Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-4893169-20141102235916/@comment-24040907-20141104010120

I liked this story! It was atmospheric, easy to imagine, and had a flowing dialogue. I could hear the voices of the characters in my mind, even the fluctuations of tone, and vividly see their expressions. Well done.

At first the varying stories being told about Ferrisville seemed scattered and unrelated, and I found myself repeating the protagonist “But what does this have to do with Ferrisville.” It was when you introduced Kazuki that the stories real entertainment came into play. I momentarily forgot about Ferrisville while you described this character’s weird habits and mental state.

I felt like a part of the discussion table, enthralled by the character’s tales of their weird classmates and Ferrisville. The occasional interruption (hackey-sack) drew me out of the trance, but reinforced the atmosphere of the story, which is important during long dialogue scenes.

I’ve noticed a recurring theme in your stories in which you require a lot of Suspension of Disbelief from your readers. Unreal things will happen in the story, and shock the reader, but are regarded as normal among the characters. I was well-pleased to see the characters react in kind with me during Patches story. "Whoaaah, massive acid trip!"

I noticed the references to Curtisville in this one. In my opinion, they may confuse the readers who are unfamiliar with your other stories. I can see their merit as Easter Eggs (they amused me, as an initiated fan of your work) but I would consider reducing their prominence.

This paragraph: “Patches downed a big gulp of her soup and refolded her legs. “The only things that looked remotely human on it was the ugly purple muu-muu that highlighted every spare tire and revolting sagging boobs and huge white tube socks and Crocs that encased the fleshy elephantine ‘tugboats’ that were its feet.” rhymed flawlessly. Biggie Smalls, have you returned to me? No, but in all seriousness, can I use this in one of my rap songs?

Concerning grammar:

In paragraph 27, you italicized Lady Gaga's lyrics, but continued this format until the end of the paragraph, describing the protagonist's thoughts and actions in italics. I'm not sure if this was intentional.

In paragraph 40, you use the word unexpectantly, the correct form is unexpectedly.

I'm not sure if this grammatical rule is practiced all around the world, but my spell-check software is pointing out that you scarcely add spaces after commas and after quotes. Example: "This is correct," said John. "This is incorrect,"said John.

Around paragraph 100 you wrote "Now when I say braying. I mean BRAYING" there should be a comma in place of that full-stop.

Around 99 paragraph you spelled eerie "eeire"

At one point Patches says "I only saw it. and the two people that came back from it," There should be a comma in place of that full-stop.

Concerning the contest you entered this in, I would have liked to see more of the story in the competition entry! There's so much more to it then what they'll get to read, even though it is unfinished :)! Anyway, I signed up, voted, I'm 98% certain it worked. I'll see about getting some friends to read and vote as well! Anyway, my friend, I wish you the best of luck in the contest, and I hope to see this story grace the Wiki in full form soon enough.

Rating 7.08/10