[chrispenycate]

Welcome aboard. I'm the grammar/punctuation pedant. Don't worry, I'm not representative of the place.

Originally Posted by spike.stampede

hello all.
First time posting on this site so please forgive any errors in formatting and please correct me when and where I go wrong. This is an excerpt of a project I am working where one of my characters shares a conscious

consciousness

with one another

"with an other", since you've started "One of my"

and they have internal dialogue. This is what I am having the most issues with. Please advise and hopefully enjoy. I am very glad to have join this forum.

Chapter 2.

I awakened alone in a completely white room. It was bare and empty of all furnishings except for a steel bench and a large full length mirror. Without even signs of a door

This is really the break point - the lack of door belongs in the second sentence[quote there was apparently no exit and the feeling of being watched struck at me. Clean[/quote]comma

the place smelled like a hospital, an antiseptic odor filled the air.

The bit after the comma is a complete sentence, and needs at least a semicolon, probably a period, to split it off. But do you really need to tell people what a hospital smells like?

My head pounded like a drum.

The

Last thing I remembered was turning in for the night in my small cell over at the Rikers

probably Rikers'

mental ward. Granted

comma[quote I wasn’t to[/quote]too[quote sure of my sanity at this point but I was well aware my new surroundings were not made up in my head. Sitting up[/quote]comma

I grabbed at the sides of my head as if to contain the throbbing monster that wanted out and into the world.



My stomach constricted with pangs of hunger. Hungry

comma; and I wouldn't have put "hungry" and "hunger in such close proximity

and with a record breaking headache

comma

I stumbled to my feet. It was so bright in this place. The halogen bulbs overhead bounded of

"off"; and "bounded" doesn't do it for me; too active

every wall seeming to reflect directly into my eyes. I had to shield my vision with my hand whilst I examined my new surroundings.

*There

they're

watching you* A low whisper of a voice spoke in my ear. *Leave me alone* I thought back to the ethereal voice. *Can’t you feel there

eyes?* It questioned back. “Yes

comma

and I repeat leave me alone

semicolon

my head is killing me” under my breath I stated back.
*And you think that’s my fault?* Snickered the voice that seemed to come from no where.

nowhere

*You don’t remember at all

comma

do ya?* the specter questioned. *But I remember, I remember it all.*




*Then what the hell happened then?*

kill one of the "then"s

I asked. *You were gassed last night and brought here* *you been sold my friend, they wish to use you.* the voice stated.
Through the sharp pain

hyphen (pain-filled

filled clouds in my head I vaguely remembered a dream of choking. Choking and gasping for air in a green fog, masked faces looking down on me. One large face in particular with huge black eyes leaned right in. “Bed time for Bonzo” it snarled

comma

showing large razor

hyphen

like teeth. I shook my head side to side

comma

with my eyes clenched shut

comma

to remove the image from my mind.





*Sold?* *Use me?* again

comma

I mentally questioned the voice. *Yes

comma

my boy* it answered back.*for what and who they are I do not know yet* it told me. *I can’t hear outside of this room we are in.*
I walked over to the mirror. My eyes were bloodshot and sunken in with black circles surrounding the dark brown orbs. “God

comma

I look like a junkie” I spoke out loud. “What the **** is going on?” I asked myself. *I don’t know exactly

quotation asterisk

the voice returned

quotation asterisk

all I know is what I’ve heard so far*. “What you have heard?”

unless he says it out loud, wouldn't this be in asterisks rather than quotation marks? But from here onward, the Charles voice is like this

I inquired again

comma

shaking my head trying to sort through the after effects of whatever drug I was recovering from. *Yes what I hear,

period

you think I’m just in your mind

comma

that you made me up.*It stated. *Yes

comma

I am in your mind but you didn’t create me and

comma

Charles

comma

you are not crazy* “yeah whatever, you’re a voice in my head that no one else can hear.”

why the break in quotation marks

“My track record so far doesn’t make me poster boy for sanity and for gods

god's

sake I’m arguing with you, a stinking voice in my head” I laughed out loud and in my mind. *Ok

comma

you might not be the tightest ball of twine man but I'm real and I'm still here if you’re asleep or out cold* It told me. *We have been though this before

comma

Charles.* *you know things without learning them and I’ve told you more that have been proved to be right”

no quotation marks

How can you dispute that?* *you have a gift and I’m trying to help you use it*

no upper-case "S"

Stated the voice. “And what is that gift now?” I sarcastically questioned my invisible companion. *Me.* it answered.

“Sure

comma

and I’m the king of France” I sarcastically replied and stuck out my tongue at my new patrons behind the mirror. I’d seen to

too

many movies and been in a few institutions to not know about two way mirrors and hidden cameras. “Hey!” I yelled aloud to whoever was out there. “I got to take a piss!” “You don’t want me messing up this nice clean floor do ya?” I spoke with a sarcastic smile on my face.
As if on cue a low mechanical hum emitted from the wall opposite the mirror. Startled

comma

I spun around to see a section of what I

comma

thought was a solid wall slide forward and spin around presenting me with a toilet. Now facing me

comma

with still no seam against it’s the

no "the

white smooth back, the toilet sat as if it had always been there.
As I brushed the long bangs away from my eyes I admired the fancy accommodations. “Now that was cool.” I admitted out loud.

With shame being something I had lost during my last few years in Rikers I sauntered up to the commode and relieved myself. Afterward, upon straitening

I think that's "straightening"

my clothes

comma

I realized I was no longer wearing my light Grey prison clothes.

repetiton of "clothes"

I must have been re-dressed

comma

because now I was dressed in white scrub bottoms and a dark Grey t-shirt. As I headed back over to the mirror another hum from the mechanical wall emitted from behind me

why passive and the toilet was gone without a trace as quickly as it had appeared. “Funky” I thought and meandered back over to the mirror.

I looked like ****. My dirty red hair was to

too

long and looked like I hadn’t combed it in a week. My high cheek bones

comma

which usually were one of my better features

comma

now made my face look like a skull. White skin now draped over my cranium. Also I must have lost weight,

semicolon

never an athletic man but never overweight I did

had done?

OK.
Now I appeared like one of them starving children Sally Struthers parades around on TV for other people’s pity and pennies a day. Except I was just over 6 feet tall, Caucasian and no flies stuck in my eye balls. Not that I was worried about impressing anyone but to know I could look like this was almost as bad as the condition itself I thought.

“****” I mumbled out loud. All of a sudden my knees went weak. My head still thumped at the pace of a drummer I couldn’t hear but felt none the less. Suddenly I felt I had to sit down

comma

when both legs gave out. Falling to my knees, both palms landed flat on the perfectly clean

comma

opaque tile. My head hung low.

Apparently I still hadn’t recovered fully from whatever chemicals were still in my system as well as what felt like an apparent

"felt like" and "apparent" is overkill

week without food. A familiar sting and a little red mark on my left wrist told me I had had an I.V. recently. *must have been feeding us intravenously* my internal friend stated.
I tried to slow down my breathing and get back on my feet but I couldn’t stand. Felt like a really fat person was on my shoulders expecting a ride. I tried to calm myself and sat on the floor with my legs out stretched

outstretched?

in front of me.
“What the hell is happening?” I asked myself. *Still I don’t know.* repeated the voice in my head. *and you won’t let me tell you what I do know….
*Shut up!*
I shot back mentally. “I will not take advice from a ******* voice!” *but I….*:

quotation marks

But nothing

quotation marks

I interrupted,

quotation marks

leave me the hell alone”

quotation marks

From behind the mirror

comma

just as Charles had suspected

comma

two people watched him

. chapter 2 continued---

I know, worse than a school teacher. I (personally, this might well not be the general opinion) found your searching for words to replace "said" or "internalised" in the greater percentage of cases) distracting rather than useful, and there were a couple of places where the dialogue word order was a bit strange; but I'm not going to try and teach your characters to speak.