Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-25477067-20160929183244/@comment-28266772-20160930152529

Annotated version below.

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California. A small town called Merced sits in the middle of nowhere. It is a small town, not very many people. A very hot town. 102 Fahrenheit, most summers. Summers where the farmers in the surrounding land sit in their trucks scanning the horizon all day lest their golden hills in their golden state burn black. No rest for them.

Farther north from the town, 15 miles to the northeast, there is a small mound of dirt. It is unmarked, unnamed, and does not appear on any maps. It is incredibly hard to find, and it would be just any other hill if not for the small iron hatch at the base of the mound. A miners [miner’s] hatch, leading to stuffy tunnels underground. You would think that it would be cooler down in the dirt, but the hatch provides no protection. It is like an oven in the tunnels, so humid that beads of water collect on the walls if you watch, so humid it is hard to draw breath. Down here there's always that smell. Overly sweet, smelling perverse yet satisfying. As if the flesh it emanates from would burst upon touch and the meat inside would be glistening with sugar, pulply [pulpy] and moist.Like [<-space] a sausage. It draws you but at the same time revolts you, doesn't it? To use this description for the three men lying at the bottom of the pit, side by side, [this isn’t very clear/ is very awkward] as if they are slabs of rotten meat to be devoured. One of them is in the corner, huddled into a ball. A book is by his side. Only half a page is legible in the wavery beams of sunlight streaming down from the air holes.

Over the years, the manhole has been discovered. A teen looking for somewhere to smoke, a cop following the footsteps of a perk [perp], a biker just out for a ride. However, none have dared go any further than open the manhole. Something about the silence and the heat and the smell triggers their [the] instinctual part of their brain, warning them off, lest some thing [something] in the darkness, the stuff of their nightmares, reaches out of the darkness [repetition] slowly, just a hand, clutching for them. [your sentences verge on being cluttered and too long] That would be insane, they reason. Yet they don't test the hole. They slowly close it once again, and leave the four men to their silent repose.

I found the hole. It is one of the worst memories I have ever experienced [this doesn’t make a lot of sense], yet I don't remember much about it. When I was smaller I always had trouble distinguishing reality from my vivid dreams. For me, I could have gone to school in pink snow boots or gotten buried up to the neck by a bulldozer, I don't recall for sure if they actually happened or not. The manhole was the same way. It just lingers in the back of my mind, causing me to shudder and until recently, wonder if it really happened. Now, though, I know for sure. I am standing on the edge of the manhole now. It wasn't as hard to find as I expected, I recognized certain dead trees and even a rock or two. I can`t believe I still get cell service out here, but for all I know, this could be a hazy dream.

I`m [I’m] a coward. Now, standing on the edge of this hole, I feel the urge to turn around, to stop what I am going to do, to end this madness. Gasoline as heavy as lead in my other hand, I want to end this, but some part of me wonders if this will actually do the trick.

I remember falling the first time. Into the manhole, I mean. Down, Down, Down, [Down, down, down] with this sour taste in my mouth from my [my feels a bit unnecessary] fear. When I hit [the] bottom I remember the jarring sensation, the pain behind my eyes, and the ache of clenched jaws. I remember eyes in the dark, looking at me, and I remember calling out to them, only to have them blink slowly, and move not an inch. Eyes in the darkness…

I don’t remember much after that but a car driving me home, then blackness. The only reason I even remember any of this at all is because this hole is refreshing my memories, now that I stand by it. Did I go back a second time? I think I did, but I’m not sure if that was a dream or not. I know I never dared to come back and search till now, till they started calling to me.

Three month [months] ago, I was happy. The manhole was a bad dream. Job, Car, House, [Job, car, house] the real american [American] dream. Then I saw a dead body on my bed. Only for a second, but I’m sure it was smiling in its repose. Two weeks later, one in the backseat of my car, driving home from work. A week later, one showed up in my bathtub. The period of time before they disappeared got longer and longer, and they were definitely smiling at me. Smiling with closed eyes. Two days ago, the whispers started, telling me they missed me, wanted me to come back. No drugs dulled the voices, and no matter how many I took, I couldn’t bring myself to end it all. They would be waiting for me there already. My job was gone within a week of the first sighting, my car after the second. The second straight day of voices, I cracked. I couldn’t take it anymore. What if they started opening their eyes? I couldn’t stand that, so I came back.

How many times have I visited this damn hole? How long before they missed me? Was it just that once, or more,many [<- space] more? Hazy memories float lazily by, a book, a tunnel, nothing substantial. Whatever happened in that hole the first time, or the next, or the next, I was marked from the beginning. I’ve been a moth to a flame, never able to leave.

Maybe, for all I know, I’ve written this a hundred times, maybe the cycle repeats over and over.The [<- space] only thing I can do now, is douse the hole, strike a match, and go down to meet them.

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Mechanical issues – enough that a spellcheck would have helped. Put MS word to use, and always proofread your stories. If you don’t have MS word use spellcheck.net. If MS word isn’t set to English just click the bottom left (next to the word count) and you can change it there, or by looking through the settings.

Style issues – you get a lot right but the style feels overly rambling and cluttered at times. Your sentence structure is a bit weak and occasionally the sentences feel like they have no real beginning, middle or end. Besides that a lot of this story’s imagery works and is impactful.

Plot issues – I think the obvious problem here is that nothing happens and none of the mystery is resolved. It’s very clearly part of a larger story that was edited to be shoehorned in as a standalone entry. My recommendation is to just write the bigger story and post that instead.