Reaper (Contest Entry)- (revised)

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Wotcha! I really liked this piece, but I did notice a few things. When you switch up who's talking, you should probably make each person's sentence(s) isolated so that people won't get confused, like this:

"Hi, Bob," said Joe.
"What's up, Joe?" Bob asked.

Okay, that was sort of cheesey, but you get the idea. Also, when you switch scenes, like from Greg talking to himself to the cemetery, right after he says, "That’s it I’m going", you may want to add a little more spacing so that people know you're talking about a different setting and such. But other than that, I say this is a very well-written piece. Great job, and keep writing!

Thanks for the review, and the helpful tips. I will try my best to try and improve my writing skills.

This is a very good plot for a story, if perhaps a tad overdone. The part where Greg is revealed, that happened so fast it took me a bit to notice it had happened. Maybe you want to spend just a little longer describing that. Also, I think that if you write a little bit more, you might develop your voice a little bit more. Right now, it just seems a little bit uncertain as to what you want to say. But that will come with time. Keep writing! This is a really good idea.

Hey there Frosty! *bows* I’m Lily! Oh, and welcome welcome welcome to YWS! Home of the best and brightest of the WoW world. Only kidding of course, but really, welcome.

“Oh come on Greg don’t wuss out on us now. I mean come on it’s tradition” said John. “I’m sorry but I just don’t know about it this year” Greg replied. “Oh come on you don’t believe those stories are true do you? I mean come on that supernatural stuff is bogus” John said. “Well I don’t know if I’ll have time, I mean just that I have a science project to do” replied Greg. “Yeah you do but it’s not due ‘till the end of next month.” “I’ll think on it, ok” Greg said back to John. “Fine, well at least Misa, Tom, and Denis are coming” replied John.

Okay, the thing you really need to remember is that when you change speakers, you need to start on a new line. This is really rammed together and very confusing without the new paragraphs. This holds true for the whole story because it’s really the biggest issue in this piece. *insert what Kwantack said here*
Dialogue rules can be tricky but you can check out this link here from a quick lesson on dialogue.

walk up my driveway

When you use ‘my’ here, you switched points of view from third to first. Don’t do that. Just don’t. If you do, angry, mallet wielding trolls will attack you.

“That’s it I’m going” Greg said to himself.
“Yo John, anyone else here yet?” asked Denis

When you flopped scenes here, it gets really confusing unless you make that clear to the reader. Extra spacing. ***’s or something along those lines will make it so much easier to read.


Overall, this really needs a lot of cleaning up. Read the story out loud. Slowly. With a highlighter in your hand. When you’re reading, pause where ever you’ve put a comma and make sure that you say exactly what you’ve typed. Often, when you read something, you’ll read it the way you think you wrote it but if you slow down and look at it carefully, you’ll have an easier time spotting the mistakes…which is where the highlighter comes in. Use it!

You have an interesting concept which is nice, but writing is a lot more than just the plot. The mechanics of it are difficult to learn but totally worth knowing to put together a good story. ^^

If you have any questions, feel free to PM me or leave a message on my wall.

~lilymoore

Ok I've revised it somewhat, please tell me if I was going in the right direction.

Hey Frosty,

So, this was interesting, and I think I like the direction that you're taking it in. It's got potential to be really scary and chilling, but right now, I'm not quite getting it. It progresses fine and all and it's got a good pace, but I think the error mostly lies within your composition.

Right now, there's not enough description and too much repetitive dialogue. You don't need dialogue tags after every single line, because if you do it just gets a bit boring and irritating to read. Also, try to watch your grammar/where you place your commas. Right now the dialogue that you have is very choppy to read. Take a look at this article and you'll see what I mean. Also, when people think, it should be in italics, not quotes.

Right now, there's so little narration that's it's really hard to build up suspense. In the last bit, you do it through dialogue, and it kind of comes off a little cheesy. Removing the caps in their words would help part of it (really, don't resort to caps, it's just an artificial and forced way to add to your dialogue) but you need more. What is the setting like? I have no image of that at all? Is it cold? Warm? What does Greg look like when he is revealed?

To conclude, Lilymoore gave you some great advice; this story does need a lot of cleaning up. Can't wait to see where you take it. PM me if you have any questions.

-Elinor x

Ok I think I got what you guys are saying, please re-read it for me and tell me if I'm heading in the right direction.