forum Any mistakes?

Started October 29, 2019 by @SupernaturalSyGuyIsTIred group

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Nadia Stone traipsed her way up the cracked cobblestone walkway winding its way through a large, lavish park. Nadia wore a bright pink hoodie, the hood pulled tightly up around her head. Locks of her dark blonde hair hung out of the side, refusing to be in the hood. Her pants were loose fitting sweats, showing off the curvature of her lower body.

Nadia inhaled the aroma of the cool autumn morning, and exhaled a wispy warm breath. Park decore sat on both sides of the path that she was on. Seeing that part of the pathway had been blocked off do to recent renovations, Nadia diverted her meandering route around the blockaide, and back onto the path. Turning right, Nadia entered a part of the park that was decorated by statues.

Nadia tucks her head in and rubs her arms nervously; the statues make her uneasy. Nadia sadly had no choice but to take this path, for it was the only one that led to where she lived. She hastened her pace.

“Excuse me, miss?” Someone suddenly called out to her. Nadia stiffened, looked around, and reached for the pepper spray in her purse. A man in ratty clothing approached her. “Spare some money for a fella?”

Nadia looked the bum up and down cautiously. Part of the park was sadly being used by the homeless as a shantytown. The man held out an outstretched hand, painted in filth of who-knew-what. Nadia retracted herself a few paces.

“Look, I just want to go home, okay? I’ve had a long night and just want to go to bed,” Nadia told the man.

“Please miss, I’m so hungry! I haven’t had anything to eat in at least two days.”

Nadia took pity on the vagrant, and fished a $30 bill from her purse.

“There, that should be enough to get yourself a meal for the day. There’s a 24 hour diner that way,” Nadia told him, and pointed in the direction from which she came.

The homeless man carefully took the bill from her, and continued his way down the path. Nadia watched the man carefully before continuing her walk. Another half mile or two, and she’d finally be home. Nadia smiled to herself, oddly proud of her good deed despite being terrified of the man.

A quarter of the way Nadia paused, her blood running cold, for in the distance she heard someone scream. Nadia began to run, but bumped into someone. The stranger held her. All Nadia could see of the person was that they wore black and red shoes with a pair of jeans.

“What’s the rush?” The stranger asked, letting Nadia go. Nadia backed away, and looked up, her eyes closed in her own reaction of fear, at the stranger. Nadia opened her eyes, and simply froze. She tried to move, but found that she couldn’t. It felt as if someone had encased her limbs in thick, sticky mud. Nadia would’ve shook with fright if it were possible. Her scream was frozen solid, and couldn’t get out past her lips.

“What’s wrong? Can’t move?” The stranger asked, and walked away into the rising sun as Nadia stood there frozen stiff.

---

Jessica Porter wondered where her roommate was. Even if Nadia could’ve driven to work she still would’ve been home by then. It was half past 5 in the morning, and Jessica was just getting ready for work. Her roommate, Nadia, would always come in from working her shift at 5:30.

Probably got caught in traffic, Jessica thought until realizing that Nadia’s car had been acting up, and had to be towed. When 6 rolled around Jessica knew that something was wrong.

Grabbing her jacket, Jessica left their shared apartment, locking the door behind her. Hopping on her bike, Jessica rode across the street to the park that she knew that Nadia would’ve cut through.

“God, Nadia, I hope that you went to your boyfriend’s place for a couple of days, and just forgot to call to tell me,” Jessica thought aloud. She usually wouldn’t worry so much, but it had been over a day since Nadia had simply disappeared. Nadia would’ve called her to let Jessica know that she was going to be gone, and it was very unlike Nadia to not call Jessica if plans came up.

Jessica rode by rows of statues, which always creeped her out do to how lifelike they seemed. She frantically searched for any sign of Nadia, not finding anything. Jessica let out a sigh, and hit her breaks to rest for a moment.

As she took a drink of her water, Jessica realized that there was a new statue in the park. Oddly, it was placed to the side of the path, yet on it at the same time.

“That wasn’t here a few days ago. Wonder where it came from,” a construction worker said. Jessica got off her bike for a closer look. As she approached she noticed that the statue looked eerily like Nadia. A bronze plate sat at the feet of the Nadia look-alike statue. On the plate was an inscription: Here stands Nadia Stone, her beauty forever encased in her namesake.

Jessica first called the cops to report Nadia missing, and then called her work to let them know that she wouldn’t be able to make it that day. The only thing that she was unaware of was that Nadia was closer than she thought.

Are you wanting help with editing or constructive criticism? I will gladly offer either.

Both, please!

Here is a document going into the editing. I typically focus on grammar and flaws with this, so it will feel highly critical and nitpicky. I never edit with the intent of harming others. I try to justify the reason behind an alteration and never add or take something away directly because that's integrating my own style of writing and pushing it on someone else, which I don't want to do. That's why it's only in the form of suggestions and why I have such long-winded explanations throughout, however, I don't do this in a condescending way. It's pointless to call something a mistake without explaining why it is or how it could be fixed. If you have any questions on something, don't be afraid to ask. I also recommend using a different document to this doc I made for your future additions to this story so that not just anyone can access it, or me for that matter, since I technically made this document. I only made it to make it easier to edit things and add suggestions. I don't plan on using it for myself. It's your story, not mine, and I am not going to work on it further without you asking me to.

That aside, my general overview is that I'm intrigued. I like the premise, and it makes for a compelling short story. Different perspectives can be fun when done well, and this has great potential. Notable flaws that I commented on was the lack of description and simple grammar stuff that's pretty easy to fix. As writers who so frequently read over our stories and imagine things in our head, we forget that readers have no clue what we're thinking, so important details and descriptions get left out. Too little description can make things feel disjointed. Another problem was repetitive information or wording, but that's easy to fix as well, really. An extra note is that there's never much of a description of Jessica? There's a solid description of Nadia at the beginning of her chapter, but then nothing on Jessica's, but that loops back to my previous criticism on "it was in my head but not on the page" ordeal.

I enjoyed reading it despite how harsh my editing can come off as, and I hope you found this helpful. There's probably something that I forgot, so again, feel free to ask questions. I hope you continue writing more stories in the future.

I have just one thing: you say Nadia a lot. I understand not wanting to use 'she' and 'her' a lot, but if it's only one person for a long part of a story then saying their name in every sentence is quite unnecessary.
People know who you are talking about unless you add another character with the same gender: in that case you may need to use both character's names alternating, but you still don't want to use them.
I would definitely suggest trying not to overuse names.

One thing that I suggest you do is show not tell. For example instead of saying, "Nadia wore a bright pink hoodie…" you could say "Nadia's bright pink hoodie stood out on the Autumn day" or something along the lines of that that.
Also this isn't a critique, but you use very good vocabulary.