Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-32737528-20170731223126/@comment-32737528-20170816224412

EmpyrealInvective wrote: The story was deleted as there are a lot of errors here ranging from capitalization, punctuation, wording, grammar, tensing, and story issues.

Capitalization: You forget to capitalize proper nouns. "“I got that headache again, I’m sorry i have to go, you know how these affect us.", "“i’ll kill her!!! I’ll kill her!!!”, “Oh, well bye…i guess” Lilly mumbled as she went to hug Katelyn.", “Yes i promise silly.” Katelyn responded, giggling.", "“Yeah i did, when i was 5, but i have a life and i don’t have to depend on you for it!”", etc.

Capitalization issues cont.: You also have a tendency to improperly capitalize dialogue tags. "“You want some medicine honey? Is it that bad again?” Her (her) mom asked, making sure Katelyn wasn’t exaggerating the pain.", “Yes mom.” She (she) said as she squinted her face in the pain."

Formatting: Due to not including full spaces/using the poem template, your poem is joined all together without stanzas/line breaks. "There once was a girl, 10 years of age, She made an unforgivable mistake, She was locked in a cold and lonely cage, Her innocence, the demon had to take, Her best friend Lilly was her only friend, Until she betrayed her with immense hate, Lilly had thought that this would be her end, That Katelyn would begin to seal her fate, but a cop swooped over much like a plane, and they pronounced her clinically insane" You also have coding issues because you are using visual editor instead of source mode which adds this to all text: "“Hey what’s wrong?” Lilly asked with concern. "

Punctuation issues: You forget to punctuate dialogue properly. "“Oh, well bye…i guess(comma missing)” Lilly mumbled as she went to hug Katelyn.", "it was only her screaming and repeating the same words over and over again(:/,) “i’ll kill her!!! I’ll kill her!!!”.(period not needed)", "Katelyn knew where she was at now, and as soon as she did, the room transformed into a rotted, dark, room with a message written on the walls that said" "“Hey Ryan, hows it going?”, "Ryan answered back", etc.

Tensing issues: You tend to shift from past tense ("She got dressed and heard the door bell, it was Lilly.") to present tense ("Katelyn made the decision not to speak about it, what mattered right now is (was) to apologize for making her jealous, or should she?") and back to past tense multiple times throughout the story.

Wording issues: You also have a tendency to restate names multiple times to the point of redundancy. "Katelyn put down the phone and saw Lilly out the window with a scorned looked on her face. “Lilly? What are you doing here?” Katelyn questioned Lilly.". As you already identify the participants, naming it multiple times comes off as repetitive. There's also awkward wording with lines like: "Lilly lashed out and attack her with punches after Katelyn was thrown on the ground."

Story issues: The descriptions could use quite a bit of work. "Then she started hearing the soft laughter of children in a brightly lit classroom, which looked like it had never been touched by whatever caused this in her mind." This line feels clunky and I'm not quite sure what you're going for. Do you mean to imply that this classroom is completely unaffected by the rest of her dreamscape?

Story issues cont.: You tend to tell the audience a lot of things rather than being descriptive and letting them come to that conclusion. Lines like: "She answered the door bell and they went outside, but Katelyn experienced a feeling of dread, that she shouldn’t be here." and "Lilly began getting angry, she didn’t understand." tend to me a lot of telling and not showing which saps the story of its plot a bit.

Story issues end: A lot of the dialogue feels overly-expository. Lines like: “I got that headache again, I’m sorry i have to go, you know how these affect us." should be worked more organically into the story. There are other issues here, but I think this is a good starting point. This story needs a lot of work as it feels rushed and there isn't much plot progression to drive this sudden change in the character dynamics. (It seems the protagonist has had these friends for a while now, why is she having problems with her imaginary friends now?) So am i good now?