Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-30891328-20170211203631/@comment-30891328-20170212002814

EmpyrealInvective wrote: I'm sorry, but this story has a lot of issues and fails to meet the quality standards of this site on the most basic of levels. First and foremost, your story is one large paragraph (which is problematic in itself). Remember a typical paragraph is five-ten sentences. Any more and it comes off as blocky. Any less and it feels like you're stretching/padding out your story.

Spelling: "Jerry even told me about a rumor (rumor) about a guy dressed in a green jumpsuit and a gasmask who would come to the college dorms and scare their souls out of them!", "he told me about and he could hear a deep girgling (gurgling?) voice coming from the man but he couldn't hear what the he was sayin (also if you're going to cut letters off as a colloquialism, you should include an apostrophe where the letter was removed)", "I looked to the age (edge) of my bed and saw the man", "what I saw was a black skinned (skinned) head with no mouth or nose", "I ran out of the room and down the hallway until I ran into a secirity gaurd. (security guard)", etc.

Wording: "I had two colleges to choose from and I chose this one because they both had the same pros and cons so I just chose randomly." This feels like you left something out here. The previous line talks about how the protagonist won't be able to see their parents so you likely forgot to include a line talking about the distance or some other reason why they were unable to visit. "I asked him at in (one or the other) the hallway why he was acting so weird and his skin went white and his eyes shot open!", etc. I'm sorry, but you need to re-read this and really proofread your story before posting as these issues really detract from the story.

Story issues: "I started believing in the paranormal when I was in college, before hand I thought it was all crap... not anymore." is a pretty generic opening and really doesn't do a good job of getting the audience's attention. On top of that, a lot of the description here is really bland. Lines like: "I asked him at in the hallway why he was acting so weird and his skin went white and his eyes shot open!" and "what I saw was a black skined head with no mouth or nose, and two big white eyes." really don't do a good job of painting a vivid picture and feel pretty uninteresting.

Story issues: Then there's the ending. "It's the next day and I just feel the need to tell somebody so I'm typing this on my computer right now. I got class in a few minutes so I need to go. Goodbye!" This is really rushed and there's no sense of conclusion or resolution. Friend sees the gas mask man, protagonist sees the gas mask man, story ends. There's no real impact as there's no background (the rumors don't really help the story much and need to be fleshed out a lot more) and no sense that any progress was made into the mystery of the gas mask man or that there's any sense of character progression at all.

Conclusion: I'm sorry, but this story is rushed, has formatting, spelling, awkward wording, a real lack of description, and the plot feels really generic without any real impact. A last piece of advice, please read and take feedback into account as you seem to be repeating a lot of the same issues here and that is no way to improve as an author. The writer's workshop is for feedback and improving, so please put some time in with your stories or they will keep on being deleted/negatively reviewed. Thanks, but there are a few questions you need to be asking but aren't. For ex: What did the gas masked man say to Jerry?, or, Where did the creature come from?, or, What dose it want with the college kids? Those are the things I really need you to focas on.

P.S

You spelled rumor the same way I did.