Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-28428152-20170505232842/@comment-32461413-20170708164649

Wow! This was quite an unsettling story. Between the torture of the guard and the mass murder at the end, you have quite a dark story. It is well written as well, but I did take a couple of notes for improvement. Most of which are grammar and mechanical.

I notice in quite a few places there are too many commas. Knowing that a comma is a pause, read your story out loud and you will notice in some places that there are pauses when they are not needed.

I looked through and copied a few sentences and phrases that I feel were problematic.

"Once they were visible in the torchlight surrounding the crowd and the gallows." I feel off put by the word "surrounding." The story is in the past tense however this particular sentence is not. You should use "that surrounded" instead of "surrounding." It not only flows better, but it corrects the tense issue. Be on the look out for other potential tense issues.

"“Fuck off,” she snarled. The guard yanked her off her feet." I feel that this sentence is a bit stiff. I would recommend pulling out the period and replacing it with the word "as." It will make your point flow much more smoothly. When reading over your story again, look for other places that may have this issue.

"“You never did answer Judge Rithle’s question, Choik. The one about why you took so long. Would you mind answering that for me..."" In this section, I think you should change the punctuation that separates "the one about why you took so long" to either hypens or commas. “You never did answer Judge Rithle’s question, Choik - the one about why you took so long -  would you mind answering that for me..." or “You never did answer Judge Rithle’s question, Choik, the one about why you took so long, would you mind answering that for me..."" Variation the punctuation would make the character's voice sound more natural.

"“Um, uh, I uh, I said, ‘Not really, your High Honor.’”" I think the word "high" should be in italics. Otherwise, I found myself rereading the passage to find out what exactly the "High Honor" was angry about. I know that this part is explained later, however the reader would be distracted as to what exactly happened and would have to read quite a bit more to figure out what the issue was.

"Almost every hand in the audience catapulted straight into the air." I don't like the word "almost" in this sentence. I think that with a high judge being so cruel as he is and how much the crowd appreciates him, that everyone would raise their hand. Having everyone raise their hand makes the whole sentence more impactful as it makes everyone in the crowd essentially a collective mind; which I feel that is your intention.

"Payalo nodded with a polite grin on his face." This is a small note, but I think you could add some details on what Payalo was thinking at this point. Was he ready to take on whatever the judge had for him? Was he slightly nervous? Or was he just non-chalant about the whole thing? I think this would be a great opportunity for characterization which can show off how the people in the crowd feel being in the prescence of the High judge being that they all have a bit of a similar mindset. Small details about one person gives great insight to what the other people are like.

""Our good doctor over there will make sure that he doesn't. Doctor! Get over here!"" I feel that you should break up this phrase. Before the word "doctor," you could make a note how he turns over to summon him. It would loosen up this phrase and make it sound more natural as right now, there is not mention of him even moving or making a gesture.

I feel in Part three, you could better introduce the Captureman; he seems just to pop up out of nowhere. Even just a short passage about who he is would be better as that way he wouldn't abruptly fly into the story.

""We are gentlemen! We are ladies! And most importantly, we are civilized!”" I don't have a problem with this statement, I just love it so much. It's so ironic how they consider themselves civilized after brutally torturing that poor guard for omitting just one word.

I feel that the imagers could be described better. What exactly are they? Sure they are magical, but there isn't much telling what they are. Where do they come from? I would say that I don't feel that they are worthy of mentioning at all (as they don't directly build the story) however I changed my mind upon further reading as I like how the subtle mentioning of the imagers help the reader understand that this story isn't exactly grounded in reality.

"“Right. Thank you, your High Honor. Anyways, as proposed by the High Jury and approved by High Judge Snitla and I last night.."" I don't like the word "anyways" here. I think it's an obvious transition and that there are much better words to use instead. I honestly don't think you need it in there at all.

"The Sharpshooter peered through the scope of his rifle." When exactly does this story take place? I feel that is worthy of mention. At first I thought that it was in colonial times due to the trials and the imagers existing because cameras weren't around. The camera was invented in 1816 and rifles used for sharpshooting were considered very inaccurate. Being that imagers are used instead of cameras, realistically there would not be advanced rifles (unless the sharpshooter was close which wouldn't be likely given the situation). I think you should give some more description to the setting of the story, especially in regards to approximately when this is taking place. It is a little hard to imagine as at first I viewed it as around the 1700's but they have rifles that are much more advanced than what was available in that time.

"He hissed into his mic irritably." Same as above. When does the story take place? The very early microphones that we know today were invented in the late 1800's.

Otherwise, I think you have a compelling story. I quite enjoyed reading it. It was pretty disturbing and I thought it was well written. Great job!