the chained forest - suggestions (wip)

Instructions

“The people of Woodland Hills were always told to stay out of the forest, those who didn’t heed the warning were found dead, their mouths open screaming in their last moments.” Pretty good opening sentence! Quickly captures the attention of the reader, but a few grammatical errors. There should be an “and” right before “those who didn’t heed the warning”, otherwise you’ve got a run-on sentence, and after “open” should be a comma. ——— “Their legs hanging from trees, the bones snapped like twigs and broke through the skin.” To me, this doesn’t fully make sense since the legs would be the lowest part of the body, meaning it’d be difficult for specifically them to be hanging from the trees. Another small thing to note is that “broke through the skin” should be something along the lines of “skin criss-crossed with deep gashes,” etc. ——— “Blood dripping from the forever stained leaves. Veins broken leaving dark purple almost black bruises. The grass always stained a muddy brown, even without rain.” Another couple grammatical errors, it should read, “Blood dripping from the forever-stained leaves. Veins broken, leaving dark purple, almost black, bruises.”. Another small suggestion would be to keep the pattern of not using the word “the” at the beginning, which worked effectively for the previous two sentences before “The grass always…”, which would therefore become “Grass always…”. ——— “The air had a coppery tinge to it, as they would approach.” Who is they? Often while writing we introduce a character before using pronouns (since pronouns are technically supposed to refer to a noun, and if that noun doesn’t “exist” yet, then pronouns wouldn’t be used), but sometimes this helps add to the mystery. ——— “Bones were found near the edge, coated in dark mud and surrounded by the long grass. People moved out of the rundown town, all until one boy dressed in jeans and a black band t-shirt.” Another few grammatical errors here, “all until one boy…”… this phrase doesn’t have a verb, which is necessary since it says “all until”. Also, unless the jeans + shirt are absolutely necessary to plot later on, it’d be better to remark on the Vero’s physical appearance (e.g. his hair colour, eyes, or perhaps even personality). For a challenge, try doing so without explicitly stating the facts (e.g. “His eyes were blue. He was very intelligent and cheeky.”), and instead write something along the lines of “A curl of his blonde hair snagged on an overhanging branch, and he cursed softly as he struggled to slip it off the dark arms of the tree.” etc. ——— “The boy’s name was Vero. Vero was obsessed with the forest, always trying to climb the short rusting chain link fence that separated the two.” Alright, but “showing not telling” is probably another strategy you could employ here (especially if you’d like for it to be longer, so instead of saying his name is Vero outright/explicitly, you could make his mother call him back home and tell him to stop going to the forest because it was dangerous. This then reveals that he often visits the forest and that his name is Vero - all without you saying either of those two statements. It can slow down the story slightly and allow for further description, and perhaps then you could describe maybe lying in bed or doing homework, how Vero yearns for the forest.) Another thing: “that separated the two.” This sentence seems unfinished, what is the two? ——— “Missing posters were plastered on the fence, covering it like glue on paper.” Word choice is great, but perhaps a different simile would work better. ——— “His leg scratched against the metal, coating his dark blue jeans knees in the rust.” “His leg scratched against the metal.” This simply doesn’t /technically/ make sense, although I could just be picky! Correctly it would be “The metal scratched against his leg.” Also, you’re missing an apostrophe in “jean’s”. ——— “A leather bound notebook stuck out of his pocket, frayed at the edges, pages yellowing with age.” Very good word choice again! ——— “He made it over the fence, slicing his leg on one of the many rusted spikes, falling towards the ground.” How did he slice his leg while wearing jeans? Also previously you mentioned that it was a chain-link fence, a slight discrepancy only but where did these random rusted spikes come from? ——— “Vero laid at the edge of the forest now, rain dripping from the sky like a leaky faucet people always forget to fix. The charcoal clouds made the forest look almost black. His calf sent a spiraling pain up his thigh into his stomach, blood leaking from the rust coated cut.” Again, where did the cut come from, and since when did the rust cover the cut? ——— “‘Crap…’ He muttered under his breath, pressing a tender hand against his calf. Vero got up, wincing through the pain. His mind racing if I get tetanus what could happen…” Only grammatical errors again, it should be, “His mind racing, /What if I get tetanus? What could happen then?/”