Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-36095001-20180827055951/@comment-36095001-20180827194229

Underscorre wrote: Hi Xernhacks, I've taken a look through your story and I'm afraid it has a few issues right now.

I'll begin with the technical/grammatical stuff. You need to pick a tense and stick with it. Currently, you alternate between the present tense and past tense - see the first paragraph, where you go from "she was usually an introvert" to "she is 20 years old". It's very jarring to read, and doesn't really make much sense. This issue is present throughout the story. Similarly, you can't alternate between first person and third person with no clear separation between the two. Up until the knock at the door, the story is told from the perspective of a third-person narrator, then it suddenly switches to being told in the first person. I'd suggest sticking with third-person currently, to avoid the plot issues introduced when a first-person narrator dies.

There are a couple of occasions where you use punctuation incorrectly around dialogue. At the end of a quote, if there's a dialogue tag and you're going to use a period/full-stop, you should instead use a comma. You should also not capitalise the first letter of a dialogue tag unless it's a proper noun. So, where you've said, ''"I should make a sandwich. I'm hungry." She said., you should instead write, "I should make a sandwich. I'm hungry," she said. There are some other minor issues with spelling (tryed should be tried'') and capitalisation, which I'd advise you to fix using Word or an alternative tool.

Moving on to your wording, a key issue which I believe has been mentioned before is that you need to show information to the reader, rather than telling it to us. Some examples include "She was usually an introvert [...] She is 20 years old and goes to college", "It was quiet, peaceful area", and "I should make a sandwich. I'm hungry". Listing off information like this is very boring to read. Think about how else you could reveal this information to us. Instead of just telling us that Ava is hungry, you could explain that her stomach rumbled (just an example, don't use this, it's not very good). Revealing information in this way can actually also help to make her character more relatable.

There's some awkwardness in the way you've worded things at times. For example, you say, "the window above her has a shadow," and, "Confused, since clearly she was a grown woman, she looks in shock." This kind of wording doesn't really flow well as you read through, and is actually confusing to read in the first/last paragraphs. At these points, I was a little unsure what was going on. Try going through the story and reading every sentence out loud, I often find that this immediately highlights where things just sound off.

With regards to the story itself, there's not a huge amount here to talk about. Like BloodySpghetti has told you, you need more. You've bemoaned filler before, but it is actually very important in a story like this. Horror is most effective when we actually care about the characters involved - that's why lots of horror film franchises (Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th) lose their fear-factor. By the 10th instalment, there's no effort to get us to relate to the characters. So, when they die, we don't care. Your story faces a similar issue. Ava is very bland right now, but you could work on some aspects of her personality (how introverted she is, for example) to make her more interesting. You can also use the filler to work on the build up. Right now, the story feels rushed. We go from the texts straight to the killer arriving at her place. You can afford to draw things out a bit, focus a bit more on Ava's emotions to increase the tension.

Bloody has already mentioned this, but why would Ava even open the door, having been told there was a dangerous person on the loose? Especially to a stranger, this action feels very strange. It's also unclear what the killer's motivations are. Is he looking for someone who can deal with stabbing themself? Why? The killer could possibly taunt/play with Ava before killing her, revealing some more about why he's doing this.

There is definitely potential here. The idea of being alone in an isolated house while a killer pursues you is inherently scary. You just need to fix the issues outlined by myself & others above. Best of luck with it! Dear Underscorre,

Thank you very much for the feedback and examples, they are much appreciated. Since I don't really know what to add, the story ends up short. But I promise as I keep rewriting the drafts it will become more promising.

Forgive me for my grammar issues. I am 12 years old and usually rely on my mom for this--who didn't go to school very much. I am very thankful you explained what was wrong. I will fix this in the next draft. I also was unsure about tenses, but this explained a lot.

You have also given me some great ideas to expand the story/world. And I will fix the confusion issues.

Again, thanks for your time to help develop this story more.