okay so what we have here is a perfect storm of bad craft decisions. register breaks. POV wobble. rhythm problems. pacing crimes. latinate words in all the wrong places. telling instead of showing

individually each of these is fixable

TOGETHER they create something almost instructive in how thoroughly wrong prose can go

come with me on a journey through terrible prose!

"Lorenzo nearly tripped and fell into the mud as he tore out of Jojo’s front door and into the wet street. The rain had come early this year, not that he would have stopped to grab his poncho even if he had brought it with him. He just ran into the pouring rain, scarcely able to see in the darkness, flailing toward his house as fast as his legs would carry him. The rain was heavy, and warm, and washed his friends’ blood off him as he ran."

'nearly' tripped. so first sentence, action scene and we're already using hedging language. there's gonna be a lot of that so get ready

'The rain had come early this year, not that he would have stopped to grab his poncho even if he had brought it with him'

opening paragraph, action scene, I remind you and Lindsay Ellis needs you to know that even under DIFFERENT LOGISTICAL CIRCUMSTANCES he still would not have retrieved his rain gear. the poncho gets a whole subordinate clause. this kind of distancing digression is gonna cause persistant pacing issues as you will see

'scarcely' is a register break. there's gonna be a LOT of those omg. so many. she is gonna lapse into essay register so many times in an action horror scene. so many

the line about the rain washing the blood off isn't terrible. could've been worded with more punch tho and should've lead the paragraph instead of being buried under the poncho digression

"Philomena, he thought, feeling his pocket to make sure his rosary was still there. Lorenzo was of an age where the only reason he ever had his rosary on him was because his lola would be disappointed if he didn’t, but at this moment, it felt like the sole thread tethering him to this world. A demon had killed his friends. Now, it was coming for him. Prayer was the only thing that would save him."

"Philomena, he thought, feeling his pocket to make sure his rosary was still there." would be stronger with out the attribution tag. just Philomena. is all you need

"Lorenzo was of an age where the only reason he ever had his rosary on him was because his lola would be disappointed if he didn’t, but at this moment, it felt like the sole thread tethering him to this world."

this sentence is 41 words long. in an action scene. in a fucking action scene. our protagonist is running with his friends' blood on him and you're giving us a 41 word sentence with more register breaks "Was of an age" is CENSUS LANGUAGE in an action scene. She couldn't write "he was sixteen and only carried it for his lola"?

and we get our first POV wobble. we were IN Lorenzo's head for "Philomena" and then Ellis yanks us out to give us narrator voice backstory about his relationship to Catholicism

"A demon had killed his friends. Now, it was coming for him."
THESE TWO SENTENCES ARE GOOD. Short. Direct. Anglo Saxon. "A demon had killed his friends" these SHOULD have been the first two sentences of the whole thing.

"“Philomena!” he cried as he ran. She was his mother’s favorite saint, and the one she prayed to most often, but that didn’t feel right. A distant bolt of lightning illuminated the street in front of him, and for an instant, it was as bright as day, showing him a clear and unobstructed path to his house. He sped toward it, not thinking about what it might mean to lead the monster right to his parents, to his lola, to his sister. But what else could he do? Had he not actually seen his friends effectively get dismembered? It all happened so quickly—before they had even known it was in the room with them, it grabbed Jojo, then Lito. He had moved to grab Jojo’s baseball bat to fend the demon back, but before he could grab it, the demon had brought Jojo’s neck to its mouth and—"

"A distant bolt of lightning illuminated the street in front of him, and for an instant, it was as bright as day, showing him a clear and unobstructed path to his house."

THIS SENTENCE. Where do I even START

"Illuminated." Latinate. we are running from a demon with our friends blood on us through the rain and you're giving me Latinate.

now look, Latinate has its place. it belongs where you're trying to slow the pace, be more thoughtful, create a more ornate vibe. essays? Latinate. regency era romance novels? latinate

horror action scene? that's the all anglo Saxon table, baby

hard consonants, punchy monosyllables. words with bite. quick words that make you read quick that makes the whole scene speed up

"Clear and unobstructed path." clear and unobstructed mean the same thing and this is weather report register. we are running from a demon here

"He sped toward it, not thinking about what it might mean to lead the monster right to his parents, to his lola, to his sister." telling us what the protagonist is NOT thinking about is another POV wobble

"Had he not actually seen his friends effectively get dismembered?"

this sentence. this is the one that got me

this is the one where I kind of froze like my brain went all dial up modem noise for a moment because are you serious with this?

this sentence is ten words long and there's like five things wrong with it

hedging language in an action/horror scene

syntax. I mean. fucking syntax

more hedging

more inappropriate latinate

and register. AGAIN. 'effectively dismembered' is not horror register. it is not action register. it is police report register

also the rhythm sucks but that's whatever compared to the rest of it

okay I'm not gonna do every sentence because this will take forever. I'm gonna do the ones that really get me

"The demon only had two hands, and there had been three boys in the room; therefore, Lorenzo had gotten away, saved by virtue of not being as close to the window as his friends had when the creature came inside, silent as a snake."

okay this is a lot

THEREFORE.

THEREFORE.

She used THEREFORE. In a horror chase scene. THEREFORE. The word of SYLLOGISMS. The word of PROOFS. The word of ACADEMIC PAPERS. A teenage boy covered in his friends' blood is apparently running a LOGIC PROBLEM in his head

SAVED BY VIRTUE OF

you see what I mean about the essay register slipping in constantly

SAVED BY VIRTUE OF.

WE ARE RUNNING FROM A DEMON

"It seemed almost impossible that something so big could be so quiet, that it could be on top of them the instant they even realized it was there."

the hedging. she never stops hedging. this one is a DOUBLE hedge

but wait

"This demon seemed more armored than the smaller one had been, which itself he and his friends had initially mistaken for a crocodile. If the bigger demon could be compared to a crocodile, it would be a saltwater one from Australia or some long-extinct giant species, nothing like the little ones found in the rivers nearby."

this is just art right here

'which itself' because our protagonist is confronting a demon in the rain so we for sure want more essay register for that

'initially mistaken' you feeling the pulse pounding action yet?

AND THEN. AND THEN

"If the bigger demon COULD BE COMPARED" CONDITIONAL MOOD. she's writing in the SUBJUNCTIVE. about CROCODILES. while a demon is looking at him. the SUBJUNCTIVE

And not just crocodiles. SUBCATEGORIES of crocodiles. Saltwater ones. FROM AUSTRALIA. Or

and she wants to make sure we consider ALL options

some LONG EXTINCT GIANT SPECIES

this is a teenage boy WHO IS ABOUT TO DIE mentally composing a wikipedia disambiguation page

"Both of them had that grayish-black skin that looked like a wet suit, but where the smaller one had eyes that were black and empty, this one had yellow eyes that lit up like bulbs in the light of the storm."

you JUST said they were armored. now they have wet suit skin?

and the fuck is the light of the storm? storms at night are dark. do you mean lightning? is that what you mean?

"The thing moved with supernatural speed and had transversed the distance between his neighbors’ house and his position on the tree when he felt it grab his leg."

so you don't mean transversed. you mean traversed (someone got paid to edit this)

and also you don't want either of those words because that's more register break. the word you want is crossed

"The branches of the tree were slick, like climbing a giant wet noodle, and he nearly slipped a couple of times before he chanced a look at the ground."

climbing a giant wet noodle

this is what I'm talking about with the register issues. she cannot maintain tone for a single paragraph

villagers are fighting a demon in the rain. this should be a bad ass blood pumping horror action scene and she is giving us Looney Tunes imagery

"In those few seconds, half a dozen of his neighbors had come into the street, wielding whatever they had close by to take the monster down—baseball bats, axes, machetes, and even a couple of rifles."

so I wanna talk about the neighbors in this scene. none of them get any sort of description. at all

they're just generic 'neighbors' and 'men'

they're Minecraft villagers dying in lava

like go read the scene yourself if you can stand it. they're Minecraft villagers

hrrm hrrm hrrm

"A dozen more neighbors were either getting their bearings or were on their way, flashing torches wildly into the storm, but none of them knew what they were dealing with."

even more POV wobble. she can't hold POV. this matters because its a horror action scene and we don't know whose head we're in. we're not grounded. how does Lorenzo know what the villagers do or don't know? he's a kid

she keeps zooming from third person to omniscient just willy nilly from one sentence to the next

"More and more men from the village attacked, which gave the monster only more and more fodder to burn through."

yeah they're just Minecraft villagers

"It seemed almost indestructible, and it had nearly a dozen people lying at its feet, injured, dead or dying, before it finally showed some sign of slowing."

showed some signs of slowing

this is middle management register

this is quarterly earnings report language

we're fighting a demon in the goddamn rain here

also the double hedge on 'seemed almost'

horror does not hedge, lindsay

horror is in your face

"Then one of the men on the ground saw an opportunity, and using his machete almost like a javelin, he skewered the monster right through its neck."

wouldn't it be nice if we had even one detail about this guy to solidify him in our imaginations

I would like that

also how are we skewering the demon? I thought it had armor

or it had wet suit skin

I don't actually know

and AGAIN with the hedging. why is the word 'almost' there?

"It failed to grab the man as blood spurted out of the wound, illuminating the mud with red when another flash of lightning passed overhead."

wait the DEMON illuminated the mud with a flash of lightning?

syntax, lindsay

also you don't say illuminate in a sentence about a demon and blood and mud. you say lit up. its called register, Lindsay and I am begging you to learn how it works

"He fell out of the tree, stumbling toward his neighbor, who was still hacking away at the demon’s neck."

he fell out of a tree and just stumbled? was the tree only four feet tall?

also the neighbors are still just Minecraft villagers

hrrm hrrm hrrm

"Another flash of lightning revealed how much blood the man was covered in—not his but the demon’s, and in the back of his mind, Lorenzo couldn’t help but wonder, What kind of demon bleeds like we do?"

this one makes me mad because "What kind of demon bleeds like we do?" is actually good and she has to piss all over it with " in the back of his mind, Lorenzo couldn’t help but wonder"

Another flash of lightning revealed how much blood the man was covered in—not his but the demon’s. Lorenzo stepped back. What kind of demon bleeds like we do?

there. fixed it for you