Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-10502460-20180901022714/@comment-10502460-20180905003256

DrBobSmith wrote: HopelessNightOwl,

This needs a good proofreading. I have started one to try to help. Overall, the plot, progression, etc. all work. IMHO, you need only one good proofread and clean up before posting. I think it could profit from a brutal editing but you may be too close to it right now to be able to do that.



Second paragraph. First sentence. "my plans to live it it up" - repeated word.

Next paragraph. "I heard commotion from" - it needs an article. "I heard a commotion."

Having made it down, I turned on the basement TV and flipped to a random news station. The scene was a live helicopter surveillance of a medium-sized office building.

Grammatically, I think this is actually saying that the TV was showing footage of a helicopter that was looking at an office building rather than what the helicopter saw. "The scene was live footage from the TV station's helicopter showing" ...

You have an error. It should be "makes" - not "make" I flipped back to the first channel. They were continuing to show overhead footage of the office building. "...was declared dead on arrival. This make three dead including the suspected perpetrator...

Engaged here is in error. Engage makes more sense.

He then waited for police to arrive and engaged them in a shootout inside the building which resulted in his own demise.

You need a comma after the "that". After that I was ready to go back to bed, sleep through the day and hope to find out this whole stupid thing had not been real when I awoke, but part of me still wanted to know more, so I went back downstairs.

You need a comma after eventually. Eventually I went back up to my bedroom to discover if I could see the spider from there in-person, but the upstairs windows did not provide a clear view of the Wallis's garage roof, at least not through the closed blinds and cracked glass.

Sometime should be one word. Some time later my mom came home.

What does "thought" mean here? It looks like something else should be there. I suggest deleting "at times thought I have" and make it definite. He saw it. However, though I can't be certain, I have at times thought I have seen the spider again.

@ @ @

You have far too many sentences that look run-on to me. I suggesting make two or even more sentences out of them. That will lower your reading level and make it clearer.

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It was the first Saturday of summer vacation between the 4th and 5th grades, and I intended to make the most of it watching cartoons and lazing around the house until my (single) mom came home from work.

Mom was calling from work, frantically telling me to drop whatever I was doing, turn off any lights in the house that could be seen from outside, and stay away from windows.

I hadn't actually turned on any lights yet, and I hadn't been planning on going outside within the next few hours, but no TV meant my plans to live it it up this Saturday were dashed.

I realized they were setting up a tape perimeter around the front of the house next to the one right across from mine, the one from which the neighboring family, the Wallis family, had made their hasty evacuation.

The camera zoomed down on that house next to the Wallis's, the one that had been sold last month, and a feeling of dread came over me as I remembered that the man who had bought the house had a wife and two children who were younger than me, but I had never met them and I remembered Mom commenting that none of the neighbors had seen much of them since they moved in.

I saw a small trail of blood in the parking lot and learned that this was from a woman who had been shot but only superficially wounded who had made it out alive.

Though she didn't say it, I knew she had also been the one to call up Mom and the Wallis couple to warn them that the police and media would descend on the neighborhood.

I thought I caught a glimpse of something on the roof of the Wallis house, but before I could make it out the feed switched back to the office building.

After that I was ready to go back to bed, sleep through the day and hope to find out this whole stupid thing had not been real when I awoke, but part of me still wanted to know more, so I went back downstairs.

It didn't have red glowing eyes or anything like that, it was just an oversized spider of indeterminate species lying there, perfectly still, its dull color allowing it to somewhat blend into the roof.

Eventually I went back up to my bedroom to discover if I could see the spider from there in-person, but the upstairs windows did not provide a clear view of the Wallis's garage roof, at least not through the closed blinds and cracked glass.

I remember being particularly annoyed and a little angry with her when my mom was in a car accident that resulted in very minor injuries and she told everyone she was in critical condition.

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The paragraph starting with "It was a few more minutes" has two sentences starting with "A." This isn't a mortal sin but it makes the read less interesting. You could improve it.

The paragraph starting with "I changed the channel." has two sentences starting with "I."

The paragraph starting with "There were only a few possibilities" has two sentences starting with "The."

I have to disagree in general with your approach to commas. It's a stylistic choice I make to not put them between every clause where they could possibly go in order to keep the flow of sentences smooth.

As for the multi-clause sentences, I can see some you pointed out that could stand to be broken down.