Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-30157838-20180530023530/@comment-28266772-20180601162858

The great wolf leaped through the air like a malicious streak of midnight, pointed fangs bared and snarling as it...

"No, no no, that's not right either..."

Henry gave the paper beneath him a sneer before crumpling it up into a ball. Hours of work down the drain, just like every other story he had written in the past month. It all lacked energy, something was missing...he shook his head [rules like this are all a bit wobbly, but ellipses should usually be followed by a space i.e. ‘damn it… how did I do that?’], wrinkled skin curling into a bulldog-like frown [bit of redundancy here since the bulldog-frown and wrinkled skin curling are basically saying the same thing]. He knew his style remained firm, and his mind was certainly still sharp, but for the life of him he just could not write something to his liking.

Perhaps it was just a case of his age. Henry was certainly getting on in years, and his ideas for new horrific tales were becoming fewer by the day. It felt as if he had tread all the ground he was able, '[semicolon? – not sure, I’ll think about this one and come back to it] 'wild and horrific beasts, spirits from beyond this world, vampires that stalked the night, he had done it all. Now, he just wanted nothing more than to retire, but he knew he could not without one last triumph to seal his modest legacy, one final tale of true, unyielding terror to chill his audience to the bone like never before. His blood began to boil, he just could not put ink to page properly! Just in the past week alone he had scrapped over a dozen new concepts, and the number was only growing by the day.

Matilda, lovely wife that she was, brought him food every evening, knowing how her husband would get so caught up in his writing, but he had done little more than pick at it every time. He had become strange and fettered, [so] obsessed with the creation of his magnum opus that he barely took his eyes off the page. Sleep was rare, as were trips outside of his study [in general; filler words that add nothing], [comma splice] the dark bags underneath his weary gaze a clear indication of his fatigue in what now seemed like a fruitless endeavor.

Henry banged his hand on the mahogany and cursed aloud, slumping over in his chair and withdrawing a new parchment from his writing desk, dipping quill in ink once again and turning his thoughts to the page.

In the moonlit town of Ravensbrook...

Henry screamed in frustration and swept his hand over the writing desk before him, scattering papers everywhere. This was a legacy [*] he had to uphold! As he rubbed his temples with gnarled fingers, there was a knock on the door, the wood creaking open as Matilda poked her head into the room.

"Perhaps you'd best get some rest, dear?"

The writer shook his head.

"No...just some fresh air. That's all I need..."

Henry wobbled to his feet, grabbing his coat off the rack beside the door and passing his wife by, walking downstairs and into the foggy streets of the city [tenses feel weird, I think it scans better as:

'Henry wobbled to his feet, grabbed his coat off the rack beside the door and passed his wife, walking downstairs and into the foggy streets of the city. – But you might want to run that by someone else. The tenses aren’t technically wrong, I just feel like the temporal logic of the sentence feels off in the first one]'

. As his spats clacked against the lamp-lit cobblestone, [<- comma is unnecessary] he briefly pondered how long it had been since he had taken a trip outside. It may have been days, perhaps even weeks, but he knew it had been some time since the cold evening air had filled his lungs...this would hopefully be good for him. He was far more accustomed to the indoors, to the worlds in his pages, but the long block he had been facing was beginning to drive the old writer batty.

The novelist met with but a single soul on his extensive walk through the gloomy, bending streets, '[semicolon? Again I’ll need to do a bit of revision but I’m positive you’ve spliced two independent clauses together here] a curious man clad in many coats despite the relatively average (albeit rather depressing,) weather [this can be much more efficient than it currently is. Words like ‘rather’ and ‘relatively’ don’t add anything, and used once or twice they can help with pacing and mood but in the above sentence you’ve over-stuffed what should be a pretty basic observation and hurt the pacing] '. This stranger looked almost ready for seven feet of snow instead of what could be potentially be some light drizzling at the most [this only confirms the above point, in many ways you could delete the second clause of this paragraph and the audience wouldn’t miss a single thing worth knowing], a scarf and a dusty old top hat concealing most of his face save for his piercing blue eyes. He appeared wider than he likely was, buried under all those layers of clothing, and though it was impossible to tell his age, the odd fellow certainly seemed to be an older man judging by his deep, matured voice when he spoke.

"Mister Coville, out and about on the town this evening, hm?"

The writer gave the figure a short glare before continuing on his way. He had no time for fans right now, he was in the midst of a crisis! Conversing with his public could come after his masterpiece was complete, and not a moment earlier. His ears perked up, though, despite his hearing being as weak as it was, at what the stranger said next, those ocean eyes shimmering in the moonlight. [ambiguous wording (whose eyes are shimmering?) and also a bit over-stuffed again]

"I believe I may have the solution for what ails you."

Henry spun around and gave the bizarrely dressed gentleman a yellow-toothed sneer.

"Feh."

The [color in the] stranger's irises swirled into a deeper hue almost imperceptibly, saying nothing more [the subject in this sentence is the colour of the stranger’s irises, so be careful when you move onto a dependent clause because it almost reads like it’s the stranger’s irises that are reaching out a gloved hand, not the stranger] but outstretching a gloved hand instead, a brown cloth bag held loosely in his palm. Coville shook in confused anger for a moment, then steadied some [1], pulling his hat down over his tired eyes before snatching the sack away with a grumble [2], turning on his heel and starting his walk back home [3].

'[you need to put more consideration into sentence structure, your writing has so many passive & dependent clauses it hurts. There’s three dependent clauses in the last sentence alone. I feel like the last line scans better as:'

'“Coville shook in confused anger for a moment then steadied some. Pulling his hat down over his tired eyes he snatched the sack away with a grumble before turning on his heel and starting his walk back home”. '

'Long sentences are fine, as is purple prose. But Lovecraft was a master of sentence structure, and I recommend you do a bit more work on yours before aiming for such lofty heights. One independent clause, followed by three dependent clauses just reads like a run-on sentence. Someone should be able to read your work effortlessly the first time around because punctuation and sentence structure should create a natural rhythm that reflects language’s daily use. As it stands, that’s not the case. Most people would run out of breath because people rarely follow an independent clause with more than two dependent clauses (even that’s rare)]'

The mysterious stranger quickly disappeared as the writer put distance between them, lost in the thick fog as easily as he had emerged. It had been a curious encounter, to be sure, but he had no time to ponder such doldrums. The writer had his work to attend to.

-

So I have more to get through but my final notes will likely apply to the rest. Basically, you need to put more consideration into sentence structure. You tend to go simple past independent clause (I punched the man) followed by a progressive present dependent clause (swinging my fist towards his face) which is fine, but you then proceed to do that last step like another three times, resulting in sentences like "I punched the man, swinging my fist towards his face, touching his chin with my knuckles, rolling my arm through the air, aiming for his head not his torso, shouting my anger into the void, wondering if a funeral was the wrong place to start a fight, dodging his own upward swing towards my sternum..." and well, you get the point. Just look at the following example:

"Henry banged his hand on the mahogany and cursed aloud, (1) slumping over in his chair and withdrawing a new parchment from his writing desk, (2) dipping quill in ink once again and turning his thoughts to the page."

And I'm being generous by not counting the clauses stapled to other clauses using "and" (there are two).

Basically, this hurts the rhythm, a lot. And results in prose that scans poorly.

I'm gonna come back with more in-depth critique, but for now this is the mechanical aspect of your writing that most needs attention. In some ways, it makes me wonder if you've been over-thinking this story because it has that hyper-polished feel in some areas. I know I've looked at it before.

And as always, you're writing is great. Like, legitimately great. You're one of my favourite writers on here, so don't take the harsh critique personally.