Review:
1. First of all, explain how it happened.
I mean, sure, it's sorta interesting how everyone suddenly showed up at a spooky mansion. But what I wondered after the first sentence was, 'How'd everyone get there? Did Alcar suddenly decide to kidnap everyone and take them to a haunted mansion? Did a scavenger hunt make them go to the mansion?'
What I suggest is that you provide at least bare-bones backstory so we know what made everyone go to the mansion. Otherwise, it just seems like you blatantly ripped off a story idea, except that you made the situation different.
Sure, you said they were going on a vacation, but that was just about it. Maybe say they won a trip in a contest, after Nate accidently mailed his antique postcard, which Jordan stole, or something. Anything to give it coherency.
Nemo made his start excellent because he made The Gate Keeper start off with a decent beginning, as it described how he registered and all that. You, on the other hand, made it seem like an episode of some cartoon, where, each week, the characters are thrown into a wacky situation with no explanation why or how they got their. Makes it seem cheesy from the start.
2. Weird, out of place sentences.
I saw a lot of parts that didn't really make sense, or didn't even have to be in the story in the first place. For example:
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Everyone was paying attention to the dark figure looking down from the top window, so whoever farted got saved.
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No sense, at all. Why did people who farted get saved? Don't waste time putting in parts unless they make sense. Re-read your submissions, do't just type anything in and post it. It'll make the story much better, and seem more organized.
3. Spelling and Grammar.
Now, I don't know how old you are, but that shouldn't really make any difference, as if you are good enough to type on an online forum, you should be good enough to type correctly.
As I've said before, a few typos are acceptable, as everyone here is human, and can't always catch their mistakes. However, I found a large number of typos and grammatical errors.
I suggest, once again, to go over your writing multiple times, to find and correct errors. Any typing program that spell checks on your computer will do this for you, and make the story easier to read, and understand. I recently discovered the awesomeness that is the built-in spell checker in the OWF posting box, which you only need to download the program to get it to work for you. Try it when you can.
Of course, it only corrects spelling errors, at least I think so. Use the typing program on your computer for grammar corrections.
4. Spacing.
I say this all the time, but it always makes things better.
Space. Out. Your. Paragraphs.
It will make the story more pleasing to the eye, and have it easier for people to read different lines of text. Space it out whenever someone speaks, or when you have a huge block of text already.
5. Formatting.
Make good use of your italic, bold, and/or underlining tools in the posting box. They are there for a reason, and will emphasize whatever you use them on. For example:
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The huge block of text hit the posting box with a KA-BLAM!
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Boring, no? How about this:
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The huge block of text hit the posting box with a KA-BLAM!
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See what I meant?
***
Overall, I'm going to have to give this a 3/10.
Poor spelling and grammar, a cartoon-like start, and what looks suspiciously like a story trying to cash in on other people's formulas, just makes it below average.
But, I will tell you this:
All writers start out like this. I've taken critisizims just as bad (and sometimes worse) as this one, but I kept at it, and eventually became the writer I am today. I write for my school newspaper, am widely beleived to be the best writer in my High School English class, and have written an small book, which I'm never to going to show to the light of day, because it still needs endless tuning.
Keep working on it, and I'm sure you'll be great at writing.
I can already see the response to this.
'Oh, you're being too harsh on him, Mitsur! He's just a beginner, cut him some slack!'
Why should I? I sure as hell didn't get any when I wrote under
this name, even if I did suck ass.
'Heh, looks like Mitsur's putting you down because he's jealous.'
Yeah, yeah. Like I'm never this harsh on other stories. Ok, so maybe I was a bit easy on Nemo, because it was the first knock-off, and I was a bit flattered. Still, I review as honestly as I can.
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