Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-28745016-20160614053623/@comment-28266772-20160614133327

So the formatting is good - no worries there, but there are still quite a few issues.

I'd say the biggest problems are to do with awkward wording and sentence structure. It's hard to put my finger on, but the brunt of it is this - you switch tenses, have awkward wording, and frequently rely on fragmented sentences.

"I rolled, tasting blood and, oddly, smelling smoke, and managed to get a look at them" -> this is an example of you switching tenses. Tasting/Smelling are present tense. But rolled/managed are past tense. The story is narrated retrospectively, so you should stick to the past tense, and that includes the abstract introduction.

"I knew it was coming – heard the swish of air displacement – but I was so startled by the thing I was worrying about actually actively intruding on my life that I was too slow to duck, and I got knocked face first into the pavement." -> This is an example of awkward phrasing. The sentence lacks a clear subject, object and verb, and the relationship between the various subjects/objects are not clear enough. There's alliteration "about actually actively" which serves no purpose other than to clutter, and confuse. And this sentence doesn't even convey that much info. The gist of it is "I knew it was coming because I heard a swish but I was too slow, and got knocked down".

" If they were nothing much, I was correspondingly weaker." -> another example of awkward wording. "nothing much" is quite a casual, informal phrase, but you follow it up with "correspondingly" which creates this jarring contrast. Ultimately, the style of wording harms the flow, and not in a way that helps the story (e.g. creating a sudden change in atmosphere).

"For not letting me stay up late watching movies, for not telling me they were proud of my report card, for anything at all, really." -> this is a fragmented sentence. This particular type of fragment is called a dependent clause, they are normally attached to an independent clause but without a valid independent clause behind them they don't make grammatical sentences and are, technically, not complete sentences.

"My children, perhaps." -> another example of a fragmented sentence. There's no verb in this sentence.

The guide linked Guide for Writing here offers greater clarification on sentence structure, and is quite informative.

Overall your style suffers from being too obtuse. Try to stick to simpler sentence structure, and always make sure your work flows. After a while you can practice with more abstract approaches.

Storywise I thought this was a very interesting premise, but it still had some critical flaws. You can split this story into three sections. The introduction. The beating by the teenagers. The monsters turning up. But these three sections are balanced poorly, and the events are too unclear. The introduction is too long. The beating from the teenagers also takes too long. And the bit with the mosters is way too short. Most people don't want to read abstract ramblings about the dark and imaginary monsters, and the teenage beating felt like it was artificially extended for the purpose of giving the finale more significance.

You build this story towards a clear catharsis, but you struggle to balance the constituent pieces in a way that keeps the pace up, and ultimately it doesn't feel substantial enough. Nonetheless, though, when you do get into the nitty gritty of the fight you write quite well. The descriptive passages are well done, and convey the chaotic nature of a fight efficiently.

So overall this critique has been bit rough, and negative, but the idea at the core of this story is a compelling one I recommend you persist with it. Feedback can often be discouraging, but everyone here is comitted to fostering a community where hard work pays off. So don't take it as anything other than the natural process we all go through.

Best of luck.