Past Perfect Continuous

If I were to write a short story, I guess I need to write it in past tense. I realized that If I were to explain about a situation where something had been occurring ever since blablabla, I need to use past perfect continuous. I have this sentence but I don't think it is well put, something just doesn't feel right, would you help me?

The heavy storm that had been occurring ever since he came out of his chamber, mounted horrors inside his spine.

What's wrong and how can I fix the sentence? Thanks

 

Not sure what exactly is wrong with the sentence, or if the sentence is wrong, just the verb occurring doesn't really fit. At least it doesn't sound too right there.

 

The sentence is a little laboured. Change occurring for raging and drop the heavy, since raging suggests a heavy storm. 'mounted horrors inside his spine' doesn't sound right. How do you get horrors inside your spine? You need to find a different way of saying that.

The storm that had been raging since he came out of his chamber, sent waves of terror rippling down his spine.

 

The core sentence, The storm mounted horrors. doesn't work at all. The verb mounted is a very poor verb choice.

Apart from that, the comma should be removed, or else the entire middle portion treates as parenthetical by adding another comma:

However, I feel the sentence itself needs to be scrapped and written anew. I don't think I would make that a single sentence anyway.

 

The word chamber makes me think this person came out of an old house, or that the story takes place long ago.

As already pointed out, you want to avoid weak verbs that don't paint a vivid picture like "occuring."

Why not show the character's fear instead? You could also use this sentence to describe a bit of setting.

The storm had been pounding the grass, trees, and bushes of the campus since I left my room. Thunder growled as lightning tore across the sky, sending spidery tingles crawling down my spine. Shaking but not cold, I looked over my shoulders, left then right, and swollowed hard.

Sure, it takes more words, but he places us there more.

 

I agree with the first two posters about raging.

As well, I don't understand what "mounted horrors inside his spine" is supposed to mean. Does it mean he was horrified by the power of the storm? Or something else entirely?

 

evelon and cog have nailed the problems... i'd have said the same things...

 

I would have also used raging. Two sentences would be better.

 

This is a case of dangling modifier. A dangling modifier is to the literary eye as a stinking corpse is to the nose.