Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-28060931-20160918203623/@comment-26475800-20161128040627

Okay, so I'm going to start this as I read, if there is anything that I change my mind about later, I'll try to remember. But here we go:

The first paragraph is dialogue, no one writes dialogue in a journal. At least not the way you have it written.

Wolves don't have red eyes, if it was night, they would be reflecting the light from the lens, a part of the eye that humans don't have which is why people's eyes don't have a silver shine to them at night. Fun little fact. But anyway, I'm going to assume that the wolves aren't really wolves, just wanted to put that here in case I'm wrong and it turns out they really are what wolves.

Also, why is he only starting to write in his journal after three days? Even if it was just little boring shit, he would still write something. Instead of saying Journal Entry #1 you can change it to number three, and give a reason why the other two were omitted. This is an expedition they are on and it would be well documented. Or, you can go all in and give more data, even if it is just a few sentences about what happened in those days, it would help build the characters more, because I don't know anything about them, granted it is only the first real paragraph, but it would help us to get an idea of who we are dealing with before the shit hits the fan, because I have a feeling that's about to happen really soon.

Okay, so Bill is saying that there shouldn't be any killing of animals, even though they have backed them to the edge of the forest. If the situation was that dire, no one, unless they were an idiot would refuse to kill something. The time to kill has already come, there is no "I won't kill unless I have to," left. It doesn't matter if it was Gandhi, if he didn't want to die, he would be ready to kill an animal that was about to snack on them.

Just because they fell into a cave doesn't mean they know the wolves won't follow. Not to mention, they are in an unknown cave, that wouldn't be cause to celebrate, either. It out of the skillet and into the fire. They don't know what's down there or how much danger they are in.

"We had some spare firewood and twigs in the packs in case of an emergency." Well, that's convenient.

"It's not opaque, so we are fine. I think I will sign off here for the night." Tense swap.

Using "I fancied," is a weird choice of words, it makes it sound like they are from the 1800's.

"I broke its grip and scrambled back frantically. I did not dare move a muscle for two hours. When my fear was overpowered by curiosity, I reached into my backpack with a shaking hand and took out a flashlight. The second the beam lit up the room was the second I pulled my hand back and swung the heavy object at the foot of my makeshift bed; using all my momentum and strength I crashed the flashlight into the place where the hand was.

The flashlight broke the second it hit the stone... there was nothing there. "

Try using a different word besides second. You used it three times in that little bit of text. It becomes repetitive.

"The bogeyman, cthulhu, god." This line made me groan. No one believes that Cthulhu is real, not even children. Use something that some people would believe in, without being looked at as being crazy. Even if it is just a child who would believe in it, like Santa or The Easter Bunny.

Sorry, I was going to leave it at that, but that line really got under my skin and pissed me off a little. This story is not on par with Lovecraft, Derleth or any of the other writers who have taken on the Cthulhu mantle. Sorry for sounding so mean just then, but Jesus, you didn't even capitalize his name.

Entry 3 is two days after entry 2 and they have just finished eating? Also, why would you have to break it up like that? Why does it need to have a new entry for a continuation of the same part of the story?

They couldn't climb out the hole they came down, fine. But they have all this climbing gear to go deeper into the cave? Why couldn't they just use it to climb out? Even if they tried and failed, that would get rid of that plot hole.

"it was unexplainable:" build a deep hole, or throw it into the aperture and set this sentence on fire.

"When my self-defense mechanisms kicked in, my eyes darted to Bill. I saw a flare attached to his belt." No you didn't. There is no light in a cave and your eyes cannot adjust to that darkness.

"here was this feeling of... Radiation?" Can you please explain what this means? What does radiation feel like? And why is it capitalized?

"real diamonds (about 120 carats)," you could not possible know how many carats they were just by looking at them.

An unknown monster able to talk English.

The writer of the story dies at the end.

Someone else would need to collect these notes, otherwise how would the story ever be told, and why was the author writing notes as he was being taken to his death.

So there are a ton of plot points in this story, most of which I've marked above. The more I read this, the more I became frustrated. One of the main reasons was because the author writes like he is a tenured professor at Harvard at some points and like he was just picked off the streets at others. Pick one man.

The person writing the story dies at the end, is one of my biggest buttons and makes me so mad every time I read it. And I am assuming that because the more I read this story, the more I knew that's where it was heading, it was the reason I was getting frustrated. Pile on the other things I've mentioned and by the end I was pretty upset.

Overall, and I know I've been rather harsh with some of the things I've said, this could be a good story. I'm not going to go through the grammar, because there have been a lot of people who have already done that, but these are some of the bigger points that ripped me from the story. If you want to keep the ending and the dialogue, I would suggest perhaps making it third person. That would save you a lot of rewriting to get rid of those two big issues.

Another big thing, and I will most likely be pretty damn harsh here, so take whatever I say with a grain of salt, Don't Try To Be Lovecraft. I written a lot more here, but decided to cut it all out. I don't want to be that guy. I'll say that this story seemed a lot like you were trying to write like him, and that's okay. Everyone tries to write like someone when they first start out, it's a good way to find your own voice. But be careful, otherwise you'll fall into a hole and not be able to climb back out. Learn for other writers, find what works and what doesn't and use both of those things to improve your own writing.

Sorry for being so harsh. I'll try not to be next time.