Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-36157947-20180711195127/@comment-25569708-20180712045258

In addition to what the others have said here about giving your story a good proofread and getting the formatting corrected, I'd just also like to point out that any further revisions to your story should be made in this thread (which can be done by going to the bottom right of your original post, clicking the "More" dropdown box and selecting the "Edit" option). This way your pasta can be easily updated as you refine it.

I'm going to review your pasta a bit now, and be prepared, I'm going to be very honest. Please don't think I'm talking down to you or insulting your passion; I'm just trying to help as much as I can by speaking bluntly. Remember that I'm doing this all to help you as a fellow horror and literature fan.

As far as the story itself goes, I think DrBob put it very when he said everything here felt "light". Everything goes by very fast and without much build-up at all. The main characters are introduced very quickly within the first paragraph, a couple personality traits and names are hastily assigned and never mentioned again. The bulk of the story is just Martin obtaining the tape from the yard sale from the weird guy. None of this exposition about the yard sale is particularly interesting or attractive to me. They listen to the A-side of the tape with the bad music on it, then the B-side of the tape with the vague description of "feedback" on it, then Martin gives the tape to Kane (why did Kane want the tape anyway?).

Then you do a huge time-warp 13 years into the future (which comes across as very sudden and awkward mid-paragraph) and Martin comes to find out that Kane is apparently schizophrenic now and it's the tape's doing, as far as I understand. Martin says "and I finally found out what happened to him" but you never seem to share that with the reader. What exactly happened to him? Why was the ending so rushed through and vague? And how can we as readers be shocked or afraid of what happens to these characters when they haven't been built up at all (especially Kane)? And speaking of the "creepy" aspect of this story, I can find very little of that. That prime opportunity for scaring the reader here is in the descriptions of the B-side of the tape and the effect it has on Kane, but those are both pretty much glossed over and confusing.

I really think you should reconsider what you want to accomplish with this pasta and focus more on what would unnerve you if you found yourself in this situation. Describe it well for the reader, take them through the whole crazy situation (while taking care not to go on about unimportant things), make it believable, and by the end give the reader a sense of "Wow, that was an interesting/creepy story and a worthwhile read. I was taken on a ride by the author and they delivered on my expectations."

But honestly, all plot issues aside, what really kills this as a pasta is the choppy, unnatural, and disjointed flow to the sentences. The entire time I read this, I had to struggle to understand what was going on in the sentences. I want you to try reading this all out loud to yourself, exactly as you wrote and punctuated it, and see if it sounds natural and appealing to you. I think you'll find it doesn't. You're going to really have to nail down making it sound organic and well-structured, like writing you would find in an effective horror story. Take a look around this site (especially the Suggested Reading page) and read some of the excellent stories we have here. Get a good sense of effective horror writing and compare it with your writing often. Ask yourself, "Why does this way of writing make me feel afraid? What makes this writing different from my own? How can my own writing be improved by emulating these authors and their great stories?"

Normally I would point out all the grammar/punctuation/wording problems in a story, but I'm going to honestly suggest you start completely over if you want this pasta to work. If you decide to update it, we'll be here to give you feedback. I wish you the best of luck in your writing, boss.