Quote:
Originally Posted by mrmarlowe
Perhaps improper to ask but could you please give it another read? I think I changed some of these you mentioned (same old version, lol).
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Hi Marlowe. No problem; I've read it through again.
Spoiler:
I had missed that the guy from down South was a friend of his father's, sorry, which explains that it's not a blood relationship.
Regarding my comments about the possibility of doing some more with this character, if I turn that round it might make it clearer what I mean: How would the plot would be any different if this character wasn't in the story?
Although the mother and son do go to some lengths to 'normalise' the activity of the ghost, it comes across to me as simply out of the normal embarrassment that you'd have with odd activity going on while you've got a guest staying. Do you think there's an opportunity there to raise the stakes, by making it imperative in some way that they keep this guest happy and thinking that nothing is wrong?
Regarding the book lawn fair, correct me if I'm not reading this right, but my reading is that the character is directed towards the book lawn tunnel, messed around a bit by the rapscallions, and eventually he is sent somewhere else - over to the construction site - where he finally finds the priest.
If so, then the sequence in the book lawn fair could be removed without affecting the plot in any way - it's just something that happens to him on his journey.
However, I've got a vivid picture of the colourful tunnel of the book lawn fair, and not really any sense of the house near the under-construction building. Is there a reason I'm missing why the priest's house couldn't indeed be something found only by going through the 'red, white and yellow' striped cloth tunnel? Your description has brought the fair to life for me.
Regarding the menacing shadowy figure, again, I may be reading it wrong, but I don't see it appearing until just after the mother 'withdraws her meagre savings' - just before the shradh scene. My reading was that all the previous shadowy (and hungry) figures were the father.
The shradh - as you make clear - is necessary to stop the soul wandering around after death. So the goal of the mother and son is to perform the shradh. In my head though, we've got the contracts and this mysterious guy from the South. Because it's a story I want to know how it all ties together. My expectation is that because these plot elements are presented early they will somehow be related and resolved.
If the main goal is that the mother and son need to perform the shradh, then what obstacles are put in their way? At the moment, the son needs to find a priest - which he does, without too much difficulty - and the mother needs to find the money - which she does quite easily. So, in my reader's mind - because there's no significant obstacle to the shradh I'm expecting the conflict that brings the story to its climax to come from the other plot elements that have so far been presented (e.g. the contracts or the guy from the South). At the moment the conflict in the shradh is the father's ghost getting his fair share of pinda - which isn't made too difficult for him.
Then Mr Zant appears and asks about the contracts, which aren't resolved at the end of the story, so the son still has the problem he was left with by his father.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mrmarlowe
Let me know that if it is now a 'passable' story for the anthology (assuming I don't make the other changes).  |
I don't think it's up to any of us to decide what's passable or not - it's a learning experience for us all. Katsunami may have some thoughts on this, but my take is we're going to keep working at the stories trying to make each of them the best we can, and then it's those versions that go into the final book. It would be tricky with this process for any one of us to set up as a 'commissioning editor'.
However, at this early stage, my feelings on this story are:
Graham