Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-32578898-20180413080109/@comment-9041013-20180413191433

FateMagician wrote: BloodySpghetti wrote: No wonder your novels never got published, mate, you somehow manage to write about a dozen a year, which is a formula for failure.

Seriously though, the narrator has flaws designed specifically to fit the narrative of the story, they are hugely undermining the character of this character. In reality, if someone were to write a shit load of books in such a short time, they would be obviously failing and not learing from the criticism they've recieved. I know a guy who's been writing a Frozen fan-fic for three or four years now, his plot is about the a couple of hundred pages long just now, and he's currently nearing his distignated finish line.

It's just impossible to write this much and such a short period of time and be publish-worthy. Not when you are a "beginner".

Also, your issues may be stemming from the fact that your proofreading isn't as great as you might be thinking and do not subject your works to peer review as I've found this sentence in your story " I could him (?) wheezing, the noise painful to my ears, and suddenly his right hand went to his mouth." I assume you were going to type in something like "see", "feel", "hear" or something of that kind. Perhaps you have more issues I've missed on the technical part. Go through it again just in case.

I liked your story and while the general conclusion was obvious from miles away, you brought in an original spin to it. I liked how the narrator ended up feeling some sort of phantom mental damage from breaking the deal with the soldier's ghost. It's far better than being murdered by a ghost and going bonkers crazy like people tend to be doing in this kind of stories. So props to you. Here's what I didn't like in perticular, why "this is what happens to those who break deals with me", I have a couple of issues with this notion, why is it only him and why are his deals plural? It kind of indicates that there are many people who're mentally broken by this particular ghost who seems to be rather enjoying abusing stupid selfish writers. Also, if there's a possibility for such deals, why can only a WWI writing soldiers can make them? if you wen't for "breaking deals with ghosts" or something I would like it more, but that's just me ;D

Overall, pretty good. Thanks for the review, and yes this actually has been proofread by other people before I posted it here in the workshop, but thanks for catching the things we didn't (the whole reason I put it on here after all, to let the wiki take a crack at it). I am new to the horror genre, myself being primarily a fantasy writer, and so this is some good advice. So what would you recommened for the main character so his fate at the end of the story is not so obvious? I have no qualms about making the story longer if need be. I would get rid of the devil comparisons, avoid any kind of "all else" until the climax, and try to somehow make the ghost seem as more of an actual dream personality. Maybe add some scenes where the ghost appears to be an actual hellucination, like him standing at the narrator's field of vision background nodding or something whenever the plot of this novel somehow progresses.

I've expirienced hellucinations a couple of times, they're not exactly clear, kinda transparent and tend to disappear whenever you stop paying attention. when it comes to fatigue or something of the sort, you could actually make the narrator continuesly staying stressed as a result of his nightmares, anticipation, day job and the so called hellucinating which eventually cause him to slip and go like "nah no need for dedication" (I would've added a mention of this dedication where you spoke of discussing the novel with someone, whether the agent or publishers or whatever and then go like "nah it's not important).