Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-6822927-20190331022511/@comment-6822927-20190403164809

Thomas Scriven wrote: RedNovaTyrant wrote: KingSparta300 wrote: Thanks for the response. I will admit, this story was written in a bit of a rush on mobile so I intend to do some rewriting, spruce it up a bit.

Kind of disappointed with the part about the púca, though, so I intend to heavily rewrite that. And I did write the story itself, so I am not sure how copyright would be an issue. This is where I was more concerned about the copyright stuff, in the sixth paragraph:

''It is therefore with this understanding that from this moment on, stories or postings from Reddit are no longer allowed. Any current Reddit stories will be deleted and there will be a new posting policy added to the site rules that will clearly state this. Reddit uses an incompatible license, a copyright and not Creative Commons.''

I'd contact an admin or someone with better knowledge than myself for verification. To clarify - as I scrolled through and read the comments on the copyright post as well; you can post content from Reddit onto the Wiki, however, you will be releasing the works into the Creative Commons license, which differs from the copyright license that r/NoSleep and it's 'satellite' subReddits utilize. Some authors may have issues with this, which is why it's clearly stated in several different parts of this Wiki that it's set up this way. If you are still confused, I would definitely contact an admin as stated above.

As for the story itself: To start, I rather enjoyed the tale, but as Spghetti stated - it's truly not scary enough for this site. There is some creeping sensations, but no truly horrifying sequences. You chose an incredible subject that could easily instill terror - even if you were to follow mythology to the letter, Faeries can easily become scary; I would personally expand upon that more.

As for a proper grammatical review (and I'm definitely being nitpicky here, so stick with me): The formatting of your paragraphs is honestly an eye-sore; should you truly wish to post your works on this site, I highly recommend moving away from the typical Reddit style of chopped up paragraphs made of one or two sentences and focus on longer paragraphs. To this point, though, you need to be very careful not to have "walls of text."

In the following sentence fragment, the word "signed" should be changed to "sighed" - unless, of course, your protagonist was using Sign Language. -- "'Yes, yes,' I signed, ..."

The introduction of Aoife is mediocre, at best - and it fails to properly give her much of a personality. I understand that she's a beautiful woman with some quirky physical qualities, but why is the protagonist approaching her? What are his intentions in the situation? Why does she reply to his quarries with simple answers - particularly the somewhat annoying 'yes'-s?

In the following sentence fragment, you are missing a word after 'led' - try adding either "me" or "us." -- "'Then she led to the very center...'"

Why is there no proper description of the other 'party-goers'? What is the reason for him being so unable to view them? I understand he is distracted with Aoife, but so much so that he doesn't even see something incredibly simple on their personage is unbelievable. And to be fair, I suppose it could be the works of magick, but perhaps describing them as blurred or 'out-of-focus' rather than completely indiscernible to his eyes.

In the following sentence fragment, you are missing the word "for" after the word 'save.' -- "'...another sound, save my lady's voice.'"

Despite being someone who knows quite a bit about mythology, I lack knowledge of Gaelic haunts and the significance of the púca is lost on me; perhaps you can try explaining in more depth what each of these fay creatures is and how they affect the protagonist? This will help allow your story to reach out to a wider audience, and avoid comments that state your story is bad because the reader doesn't understand a certain plot point.

Again, it is good and I enjoyed reading it, but I would say you can definitely get away with a heavy rework to refine the smaller details; you have the larger plot set in stone, but it's the minute points that need to be rechecked. Thank you for this. I knew there were problems with grammar I missed, as I have dysgraphia and that happens a lot.

As for Aoife... eh, she's one of the fey folk, so giving her an exact personality is a bit hard to do so. In essence, Aoife uses her magic to distract out nameless protagonist and lead him astray, as she is genuinely in love with him. But she is a fey folk, so... her version of love is very different from our own. I also wanted to imply she's the queen of the fey folk, given she sits at the head of the table.

Yeah, I do think I should go into greater detail about having magic be used to explain why our main character cannot remember the faces of the other party-goers, making them distant shadows compared to Aoife's seductive magic.

The púca I was disappointed in, so intend to expand upon it heavily. It's a shapeshifting fey which takes the form of a horse with yellow eyes, eagle, dog, probably some stuff I am missing as well. Known for being very violent and wrathful when it can be. Ever seen Darby O'Gill and the Little People? There's a púca in that. Actually, I could use that version of the púca as a basis for this one.

I do intend to heavily rework this story, paying special attention towards getting across how horrific it would be to find yourself missing two years of your life without noticing because you've been spirited away to a party of the Good Folk.