Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-28299494-20160721153421/@comment-28266772-20160722222318

“Pokemon Go” is a VR [it’s an augmented reality] game requiring you to move '[<- awkward wording – makes me think of moving house. I think ‘go’ would be better]' to different real life environments to catch virtual Pokemon. The game itself was a genius idea and had very good intentions, however very recently the game has been shutdown [shut down] due to many extremely disturbing experiences involving “Pokemon Go” [think you should just stop at ‘disturbing experiences’]. I have never personally played it, but my closest friend,Dallin, [<- missing space] has and never wants to again after an experience he had. Dallin’s story starts with his mom allowing him to go to a sleepover with a few of his other friends as long as he brings [took] his phone in case of an emergency. So Dallin listens [listened] and brings [brought] his phone, which had pokemon go [you should just italicize ‘Pokemon Go’ and keep the capital letters – it’s a title] on it. He arrived at the house, which had a very large field across the street from it, and went in. All his friends partied for about 5 to 6 [spell out numbers less than ten] hours until the host’s parents came in the room telling them they needed to go to bed now as they would be going to bed [I’d get rid of everything after the first ‘bed’ – it’s redundant].

So Dallin found some place to sleep and went to bed. According to Dallin, he said he must’ve slept for about 2 or 3 hours [numbers] when he was woken up by the host. All of the party members had been all [repetition of ‘all’] gathered up, all [again] having there [their] phone [phones] in hand when the host [maybe give this kid a name because ‘the host’ feels awkward after a bit] told all the grumpy party members that they would be playing some “Pokemon Go”, which cheered up most of the party. At this time, Dallin’s favorite game was in fact “Pokemon Go” [you keep repeating the name – you can probably find a better way to word this], so like the rest he went outside into the large field across the street. Dallin was in fact aware he wasn’t supposed to be out playing this game at this time of night, but he didn’t really care because this was the first time he’d played this game with other people locally. After what seemed like hours catching Pokemon Dallin realized he was alone. He looked around and he could [I think you mean to say ‘could not] find or see and houses, he was lost. He screamed for help, but no one came. Dallin then remembered that “Pokemon Go” could find real addresses of houses, but only if some has [had] captured a Pokemon. It was his only hope, Dallin was worried though. His phone was at very critical battery and he didn’t remember his friend’s address either [‘either’ feels like filler]. However if he found an address that was in the neighborhood then maybe he could find his friends  [friend’s] house.

Some one [someone] finally found a Pokemon but his phone immediately died as soon as the message popped up, Dallin was now hopeless. He just ran in the direction he thought he came from now in full panic. When he stumbled across an old seemingly abandoned home. He thought about what he was going to do but he had no other shelter for some distance so he went inside. As soon as he entered, roaches climbed all over him, Dallin had always been terrified of roaches so you can only imagine the fear that was going through him [this feels strange; you’re telling us what’s happening instead of showing us]. Once Dallin had gotten all the roaches off him he looked through the house. Except there was nothing to look at, despite there being only one chair or sofa, there was nothing [redundant/contradictory]. However, something caught his eye outside in the backyard. He couldn’t see very well since there was no power in this dump of a house. Thankfully he said he found a flashlight somehow still able to function but was pretty dim. So using this flashlight he went outside, and regretted doing so. [this all feels a bit forced] Outside were 3 [three] coffins and being curious, Dallin opened one. Instantly hundreds and maybe even thousands of bugs stormed out of the coffin, what was really inside [awkward wording; the body isn’t what’s ‘really’ inside because that makes it sound like the bugs weren’t] was the decaying corpse of an old man. He was extremely pale with only half of his face being [get rid of ‘being’] present, with the other being nothing but bone and rotten flesh.

Dallin immediately closed the coffin and ran back in the house, he didn’t want to know what was in the other 2 [two]. As much as he wanted to leave this house, it was the only place he had until morning. Thankfully the next morning he saw a neighborhood about a mile away. [He] Asked someone if he could call his parents and he was [got] home. To this day however, Dallin has never played “Pokemon Go.”

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So overall:

1) Frequent spelling, tense, wording, punctuation issues, redundancies, etc. Highly recommend you use spellcheck.net or MS word or find some other proof reading service, or proof read it extensively for common errors. These are basic mechanical issues; it’s best to try and catch them yourself early on.

2) Structure – you need to paint a picture with words. You don’t do a lot to create an atmosphere. You can read a lot of good stories on this site that show you how to do it using language, and even sentence structure. An abandoned house can be creepy, eery, lurid, desolate, abandoned, crumbling, rotting, vile, gloomy, ominous – to create a good atmosphere you need to convey how a place affects your senses. You don’t need to go overboard but some little touches like a ‘musty smell’, or ‘dripping pipes’, as well as two or three descriptors can do a lot to give a tangible sense of place.

3) Plot – So the general gist is boy goes to party, goes to bed, wakes up/plays pokemon go, goes to house, finds a corpse, runs away. I think this sequence of events isn’t particularly gruesome or scary. I mean it’s unsettling, but there’s no real threat. Also it doesn’t really tie into the game – it just causes him to get lost but that could have happened to any kid out in the dark who’s distracted. Try to find a way to make the threat and the game more strongly related. I don’t really know how since I haven’t played it and I’m not big into game pastas, but I’m sure there’s a way. Also I don’t think you need to put much time into explaining pokemon GO, you can just say what it is and almost everyone will instantly know what you’re on about.

4) Blacklist – so basically all gamepastas are blacklisted on this site. I don’t think the admins will let one through unless it’s super original or amazing. But there is the SOG wikia (a user came over recently and basically stated that they’re low on members, and always looking for new users so I’m sure they’d welcome some more gamepastas and an active user.) If not there’s always the spin off pasta wikia.

