Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-31700097-20170409010947/@comment-24101790-20170409014205

There were quite a lot of issues here. Starting with the basic formatting that was present in the posted story, you copy/pasted the story twice. Additionally each line was number like you had used pastebin or some other source and forgot to remove the line counter. As those issue are no longer present in the story, I'll move on to the mechanical and story issues.

Capitalization: You improperly capitalize a majority of your dialogue tags. ""This...can kill anything." The (the) demon said.", ""Can't you guess? It's quite obvious. You've killed demons, so have I. Hmmm." The (the) demon said.", "Don't worry about him. The king is one of the oldest demon known as Astaroth." The (the) demon said."" You also forget to capitalize proper nouns. "Where did I hear that from? Harry potter (Potter)?""

Punctuation: You forget to punctuate dialogue or leave punctuation outside of quotations. ""This is our place(comma missing)" One of the men said.", "I..don't know where I am(.)". I said.", ""Yeah, I'm in" I answered anyway.", etc. You also forget to use commas a number of times. "Yeah(comma missing) I'm dead serious.", "So 3 of you will come at it from it's (its) left right and center at the exact same time.", "Oh right(comma missing) I wanted to ask..Dylan mentioned", etc.

You also improperly use periods in dialogue. ""Okay, well once you're ready to talk, let me know." Dylan said.", "So, I don't know about you, but I don't want to spend the rest of forever here. None of us do. So that's why we're gonna get out." Dylan said.", "Yes. There is a way to get out. Well maybe. A guy that was with us before told us about it and led us here, but he got taken. So now we're a man short, luckily here you walked in." Dylan said.", etc. Remember to only use a period in dialogue if that is the end of the sentence.

Tense swapping: You tend to shift from past tense to present tense and then back throughout the story. "Last thing I remembered I was driving and then.. Wait, what is that noise? I heard distant screaming.", She starts crying.", ". She drops the dagger she was holding, I pick it up quickly and stab her in the chest. I was so full of adrenaline that I make sure the dagger is as deep as possible", etc. You need to stick to past tense as that's how you're telling the story.

Wording issues: Grammar. It's=it is, its=possession. "it's (its) left right and center at the exact same time.", "Okay.. So Kevin, you're going to go at it from it's left. Mike, you're going at it from it's right.", etc. Redundancy. You repeat a lot of your dialogue tags repeatedly. For example, you say "the demon said" over 30 times throughout the story and it gets really repetitive.

There are other mechanical issues, but I think it would be better to spend some time focusing on the plot as this is getting to be quite long.

Story issues: A lot of your dialogue feels awkward/stilted. "A demon dropped this. I picked it up and kept it. I know this must be powerful. It's different from all the other weapons.", '"I'm glad you brought back the weapon you stole from me, Malphas. That takes care of having to go look for it later. Now you will be punished severely." Astaroth said.", ""I don't know. But ever since I saw you I just felt this feeling that I had to protect you. Moments before I saw you, I was ready to give up. I had lost all hope and was ready for the shadow creatures to take me to be tortured. But seeing you gave me a reason to fight for. It's hard to explain but I just needed to save you." I said.", etc. Take this line for example: ""I'll go first. I was a serial killer. I killed 5 women and 2 men. I was only caught and prosecuted for 2 of them. I was given the death sentence. If either of you are gonna ask why I killed them, it's because I loved them. Each of them. I loved all 7 of them."" It feels overly expository and unnatural due to the fact that he randomly starts in on the story with little to no provocation.

A lot of your action scenes feel bland due to your tendency to state actions without much description to liven them up. Read this for example: "Jack ran towards the exit. Emma followed after him and I was frozen. But I had to protect Emma, so I followed. Astaroth remained sitting down. We use (sic) the knives to break through the bricks and they fall easily as if they had just been placed. Meanwhile Malphas goes up to Astaroth."

Plot issues: We're to believe the protagonist was hospitalized during all of this and their experience was more of a spiritual one, but if that's the case, how were they able to bring weapons back and why wasn't Jack caught with any? I mean he was on death row so it seems off that he'd survive the electric chair and be holding a weapon that no one else was aware of. It also feels implausible that the doctors and family would miss the protagonist's weapon they've been holding this entire time. ("At that moment while everyone was talking, I felt something in my hand. I was so relieved, because it meant everything was real. I hid it underneath me and made sure no one would see it.")

A lot of the characterization feels really forced. You reveal a number of character's backstories and they end up feeling interchangeable since their actions don't really influence the story much. ("Yeah. Dylan raped some girls, Mike was a pedophile, and Kevin was part of a gang and killed some people." Mary said.") It seems really out-of-place that one character would be revealed to be a rapist, another is a pedophile, and a third killed their own mother and none of this would impact the dynamic of the group in any way. I'm just saying, would you want to engage in jolly cooperation with two separate people who rape adults and/or children? It feels like you're glossing over their history and not doing anything with their characters to make the story more involving.

I'm sorry, but there are a lot of issues present in the story ranging from the plot, overly mechanical action scenes, and awkward dialogue as well as numerous capitalization, punctuation, wording, tensing, and other issues to really pass this story. It also feels like you try to jump into the action way to soon by having the car crash happen immediately.