Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-30891328-20170903003758/@comment-32461413-20170903032624

This certainly is an eerie story. I quite enjoy the concept of strange events happening causing everything to go wrong. While I think your ideas are good, I do have some ideas for you to consider for improvement.

First off, the grammar is a bit of an issue. Punctuation is used incorrectly (such as commas outside of quotations), you used "they're" in a place "their," and sentences tend to be a bit lengthy. Also remember that when you change speakers, you always start a new paragraph. To help combat these issues, proofreading definitely helps. Using resources such as Grammarly or even Microsoft Office Word would be beneficial as well. I find that the style guide is a great resource to fix common grammar mistakes. Also, please note that your title is not capitalized properly.

Avoid using obvious words. You use the word "said" in describing someone's speech, try to be more expressive. "Said" is overused and is a stiff word at that.

Getting into the story, I am not fond of the introduction. It feels cliche and a pretty obvious way to begin a story as well. My suggestion is to just begin the story. Let the elements of the introduction find their way in; they should go without saying essentially. The introduction ruins the flow and and is not captivating; you want the audience to be hooked on your story from the beginning, and the cliche preface is a bit of an impediment.

Why are the events of the town transpiring? There should at least be some subtle hints as to why. Why the town specfically? Why are some people affected and others are not? You don't have to kill the mystery by explaining the whole thing, but your story would be a lot more dynamic if there were some material to make theories. Of all of my critiques on this writing however, this one should be the lowest priority. Even if you don't use this advice for this particular story, in the future, doing this could be beneficial.

You should be a bit more expressive in your writing as well. I mean, this guy's wife killed herself and it is almost as if he doesn't care that much. The only mention is that he has to work overtime. Try to work in some emotion, otherwise, I get the impression that this guy just didn't love his wife that much.

Some details don't service the story much and should be removed. Mentioning the dog and even the fact that the girl enjoys her imaginary world don't serve much of a purpose.

It seems like this guy knows that the problem is only present in his particular town. Why wouldn't he leave? There should be some kind of rationale that he wouldn't leave his house and go somewhere safer. I mean, most people in town are experiencing these creepy events and his wife killed herself as well as people are vomiting eyeballs. I can't say I would stay very long in a place like that. Try to think of ways to justify the fact he can't get out.

Overall, with some work, I think you have a compelling story. Just work on developing the characters, plot, and setting more to give us a fuller understanding of the world; stronger description will help out a lot. Covering up the plot holes and fixing grammar issues will go a long ways as well.