Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-26946495-20150901005357/@comment-25052433-20150901203710

Ow wow, this needs a lot of work before you can consider trying to post it.

Biggest issue is the grammar, as it sort of jumps right out at you. You have a ton of tense issues that alone will get this one deleted from the main site before the plot could even becomes a factor. There are too many to list, although I am sure some of our more grammar savy members may take the time to list them line by line. My advice here is have someone else look at this, a friend maybe. Most of the issues are going to get past a normal spell check, because the words are spelled correctly, they are just being used wrong.

Next issues is your pacing. This moves way too fast and doesn't feel like it's happening in real time at all. She goes from being a kid walking home to a monster killing her best friend in a very forced, choppy and rushed writing style. We see what she's doing, sure, but you give very little insight on what she is feeling. Remember, make us care about her if she is the heroin, or make us hate her if she is the villain. Either way, make us feel something.

You also use the name Marina a lot. She is the only character until Mary is introduced, so you could probably chance most of the "Marina" to "she" or "her" to avoid the repeated name, as it becomes a bit bothersome.

Next, let's look at the plot. It's way too rushed and assumes way too much. Why does Marina go into the house exactly? You mention that she hates horror movies, so she clearly isn't a fan of being scared, so what would tempt her to walk into an abandoned home that scares her from the start. She seemed to have no motivation for going in at all, besides just randomly doing it because you wrote her to do so. She had even less motivation to conitnue to search the house, as you noted that it clealry made her feel uncomfortable. So, once again, besides her actions being forced by writing, why did she go in and continue to search at all?

This sort of writing creates logical issues, as your character's actions do not feel organic. Had you written her to be a fan of all things horror, had you perhaps given her a reason that she must explore the house, then perhaps it would roll smoothely, but what you have here just doesn't seem to make much sense.

You also need to remodel Marina from the top down. She doesn't have enough personality of will to be a main character. Your goal is to make the reader develop some type of emotional connection to her, whether it be loving a hero or hating a villain. In this case, Marina is just a shell, designed to walk where you want her to walk and see what you want her to see. The reader needs to know more about her, her past, her family, her life, something to make her an organic, real person in the reader's mind.

The ending felt about as cliched as anything else that involves an OC on this site. Why does she kill her best friend? Was she possessed? You describe what happens to her in the house, but you don't really bridge it into why it made her evil. I mean, imagine writing a story about a guy that was in a car accident and then just starts killing people. It wouldn't work, to have someone go from being essentially a lawful member of society, to a sociopath without some degree of reasoning. Just because she was attacked in the haunted house doesn't necessarily equate to her becoming evil. It would make more sense for her to wind up in an asylum.

All in all, this one needs to be worked over from top to bottom. It's fine if you keep the basic skeleton of this story. You can still have Marina go into a haunted house and have a traumatic experience. You can still have her go nuts if you want, but there needs to be a lot more in between so that it feels real, not just a forced narrative.

I would also suggest you make this more plot driven than character driven. As it stands right now, this looks like nothing more than an introduction for the character or Marina, and it follows the Jeff the Killer formula a bit too closely. You goal shouldn't be to create the next big Deviantart OC, but rather to create a unique horror story that pushes new boundries and brings the readers to new places.

Best of luck, we will continue to support you as you work on this.