Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-24996913-20140927012134/@comment-25558572-20140927184435

Let’s get to it.

It seems odd that a perfectly healthy woman can die one night, even if she’s extremely old. The vast majority of elderly people are frail, and even if this woman was in complete health, that makes her death a little less believable than if she was ill.

Your first sentence in the second paragraph should be broken up into two. Are all of those words necessary to the story? Try to keep longer sentences to a minimum; you don’t want your reader to get overwhelmed by details.

Don’t use ellipsis in sentences unless it’s dialogue. We are reading a story, not listening to a monologue.

Saying that the MC is “completely irrational right now” is a bit extreme. First, it seems a little unbelievable that she would still believe a story she was told as a child (assuming she no longer is one), and a lot more so to the point of becoming panicked.

I don’t understand how the MC could be scared by the story in the first place. The concept is interesting and a young enough child probably would believe it, yet it doesn’t really create a sense of danger for the reader. It is vaguely-worded and doesn’t feel like an actual tale in itself.

You’re using a little too much description. Details like “The rocks were jagged, appearing like misshapen canine teeth, erupting from the water whenever it violently rippled upon the shore.” and “It didn't take long for me to peer over the edge once more, contemplating whether to stay and bear a traumatic demise or jump from the cliff, plunging myself into a quick death.” Are both very long sentences and should be shortened. Take out some adjectives like “misshapen” and “traumatic”, again, to avoid too much detail. However, the amount here does convey a good image, especially near the conclusion.

The ending seems a little confusing at first. Did an “angel” save the MC from dying? But even if so, that was still only a dream and she wouldn’t have been harmed anyway.

<span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif"">All in all, this was an interesting story, but I feel it needs some revision before you submit it. The premise was decently original and the scare factor was there, although it was on the weaker side. I just found the connection of the events (woman dying, story about angels, bad dream) to be odd and perhaps a little disorganized. I would suggest you make the plot more concrete, because it seemed a bit too vague to be frightening, although I did think you did pretty good with imagery and phrasing. It was interesting to read and I would like to see the finished result.