Quote:
Originally Posted by mrmarlowe
When My Father 'Died' - v.1-5 uploaded.
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Thanks Marlowe. Those tweaks are good.
Spoiler:
The comment from the guy from the South that "You know the reason I am here is...your father invited me to tour..." suggests that there's more to his visit than meets the eye, and he's quite important in some way to the business. This is good, it adds to the tension.
However, the guy doesn't mention this again. Can you think of a way to reinforce this later on? Why does he stay around through the days leading up to the shradh?
The quick vision of the shadowy figure in the bean plant scene is good. It makes much more sense now when the shadowy figure turns up later on. However, you mention that it has a tail. This immediately made me think that it was a monkey. Later on, the shadowy figure runs along the top of the wall - which reinforces that it might be a monkey - but then has 'long strides', so it's not a monkey (or there is more than one shadowy figure). Can you see a way to make your image of this figure clearer to us?
That's a good new detail about the mother's concern over the power bill. That ties things together well, and raises tension about the cost of the shradh.
With regard to keeping the 'it's all a dream' ending, obviously that's up to you but bear in mind that all three of us who've read it felt that it didn't work, so we need to explore why a bit further.
When the son wakes up and realises it's a dream, we discover that his father is still alive. That means that the dream begins before the start of the story. So as a reader my experience is that I've just read what I thought was a ghost story for 5,000 words and then I'm told 'but none of this happened'.
Please ask yourself what the dream ending offers the reader.
There isn't anything in the ending that explains why he is having this particular dream, or resolves any problems that the protagonist has. You mention that he's been taking vitamins, but not why. What could you place in this ending that resonates with the events of the dream?
It might be a good exercise to separate out the various story arcs and see if you're happy that they progress and whether they are resolved. The main arcs as I see them are:
- Ridding themselves of the ghost
- Dealing with the guy from the South
- Sorting out the contracts
What obstacles create conflict in each of those plot arcs so that the protagonist has to work to overcome them?
There's a lot of charming detail in the story, and it gets better with each revision.
Graham