Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-26364938-20150503232030/@comment-26007602-20150506155847

Alright, I'm on my phone, so I can't really go over every single grammatical error efficiently. You need a new paragraph whenever the speaker changes, you need to capitalize the start of every dialogue, and you don't need a space before a comma. You shouldn't use all caps to denote screaming, as it looks highly unprofessional when an exclamation mark would suffice. Put this thing through Word or some other processor, or wait for some other user to point out all the grammar errors, as I can't get them by myself right now. They do need to be fixed, as their presence severely damages the story.

The story itself has issues. There's absolutely no tension in the beginning two-thirds of the story. This is a huge problem, as the first two-thirds are full of irrelevant information. There is absolutely nothing there that matters to the plot, besides the fact that he didn't go on the trip. I don't need to know about how much he hates his AP environmental teacher, nor how cool his dad is. Neither of these things relate to the "horror" of the sorry, the dream that comes out of no where. You should cut those entirely, as they add nothing to the story; many readers will stop reading because that part is just not interesting.

As for the dream, again, it comes out of nowhere. You need to build up to it. There's nothing particularly creepy about it either; same with the news report. The gas explosion that killed ninety students is a very convenient plot event. Far too convenient. I don't really care about all these students killed, nor our characters loss, as I don't relate to our character; he has no real memorable traits and whines about everything. I highly doubt that ninety students would be killed in such an event. The news station would not show this graphic footage either. And it's just not scary.

I'm sorry, I just don't see how you can make this scary. There's no tension, no build up, and the final event isn't creepy. The story's plot is basically: kid doesn't go on trip, his friends die on trip, he sees them In a dream. There's no elements of horror in here; supernatural, sure, but no horror. Maybe someone else has some idea, but I can't think of a way to make this work.