Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-27012445-20160716181703/@comment-28266772-20160718134743

The vastness of space. The unexplored depths of the ocean. so [So] hostile, so cold, and so dark are these places; yet, such wonders they hold.

If you had been born across the sea, would you not be praying to another god? So know [now? – not sure on this one] you wonder if you are praying to the right god. What if you have lived a good life, yet never swore allegiance to one god [you’re not consistent when capitalizing god] or another. Is that sufficient justification for a loving God [see?] to damn your soul to an eternity of torment as some doctrines teach?

What say you? Do you still desire to stay the course? Does a fire still burn in [your?] heart to know with assurance if a Heavenly reward awaits you or fire and brimstone? Yes? Good.

It begins with water. Water is the vessel in which [you?] will gain you [think this is in the wrong place] entry into the hidden realm and give you an audience before the one you seek.

You must alter your mind and your senses dulled and sedated for your consciousness to pass through the portal [this is an awkwardly worded sentence].

However, in this modern world, such things are [no?] longer a challenge and common pharmaceuticals now exist that allows [allow] you to reach such states of mind and perception with ease.

Minutes will feel like seconds. Seconds will stretch on and on. [these two sentences feel kind of contradictory] As you speak each verse, time will pass, and the water will cool, slowly lowering your body's temperature. The darkness will slowly fall upon you and show you many things as you drift in and out of awareness. It is for you to take notice of these vision or not. It is of no consequence and bears no importance. You slowly come to awareness, still laying in the water, but as your mind begins to clear, you realize you are no longer in the small bathroom in which your tub sat. You are in a chamber so large you are unable to see its walls or ceiling tops. The dark waters you stand within are waist deep and stretches [stretch] far beyond faint light the shine above you. All is deathly still, no ripples or movement can be seen from the water other than from your body's movements. The echoes from dripping water ring out now in the large chamber. [you change tense a lot here, switching from the future/conditional tense to the present tense. It feels strange]

The sounds are so distorted here in this chamber you cannot tell from which direction it comes from or if there are [is] more than one body rising from beneath the surface.

Whether you live another lifetime or die tomorrow, Hell is your destination, so it may as will [well] take you now and save itself the trouble later

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These are the bulk of mechanical errors I found – but generally this could use a couple of proofreads as the main errors tend to be things like missing words which spellchecks aren’t great at picking up. Other than that I enjoyed your story although I felt like the prayer itself isn’t particularly interesting – the whole “if I lay me down to sleep” felt more like a children’s nursery rhyme than an ancient and dangerous incantation. I also think that some of the moments where you clearly meander into an oral style of narration (where the guy is all like “ummmm I love ambien etc.) isn’t helpful, and does little more than breaks the flow and harms the overall tone of the story.

Also you frequently switch between the future, conditional and past tenses which really hurts the description flow.

But yeah, overall I liked this. Best of luck when submitting it.

