Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-30402176-20161231173904/@comment-24101790-20161231203511

Starting with the basics of wiki, indenting paragraphs, while correct in literature causes formatting issues on all wiki sources. As such, you should leave lines unindented. If you want to put text in the center like with biblical quotes, you can use this template: WORDS Additionally if you want to use asterisks as breaks, this template can do it for you: " * " wth the number equaling the number of asterisks..

You should also post your story in source mode as the text has this coding in visual editor "[Hey everyone. This is a new story I've been working on for the last three months. I'd really like to know what you guys think, and give some critical feedback; any factual/historical innacuracies, inconsistencies, or spelling/grammar mistakes, please tell me in the comments. " which requires cleanup and can actually make the text unreadable (Like it does at "Revelation 21:1-8"). You can also make chapters/headings with ==Chapter Title== which might help with longer stories.

Onto the more mechanical side of the story. There aren't too many, but I'll just point out what I found while reading the story:

Grammar: It's=it is, its=possession. "it’s foundation was finally coming to light.", " its attention away from the gruesome spectacle before them and almost paved it’s way to let me walk closer".

Paragraph formats: A number of your paragraphs need to be broken up. A typical paragraph is usually 5-10 sentences. You can use less sentences to add emphasis/impact, but more sentences usually make the text feel blocky. This paragraph for example could use some division as well as a few others:

"It was long back in Secondary school, when we first met. I was always the shy and quiet, shaggy-haired teenager who never really spoke to or mixed with anyone, and thus I didn’t have many friends. Most people found me either annoying, or just a bit weird; generally people avoided me. I was never chosen as a partner for school work in any classes, and when the lunch bell rang, I would always spend my time reading in the library. But that all changed, on the beginning of our 10th year, she was introduced to our Form class. Beatrice Cohen was her name, but her nickname was simply “Bee”. She looked geeky, but in a really sweet way, with luscious, curled chestnut hair, deep brown angel’s eyes, a long, narrow and delicate nose, shining metallic braces over her teeth, and would never be seen with her reading glasses. She had a moderately sun-kissed complexion that was halfway between white and bronze; barely noticeable at first, until you compared her with the other girls in class, and saw the difference. She was not conventionally attractive, per se, but she still caught my eye, and unlike most girls I’d ever known, she had something that truly set her apart from the rest – a heart of pure gold. Once she made her entrance in our form class, she enthusiastically became acquainted with the rest of the class, blissfully ignoring and overstepping the unspoken, cynical mores of student behaviour. At one point, she came over and introduced herself to me, asking my name, and details about myself. I’d never known any girl show that much interest in someone like me, even if this were just a formality – it still felt unique. Then when I sheepishly told her who I was and answered her questions, she gave me a warm hug for no real reason, and told me that she “love(d)” me. I’d seen her do the same thing with everybody else in the form class, but it felt so special to me. No pretty looking girl had ever shown that much interest in me before. It was scary, I first remember thinking. But I was curious, and wanted to know more about her, so I started talking with and sitting next to her more often. She devoted more time to me than any of my other classmates, and that was when I began to notice her warmth and compassion, which only made her become more and more beautiful in my eyes. Although she came from a Jewish family, they were not the regular, orthodox type, but instead, they were Messianic Jews - a religious minority that combined elements of Christianity, with the traditions of Judaism, and Hebrew culture. Only a really small number of them live here in Britain. Before we met, I’d never really known much about either Judaism or Christianity – being a wilful agnostic, I didn’t know the first thing about religion, nor did I ever care to know."

Additionally, I'm not sure if lines breaks are necessary in dialogue:

"“This is not fair… Why?” she lamented,

“How can God’s people do this? This is just so wrong… Those poor Palestinians…”"

As you do it a few times, I'm not certain if this is intentional or not, but it really tends to break the story progression when it occurs:

"Now that Imran and I are finished, we stroll through the urban wasteland. He smiles at me,

feeling pleased with what we have done."

Is this a copy/pasting error possibly?

"Yusuf starts to follow us, as if he wants to play. His mother calls after him, but he is in a

playful, defiant mood."

ETC. As there are other instances of it here.

Capitalization: "“Daniel… did – did you-?” He (he) stutters"

Wording: "Bee was given both a Christian-style funeral, near St. Mary’s Methodist church, back home, on the route where we used to walk to school." Did you leave out a section where she was given some other rights? Saying both implies multiple things. Other than that, I didn't come across too many other issues which is nice considering the story's length. That being said, there are a few things about the story that I would like to address.

Story issues: While the opening is well-researched, it does come off as a bit of an information dump. You talk about the refugee camp and the history of Israel for a number of paragraphs and I'm left wondering if there might be a better way to work that pertinent information into the story rather than all at once near the beginning as it tends to break the story progression. It's enlightening, but I found myself skipping a little bit ahead at times during it to see how much more you were going to focus on it.

Story issues: I feel like Imran should reference the fact that the two of them do have a history together earlier in the story as it seems like he tried to evacuate them from the hostile situation. It seems odd that he's included in the flashback but there isn't a lot of interaction dealing with their history, which feels out-of-place with them working together again. You should address it at some point earlier to hook the audience in, or the narrator should really drop some hint to suggest that while he is acting friendly towards him, they have some history/bad blood between them.

Here's the largest problem for me though. While this is well-written, it takes a very long time to build up. It's around 19-20 pages and it doesn't really get into the horror of the scenario until about the 9-10 page mark. As the story is significantly longer than most stories posted on the site, I am worried about readers walking away midway through after the introduction, history of the camp, and focus on Israel's birth are told without much else to draw them in.

Hope that helps.