Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-34296765-20160501030548/@comment-24101790-20160501202940

There are a lot of issues here so pardon me if I miss anything or fail to focus on any one thing in particular. Currently there are a lot of capitalization, wording, spelling, sentence structure, tensing, dialogue, and story issues.

Capitalization: Words improperly capitalized. "Most of Ted's life was wartime; His (his) country and the enemy nation were brawling once again.", "he paused and smiled gleefully, the smile of a drunken man pass Step (step) 3 of hangover.", "It was Day (day) 15 of the nightmares when Ted came across the second Trial Room.", "It was Day 27.", "5 (Five) days later, Ted barged into his empty bunker without turning the lights on.", etc. Proper nouns as specific places, names, trademarked items, etc. A number of the things you capitalized are just regular nouns.

Wording: "Ted was an alleged only child" (seems like an odd thing to mention), "the smile of a drunken man pass (past) Step 3 of hangover." (additionally, what are the steps of a hangover. If you're citing something, you might want to elaborate on it. Also, if he's drunk how is he suffering from a hangover. If he's been habitually drinking for long enough for the two to blend, that should be referenced.), "In fact, the bottom five children of each column seemed to already be dead, squashed from the weight of its (their) brethen (sic).", "That someone was bloodied and exsanguinated all over and seemed to be in great agony." Exsanguination is a method of killing that involves rapidly bleeding someone out. It really doesn't work in the story. " Every minute a tac (tack) floated from Ted's well-polished desk and embedded itself onto (into) his mother", etc. There are a lot of these, I would suggest re-reading the story to catch more.

Overly complex sentences: "He was excited to join and fight gallantly alongside comrades; However (however), when he told this to his mother, her normally serene expression darkened, and she pulled Ted closer to her and wrapped him in a tight embrace." Tense issues: "Whilst he was taking a breather as the enemy forces begin (began) to retreat, he asked his nearby friend", "He entered and he fell through a giant hole, like a (the) Rabbit Hole, falling faster, faster, faster by the second, passing steel and blood and chains which seemed to be all in a big blur, falling, falling, falling...", etc.

Dialogue issues: "For God's sake, your family could be dying writhing in flames and come back here and see if I give a single damn!" What exactly are you trying to convey here. It feels like you combined two separate sentences. "Hush Ted, I'm going to scope that enemy bitch there." feels more like something you'd here in a C.O.D/Halo chat than a wartime scenario., "Ted missed his mother's lullaby out of all the things her death has (had) taken away from him.", etc.

Story issues: "She taught him to be caring towards others and to not be bloodthirsty." is an jarring line. What mother raises their child to be bloodthirsty? Also how exactly does a random enemy soldier end up in their village? Are the countries side-by-side? How does one get drunk and randomly wander into a village? If there were an outpost nearby, it might clear up a bit of that confusion. A lot of the description also needs work. "it laughed like a demon from Hell." is a pretty generic description and really doesn't convey much. What is a demon's laugh like? Is it low and bubbling? Is it high-pitched and gibbering? Just saying it's demonic doesn't build a mental image.

Story issues cont.: The transitions need a bit of work. It seemingly jumps from his childhood where he tells his mother he wants to join the army to her death and then to to his service without much break or implication that time has passed between the events. This gets especially confusing when they seem to bleed together. "He looked around his soldier's bunk. Looked at the roped noose on the wall. But he reconsidered his decision. No, he thought. He would at least give his mother a proper keening funeral." Did Ted instantly join the military before even properly burying his mother? Why is he so offended that the general is nonplussed about the funeral when even he hasn't bothered to properly bury her and keen for her?

Story issues final: The entire room of trials aspect feels extremely similar to NoEnd House. In fact, I ended up pulling up the other story to read side by side and confirm it. The numbering the doors, room 9 in NoEnd House and day 15 here, etc. It just feels out-of-place and tacked on. While NoEnd house focuses more on the experiences, this jumps back-and-forth between the war and the dreams without them really influencing each other. It feels like you combined two stories here. One focusing on war and the other covering the dream sequences. They sort of connect at the end to result in his suicide, but there really isn't a trigger for them to start and what happens during the war really doesn't seem to influence the dreams. At first I assumed they were tied to his mother's death, but they seem to come later on in the the story.

Conclusion: This is going to need a lot of work. Besides the mechanical issues, there are a lot of problems with this plot. Besides the similar room concept to other stories, it also feels out-of-place here. I might even advise completely scraping this story and trying to re-write it with these issues in mind. Currently it really isn't up to quality standards due to numerous capitalization, wording, spelling, sentence structure, tensing, dialogue, and story issues.