Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-33904527-20190812004620/@comment-5733573-20190812150428

There's the idea of something interesting here, but it's not fully developed. Interestingly, the parts that don't add to the story are overdeveloped.

First, there is simply too much rambling information at the start of the story. The entire first third to half of it is exposition that could easily have been established in half the time you've taken to do it here. That said, for all the vividness with which you've written it, you could make the pattern of the visions a bit clearer and more consistent. I suggest taking the time to really describe one specific example of the premonitions in detail and the summarizing the rest in a paragraph. This will give you an intro of maybe three or four paragraphs before your story properly begins.

Since we're talking about the beginning, I wanted to quickly suggest that you cut the whole "I want to confess/write about my experience" part of the intro. It's hoaky and unnecessary and prevents the reader from taking the story seriously. You can begin more strongly by pulling us right into an example of the narrator's power.

At the moment, it feels like your exposition and your story were written by two different people. Once we get into the meat of the story, which is the black spot next to the sun, it seems like all of the vivid description we were treated to in the beginning of the story is abandoned and the word "fuck" is used to create a sense of panic. Consider the difference between the following two sentences:

"I blinked, and my vision returned, and all I could see was the sun slowly dissolving over the horizon, beaming bright, shining waves of velvet red into the sky."

"Out of nowhere, this huge fucking face appeared from the blackness above."

The first sentence is much more effective than the second. Not that there's anything wrong with expletives, but they don't replace clear description. Using the reader's five senses to bring them along for the journey will always be more effective.

Ultimately, for all the set up, this story falls flat. You introduce a situation without resolving it, and that's incredibly disappointing. It's all buildup and no payoff. If you're taking us this far for this long, you better have something strong and clear to end your story. Even if you spend your whole story leading up to an event that doesn't happen within the story itself, it should at least be clear what that event is and when it's going to happen. Otherwise, your story is just unsatisfying.

Finally, and this is very much a low-order concern, your tense shifts pretty jarringly. Pick a tense and stick to it. If your story happened in the past, stick with past tense. It will just keep the whole thing cleaner.

I really hope all of this helps. Your story needs some work, but the idea is good and it can definitely be developed into a great final product. I look forward to seeing future drafts of this.