Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-28546665-20160525041810/@comment-28266772-20160525132837

Okay, first thing is you need to format your stories better. I always write mine in microsoft word and paste them into the wikia, it almost always keeps the same formatting. You shouldn't start each sentence with a new line either. It makes it hard to read. You should also format the date of each entry so it is clearer to the reader that they are starting a new section.

Second thing is you have a lot of simple grammatical and spelling mistakes. These would also be picked up on if you used Microsoft Word because it has a built in spell check. On top of that you should also proof read your work before you post it. A handful of little spelling mistakes isn't a huge deal, you'll even find some stories that were accepted which have simple spelling mistakes, but there are quite a few in this story. Enough that it hurts the flow of reading. Here are just a few examples:

"and he deducts my wage my twenty-five percent." I assume should read "deducted by..."

" Someone had removed my unborn son from her Womb" -> Womb shouldn't be capitalized.

"I stepped in to his front door and..." -> This should read "stepped through his front door"

" As much as I do work. I still only make six dollars a fucking hour." -> This should all be one sentence. Also, I'm from the UK and I could easily be wrong, but damn six dollars must be below US minimum wage, right? [just checked and it is]

There are lots of other similar mistakes. They aren't huge, but you would be expected to fix them if you would like your story to meet the quality standards.

One last point (in terms of grammar), and this is a matter of opinion, admittedly, but I think you use too many ellipses. They can be useful here and there, but there's just too many of them and I don't think they add to the flow of the story in any meaningful way. They're so numerous it feels cluttered, and their use stops denoting anything special around about the fifth time they appear.

In terms of story I quite enjoyed it. I had three major issues. The first is that once the main character finds his boss dead it becomes quite obvious he is the one killing people, so a lot of the tension is lost from that point on. You might want to place that reveal later in the story. Secondly the entire town being killed is a bit... over the top. Maybe if you brought the medication into it a bit more, made it clear that it was other-worldly, maybe even supernatural, it would explain how he managed to kill an entire town. And third, I didn't care for the introduction (the my uncle stuff). I think it's quite clear that this is a journal, it doesn't add anything to the story, it just stunts the start of the story

Overall I quite liked the way you built up the strange emotive aspect of it all, it felt surreal and weird, and compelling! Good luck with any future submissions.