Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-26294511-20160926114918/@comment-28266772-20160927153144

Drew looked up at the old hospital, shining her torch over the windows of the lower level. Half an hour, she thought. The bet was half an hour. '''That's all. Not all night'''. She let out a breath, looking behind her at her friend, who was sitting in the car. Her friend, Charley, gave her an encouraging look and waved towards the building, telling her to just hurry up and get this over with so we can get home. [You keep confusing the third person narrative and the characters’ inner monologues – I’ve highlighted these areas in bold above]

The Bet [bet] that she was thinking of was that she couldn't spend half an hour in the supposedly haunted old hospital on Iris Road. If she could, she got $100 and ultimate bragging rights, if she couldn't, she got nothing.

She was currently regretting constantly saying she wasn't scared of anything. Two steps into the front door – or more accurately, the broken window next to the door – and she was terrified. Drew shone her torch into a room, which she assumed was the waiting room due to the chairs, and no less than ten rats scampered from the light. [structure of that last sentence is a bit weak; try to read it quickly and you’ll see what I mean]

"Ew..." she said quietly. She carefully stepped over a wheelchair [wheel] that had toppled over, going further into the large building. She heard a crunch under her foot, and lifted it up to see she'd stepped on a rather large cockroach. Surprisingly, the cockroach scampered away despite being squashed [repetition]. She uttered another sound of disgust, trying to hide her shiver as she stepped further into the decrepit hospital, and further into darkness.

After about another minute, her torch light started flickering and blinked out, leaving her in complete darkness as she banged it on her palm and flicked the switch back and forth in a vain attempt to get it to turn back on. [this is an overused cliché – you need to have a stellar story to get away with it]

"Piece of shit, I replaced your batteries just the other day!" She muttered angrily, glaring at the inanimate object in her hand. She still held onto it though, although it was now practically useless. Drew took a few steps forward, then whirled around as she heard a crunch behind her. She saw nothing different, even in the dim moonlight, so turned around and kept walking, trying to ignore the crunching noise behind her that sounded every few steps she took, getting slightly further away each time [not super clear – what’s getting slightly further away each time?].

Fifteen minutes later, she decided it was probably time to turn around and head back, seeing as she only had ten minutes left. But when she turned around, there was nothing but a blank wall where the hall had once been. Maybe I got turned around, or took a wrong turn in the dark? She thought desperately. [attribute thoughts to a quote a la ‘’ single quotation marks] She could still hear the crunching, but this time it was on the other side of the wall. When she looked closer, the wall was in fact frosted glass '[really? Fit this in a bit earlier when she first sees the wall]'. The crunching got right up to the other side of the glass [weird wording i.e. got] , before it stopped. Drew remained silently standing there for a minute, glancing behind her every few seconds, before she heard a bang and looked back over to the glass to see a thin, bony hand dragging down it, [;] some form of dark substance trailing behind and dripping down the transparent surface. Another hand hit the glass as a low inhuman screeching sounded. Another hand hit the glass. The hands were banging on the glass, and Drew turned to run, just to be met with a solid wall. She was now trapped in a small, box-like room with no exit and who knows [who knows doesn’t suit a third person narrative] what on the other side of that glass. The only thought running through her mind was shit shit shit. She fished around in her pocket for her phone, then remembered that part of The Bet was that she couldn't have her phone. [don’t insert important plot points just before they get used – it feels cheap] 

"Shit..." she muttered again as a crack appeared in the glass. Several more hands had appeared, and Drew wondered if there was more than one entity or if there was one that just had multiple limbs. [awkward] More cracks appeared, and suddenly the glass smashed and she screamed at the sight she saw. Charley's head, dead eyed and frozen in a scream, stitched onto a grotesque, gnarled, thin body, with multiple arms and spikes protruding from its joints and spine. It lumbered closer to her, and in a cracked, flat version of Charley's voice, said;

"Half an hour's up..." before leaping at her, and the last thing she heard was the sound of her own screaming before everything went dark. [everything after ‘at her’ feels cheap and trite]

-

Mechanical issues – mainly awkward wording, and formatting issues (you need to stop merging narrative and character monologues – use single quote marks to avoid this, treating someone’s thoughts like their speech).

Style issues – lot of telling, not much showing. I’ve pointed out most of these issues but try to be a bit more dynamic (don’t use simple words over and over again) and imaginative (you need to get a larger vocabulary).

Plot issues – I like the monster. The basic premise is a bit clichéd but some of the content is unique enough to let me ignore that. I would definitely address some things like the dead flashlight and the sudden reminder that she couldn’t have a phone (there are easier ways to get rid of a light and take a phone out of action which aren’t so clichéd) but other than that this is short enough and simple enough to warrant another draft. Once again I’d like to emphasise – I really liked the monster.