Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-26399851-20161001050122/@comment-28266772-20161003144704

Annotated version of your story below:

'[don’t state the character’s age like this – it’s your job as the author to convey the narrator’s traits such as age and gender naturally through their speech and language. To be fair you do a good job of this but still… get rid of the disclaimer]'

Alright, how am I going to start this off? agh! [Agh] I am never good at starting stories. Let me just tell you what actually happened. At 7:00 PM, [no need for comma]] I was looking at memes on google images. I just find it much more convenient than a meme website for some reason. So, I was looking at some good old rage memes, then I found this one about sleep paralysis. Not knowing what that was, I did some research on it, aka I looked it up. I found something about lucid dreaming too, and I found that it was where you could control your dreams. [this info isn’t really necessary] I looked up how to lucid dream on the one and only wiki how and found that you needed a few days to do the things that would make you lucid dream. Later I found a simpler solution and that was to go through sleep paralysis. I heard that sleep paralysis is pretty terrifying, but it only lasts for about two minutes. So, after reading how to, I lay down on my back, put my arms to the side, and waited. [all of this feels pretty uninteresting so far]

After about five minutes or so, I felt an itch. I ignored it as the website instructed me to and the reason being that they are signals that your brain sends to make sure that you are ready to go to sleep. Moving would restart the process. [why do we need to know this?] So this is where it got [gets] creepy. I finally got to the sleep paralysis stage and could not move. I just had to wait two minutes. That is when my closet door moved. It was open halfway before, but now it was completely opened [open; repetition]. I assumed it was my cat, but then I remembered that my cat was outside, and it usually sleeps on top of me when it is in my room. I could only move my eyes. I looked around my room and saw that outside my window there was something moving. I felt this feeling [felt this feeling is redundant and repetitive] that something was looking for me, but for some reason couldn't find me. Then a bright light surrounded me. I realised that I finally fell [I had finally fallen] asleep. All I could see was white. I was moving at will. I was in a lucid dream! And on my first try too. My excitement ended as the white turned black. I ignored it as it was not a problem. [a lot of boring details are all over this story] I tested if this dream was actually a lucid one [awkward wording]. I thought of something forming in my hands, and it appeared. An uzi. I am not sure why I chose an uzi, but I did. [I’m not sure why you wrote that last sentence, but you did.] I got so excited, but I woke up right after. [right after what?]

Suddenly the real world appeared in front of me as I jerked awake. I was sitting on a chair. I realized that I fell asleep on a table. [awkward wording] It was pitch black all around me. The only light was coming from the backyard doors that were made of glass [patio doors is a much easier way to write this idea]. I looked at the front door and I realized that the curtain next to the door was open. I walked to the window and closed the curtain. I was afraid that someone might have been watching me sleep through the window [repetition of window, curtain, door etc.]. I did not like it being open. I felt a sense of paranoia. I walked to the stairs that were to the right, next to the kitchen. I walked around the doorway that separated the dining room from the living room, kitchen and stairs. [unnecessary details/awkward wording] I saw a figure that I could barely make out in the kitchen. It was facing the wall with the stove. Suddenly it started to turn its head towards me. I quickly ran back to where I was before [where?]. I ran into something. Startled, I jumped back as I heard the clank of the object hitting the ground indicating that it was metal [awkward wording – why not just say ‘metallic clank’?]. My heart raced as I heard footsteps on the tile getting closer. I covered my mouth as not to scream. I could hardly see. And then I realized [what?], why was there light coming from the backyard door? [is this meant to be a thought?] The footsteps stopped. I was face to face with the creature. Its face [repetition of ‘face’] was like a blurred face [and again] of a human. It had long arms, longer than its body. it [It] grabbed me by my throat with its skinny arms that somehow could lift me [awkward wording] and opened what I assumed to be its mouth '[as opposed to what? It’s anus? What else could it be. There’s no need to assume anything]'. Its breath was cold and smelled like a rotting corpse. And it screamed at me as if it were in severe pain, "WAKE UP!!!" Its voice was deafening and hurt my ears '[how? How did it hurt your ears? You do nothing but tell us what’s happening but you never show us. You also need to really improve your vocabulary. You keep relying on really basic phrases to get the images across]'.

I jerked awake. I was in my bed. There was a ringing in my ear. I checked my alarm clock. The time was 4:39. I remembered the dream. I remembered the terrifying creature screaming at me. Then there was scratching at the door. It wasn't a dream. I felt a sense of dread. The scratching continued It wouldn't stop. I lay frozen on my bed. I imagined it again. The blurred face, the cold breath. The gaping hole that was its mouth. How it screamed like it was in pain, but enraged at the same time. How the curtain was open. [?] Wait, why was the certain open? Why was there someone behind it that I didn't notice watching me sleep on the table. Even if it was a dream, it felt too real. Suddenly I heard the meow of my cat. I felt relief. I got out of my bed and looked at the closet. It was completely shut. I let my cat in. It instantly rubbed on my legs. Somehow, I could see in its eyes that it was relieved that I was here. I closed the door and went back to bed with my cat on my stomach. [that’s some tonal whiplash at the end]

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Mechanical issues – plenty. Use spellcheck.net or MS word and proofread your work to pick up basic errors.

Style issues – basic style, no imagination, simple vocabulary and really awkward wording.

Plot issues – pretty basic, not much happens. Unoriginal premise.

Conclusion? You need to read more.