Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-27533774-20160103052121/@comment-27551627-20160105171911

All in all, I thought this was quite good!

You didn't make the common mistake of overusing/explaining the supernatural elements of the story, which meant I kept guessing throughout the story. The writing style was pretty good, but there were a couple of things I did notice reading through the story.

First, run on sentences. If you have more than two commas in a sentence, it might be too long; try and find a way to split it up into multiple sentences, it'll make your story flow better. For example:

Personally, I would change this sentence to look something more like this:

In addition to shortening the sentences, I would recommend that you try and simplify some of the words and phrases. Being a little flowery in your writing is fine when you are trying to set the mood and setting, but making your wording quicker and punchier will help, especially near the end of the story. When Isaac is trying to flee the woods, you want to keep your writing shorter to help convey the urgency of the scene.

Most of the dialogue is pretty realistic, I don't really have any problems with it. One thing I would say is that the first half did have a bit of a problem with telling instead of showing. You established Isaac's fear of the woods in the very first paragraph, yet you keep interrupting the flow of the story to tell us again that Isaac was afraid of the woods. The more you take the readers out of the moment by giving them backstory, the less effective the buildup is going to be.

Another thing I would recommend is adding to the build-up a little more. Currently, the story goes straight from "buddy-comedy camping trip" to "gruesome murders" without really anything in between. It would help the pacing to have something besides Isaac's paranoia foreshadowing the later half of the story. For example, maybe one of them leaves the clearing for some reason and finds some tracks or a small dead animal. Just something to give the impression that they might not be alone before the murders start.

This is just my opinion, but I think you focused too much on describing the gore in high detail. Taking an entire paragraph to describe a mutilated body isn't really scary, just gross, and it kills the tension that had been building since Aaron's disappearance.

Just to finish off, since I know that this a lot to digest in one go, here's something that I've heard from many writers and english teachers: Read the story aloud while you edit it! If a sentence sounds awkwardly worded when you say it out loud, it's going to sound awkwardly worded to people reading it as well. Ideally, your story should flow naturally when you read it out loud, with all the elements meshing in a way that makes sense to an outside listener. Other than that, there may be a few grammatical errors, but those can easily be fixed by just doing one read-through and fixing any grammar mistakes you come across.

Once you clean up the story and edit it a bit, I would love to read this! I think the idea is solid and well-told, and if you just changed a few things around, it could really be a successful pasta. Good work :)