Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-27697299-20160129093401/@comment-26007602-20160129205128

There's a large amount of grammatical errors throughout the story. Just reading the first paragraph I already noticed that you need to space out dialogue onto separate lines when the speaker changes. Instead of: "Are you going to tell me why you called me yet Rick?” asked Trey nervously. I wipe the sweat from my brow. Fear often makes me very sweaty. “Yeah but I can’t tell you what happened tonight.”

It should be:

“Are you going to tell me why you called me yet Rick?” asked Trey nervously. I wipe the sweat from my brow. Fear often makes me very sweaty.

“Yeah but I can’t tell you what happened tonight.”

This applies to all dialogue throughout the story.

The title of the story is improperly capitalized which is a huge negative first impression. It should be: The Man in the Black Suit.

The second paragraph starts with, "I'll have to tell you who I am, or you won't trust me", but then he proceeds to give us nothing other than his name. Why would giving me a name make me trust him more? It's also hard to believe a 24 year old wrote this story, as the style is very childish and not too sophisticated. You either need to rewrite this story so it actually reads like a 24 year old wrote it, or lower the character's age, because this is just not what an adult would write like.

"Who’s him? You’re probably asking me. Well I can’t tell you that till my stories done" This should be rewritten. The first two sentences should be combined into one. For example: "You're probably wondering who he is." The third sentence needs a comma after "well", and "till" should be changed into "until".

"I was walking around trying to familiarise myself with the place, I had just moved in to this area." Comma should be a semicolon. Also, "familiarise" is not a word.

" When I got home I set up all my security systems; Camera’s, Alarm’s even minor traps." First off, why the hell is he setting all this shit up? There's no indication he's in danger and he has absolutely no reason to set up "minor traps". This sentence is ridiculous. Also, the semicolon should be a colon.

I'm going to stop going into specific grammatical issues from here on out. You really should proofread before you post your work here.

"...there was nothing in there except for a broken down house and a strange rock I decided to keep." This rock is important to the story, yet you gloss over its introduction far too quickly. What makes this rock strange? Why would he pick it up? It's a freaking rock. There needs to be more information about the rock if it's going to appear later in the story (Which it does).

"After what I think is 3 hours of sleep I hear a window being smashed in." Tense issues. The first part of the story is past tense and now you switch to present tense. Since the character is retelling his experience, there's no real reason for this to be in present tense. Same goes for all the other present tense issues throughout the rest of the story; you need to make them past tense.

"But the thing that unnerved me was the colour of the blood. It was black, and not just any black, pitch black." How does the protagonist know that the man is covered in blood? It doesn't look like blood, so how would he know it's blood? Why not say the man was covered in a black substance? Also, the description, "not just any black, pitch black" doesn't make too much sense. We can assume the blood is black, calling it "pitch black" doesn't define it further.

"His clothes were once a beautifully tailored black suit." How does the narrator know this? The dude's wearing a hoodie and torn clothes, but he can clearly see in his panic and what I assume to be the dim light of night that the guy is wearing what used to be a suit? I don't buy it.

"Well I failed to mention he was also aiming a gun at my head and his one look like it could make a bigger hole than mine." Why would you fail to mention this? Why would the narrator let this guy raise a gun to him? Why would the guy take out a gun while he has a gun trained on him? The narrator is an idiot for letting this guy get a gun out. The fact that he totally leaves to go get the macguffin rock is ridiculous. "Gee, I've got a gun aimed at this guy, but since he's pointing one at me, I should just lower my gun and turn my back on this guy to go get the rock." Do you se how ridiculous that line of thinking is?

" I was about to help him when he suddenly stopped." Why would he want to help him?!

"Me telling you this story could just be signing you death warrant." Gee, thanks for sharing your story even though you know that it'll cause me to die. Why would the narrator do this? It's a fairly clichéd "You're next" style of ending, but the fact that narrator chooses to endanger the reader's life makes me lose all sympathy for him.

And what of the macguffin rock? Who is the shadow guy? What connection does he have to the rock? Why would he kill anyone who knew about it. It's a stupid rock. You need to connect these details, as this story is all over the place. Focus in on what interconnects the events to each other. Try and explain everything, as there is just no reason for any of the stuff that happens in the story. Each paragraph is so loosely connected to the one before it, that it really hurts the story overall. Additionally, the story lacks any real creepy atmosphere or tension, due to the nonsensical actions of the narrator and the lack of description.

Sorry if I came off as too harsh, but everything I've written were my thoughts as I read the story. That's not a good thing if your intention is to scare the reader. There's a lot of work to be done here if you want to improve the story.