Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-9041013-20180724081137/@comment-35711173-20180727174340

Bloody Spaghetti,

That doesn't sound like someone earnestly praying.

I know you are an atheist and dislike any higher power. Think of it as any other physical place that is well known to the audience. If you were writing of a professor lecturing about the incident, you would use a different tone and have certain phrases that professors use. If you were writing of the guy relating exactly the same story to his psychiatrist, it would use yet another tone and there would be different words to frame the incident. If he were being interviewed on TV while promoting his book it would be different still. You need to get that sincere emotional connection of prayer, the pleas for mercy.

You need to have it Russian Orthodox too. A Russian Orthodox person in private prayer will use different phrases with it than a Roman Catholic or a Southern Baptist would, even if the whole incident is identical.

If you can't research the culture and language of prayer then maybe a psychiatrist would be easier for you.