexander's mom, they all get their chance in the spotlight and then die. Jack appears, explains the ghost, and then dies. His death is pretty predictable, as most other side characters up to this point have been killed off (although I'd be quite surprised if Olemillia died). I wouldn't say that the predictability ruins the story, but I'd just be cautious writing this next section with Xavier, as if he dies, the story will probably come off as repetitive.