Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-30138523-20161004015615/@comment-28266772-20161004141357

 Below is an annotated version of your story:

 I write this to whom ever [whomever] shall read it in an attempt to find someone capable of fathoming the situation that my feeble mind is incapable of understanding. The severity of the situation is not to be doubted and this message shall be the only testament as to this fact. I still wonder how the events of a single night, no matter how fantastical, could shape the future in to something so horrid. I am writing this transcript of events because I can stand no longer the insidiousness of the thing which has terrorized me for no more than the passing of some fortnights. I write this now fully intending for it to be the last I shall ever take hold of pen and paper, intending [repetition of intending] for it to be the last thing by which I am remembered. Whether I be remembered as a raving madman or some poor soul perturbed by mental instability and haunted by unseen horrors, I do not care [pretty sure those two options are the same]. My life will be no more by the end of this god-forsaken [God-forsaken] night and whether my passing shall come by my own hand or by the hands of that black monstrosity, I can not say. I hear it! Now as I write this! In the walls! The ceiling! Oh god [God] keep that thing at bay so I may finish this warning I must tell to any who will listen! I do not dare cry out for fear it may find me sooner! I have an amount of time whose length is short to complete this before the monster takes me! '[It is hard to convey such crippling fear convincingly when the sufferer is sitting down and narrating their experiences. This is one of the basic rules of epistolary fiction. A good blog can be found here which helps offer in-depth advice on the matter. Remember how in Lovecraft’s Dagon he waits until the end to bring in the palpable threat? Same thing applies here. People don’t write when they’re in mortal terror]'

 Of the days prior to that night, which is forever burned with perfect remembrance in to my every waking hour, I can not recall much detail! '[Think about that sentence for a moment. It’s cluttered and confusing. It took me a few reads to realize that the night itself is burned with perfect remembrance, but the days before are lacking detail]    I had taken to wondering [wandering] the wood at any time of day I felt the need to do [so]'. Among the trees I could find solace no other could bring me. Not woman nor drink gave me peace from the constant pressure of study and endless harassment that came from my parents and yet the forest could free me from it! Like the open arms of a loving grandmother held to that of a school boy, the trees welcomed me! But it was in those very woods that I saw it! Those very woods I thought as a second home! [cool it on the exclamation marks] Those very woods by which I walked day and night, sunshine and rain! By those very woods was born a terrible summoning up of a beast from the darkest pit beyond human imagination! From those woods a lone negro man was to be seen covered in what I can only assume was blood, the belonger [belonger is not a word; try owner] of which I do not know! I watched that negro perform his dark ritual about a statue the likes of which I have never laid eyes! '[Seriously you need to remove the ! key on your keyboard for the sake of your writing] A black mass of muscle resembling an oversized baboon in body and [rhythm; there should be a full stop by here]' I dare not begin to describe the face of that beast which I have come to know so well! Oh god [God] how it stares not at you but in to the very soul of the damned whom its eyes shall curse with just but a glance! Around and around the negro man danced, faster and yet still faster! That statue gripped me, held me firm with those infernal eyes! I could not run I could not scream out the horror I felt and recall so vividly! It was then that the ever intensifying dance of the negro reached a climax! He came to so sudden a halt that I thought his blood splattered neck had snapped from the force of it! It was then that in one motion the man turned upon me with a fierce look and a shriek so unhuman [inhuman] that I was torn from my state of paralysis and thrust further in to a state so horrible upon being discovered! I ran! [you’re seriously killing that exclamation; there’s no need to separate ‘I ran’ from ‘discovered’ like this] Oh I ran from that place but still I was cursed! Still it followed me in to the night no matter the speed at which I ran! My flight led me to my home but no sanctuary was to be found! Only hell! Hell and the beast which guards its dark gate, black and disgustingly horrifying! Too long now has it toyed with my sanity, whispering in the night things I do not understand in a tongue unbeknownst to me or any living creature on earth [Earth]! I saw it! No matter where I found myself it too would be present! No one could see but oh my god it was there! HOW IT STARED AT ME! I hear it again! So close! My time is come! Here it is in all its horror crouched in the corner of my study! God have mercy it comes close no-

 Item No. 27859

 Found at scene of incident, appears unfinished.

 Charles Lefruen found deceased, entire upper body pulverized.

 Cause of death: Suicide '[How the fuck does someone come to that conclusion!? You can’t pulverize your own upper body so it just beggars belief to think that anyone would attribute this state to suicide. It’s the equivalent to: Cause of death? There’s a long bow arrow wound to the back of his head – must be suicide!]'

 - 

 Mechanical issues – Mostly capitalization actually (God/Devil/Earth etc. are all capitalized). And of course exclamation points. In an 800 word story you have forty exclamation points averaging (roughly) about one exclamation point per twenty fucking words. Obviously it should go without saying that the whole point of emphasising something is wasted if everything gets the same level of emphasis.

 Style issues – Whew nelly. Let’s come back to this actually.

 Plot issues – So this is a beat-for-beat Lovecraft homage. I appreciate that but consider how Lovecraft was surprisingly explicit in his descriptions (this thing is… a black baboon? Try comparing it to his description of the thing from the well in The Colour from out of Space) and he usually made his threats more palpable. Basically this guy walks into the woods and sees a black guy doing a dance and then…? Well nothing. And there’s your problem. There’s no conspiracy, no mythology, no monster, no threat, no actual events.

 Back to style issues.

 Style – So obviously the need for panic becomes intolerable. You start on full throttle and keep it there and it becomes more parody than homage by the end. Lovecraft never starts his stories with the protag literally waiting to die any second. When he does in Dagon it’s not revealed until the end, and also actually kinda fucking sucks. There’s a reason he basically rewrote it with the Call of Cthulhu. And in that the writer takes 267 words before he even mentions the professor and the actual plot because he’s safe in his study and able to take his sweet ass time. But anyway, let’s look at Dagon’s intro anyway because it’s basically the template for your story.

''I am writing this under an appreciable mental strain, since by tonight I shall be no more. Penniless, and at the end of my supply of the drug which alone makes life endurable, I can bear the torture no longer; and shall cast myself from this garret window into the squalid street below. Do not think from my slavery to morphine that I am a weakling or a degenerate. When you have read these hastily scrawled pages you may guess, though never fully realize, why it is that I must have forgetfulness or death.''

Sentence by sentence we have – I’m going to kill myself. I’m out of drugs. I have no money. Drugs made my life tolerable. I am going to jump out of this window. I am not a weakling/degenerate. You’ll soon find out why I desperately sought drugs. That’s… seven key points. See, Lovecraft may be famous for talking endlessly with big words and a vocabulary that could choke a wide-necked elephant, but he didn’t write shit for the sake of it. He was surprisingly efficient at packing a lot of information into those words, and he rarely repeated himself. In contrast your intro is three times as long and conveys nothing more than “I’m writing this because a monster is chasing me and I’m going a bit mad because of one terrible event”. There’s nothing else that’s really there.

Also y ou uh… you don’t actually reveal anything. You’ve fallen for the old trick in thinking that Lovecraft’s purple prose was the only thing that made him special. In truth he was an economical writer who knew how to establish a story quickly and effectively. He was also grotesquely specific! He gave us specific, distinct, and well described events/ideas while only occasionally dipping into vague ambiguities. Yeah sure we never know exactly how tall Cthulhu was but he still gives us an explicit description of the statue, and a long intricate description when the sailors see him too. Similarly Dagon is filled with distinct and obvious descriptions of size, texture, shape, smell etc.

<p class="MsoNormal"> In conclusion; you’ve made a good effort at parroting Lovecraft’s style but you make no attempt to develop mood/atmosphere, plot, characters etc. Those things are essential in Lovecraftian literature and you’d do well to look closely at how Lovecraft creatively uses language to build mood. Also here's a link to Mike's blog on epistolary fiction.