Evergreen

[Soliton]

163 Words       Evergreen

Opening to a short story called "Evergreen"


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‘Either charge me or let me go. I told you what happened 20 times already.’


The FBI agent said, ‘We can keep you 2 days without charging you. So tell us it all over again. You’ll here for another day.’


‘Like a said, it started the night after the second PTA meeting. I was sleeping beside my wife. It must have been about 3:00 am, deathly quiet. Someone was in the bedroom. A chill went up and down me. I could not move for fear. I knew if I moved they would get me.’


‘In my head, a voice said, ‘Wake up.’


‘I instantly opened my eyes and sat up in bed. There, I saw a young transparent girl in a long dress standing in the bedroom doorway. She glided away down the hall.’


‘I knew what I had to do and I did it.’


The FBI agent walked away and aside said to the other agent, ‘That’s the exact same story they all told us.’

[RAVENEYE]

Oct 4, 2020 1:01:00 GMT -6 Soliton said:

163 Words

Opening to a short story called "Evergreen"


‘Either charge me or let me go. I told you what happened 20 times already.’


The FBI agent said, ‘We can keep you 2 days without charging you. So tell us it all over again. You’ll (be?) here for another day.’ (pesky typos )


‘Like a (I) said, it started the night after the second PTA meeting. I was sleeping beside my wife. It must have been about 3:00 am, deathly quiet. Someone was in the bedroom. A chill went up and down me. I could not move for fear (Watch for dialog that strays from how modern folks phrase things. "for fear" sounds 19th Century). I knew if I moved they would get me. In my head, a voice said, ‘Wake up.’ (If the dialog of a single speaker isn't interrupted by beats or action going on around them, then it's common practice to keep it all in a single paragraph. Breaking the dialog into several paragraphs like this initially caused me to think there was more than one speaker. If this was a formatting thing caused by the forum itself, then please ignore this comment.) I instantly opened my eyes and sat up in bed. There, I saw a young transparent girl in a long dress standing in the bedroom doorway. She glided away down the hall. I knew what I had to do and I did it.’


The FBI agent walked away and aside said to the other agent, ‘That’s the exact same story they all told us.’

Hehe, the last line is a great narrative hook. I'd turn the page to see what's going on.

Now, while there's much to be said for minimalist writing, I should be able to tell, very near the first paragraph, or as close to the beginning as possible, who the main character is--whose Point of View this story will be filtered through. At this point, I can't tell if the POV character is going to be the person reporting the encounter or the FBI agent. I'm leaning toward the FBI agent at this point, since it's the agent who will be trying to unravel the mystery, and since you took ... him? her? into an aside that the person reporting might not be able to overhear. Of course, you could have something else in mind, where the person experiencing this ghost is the one who unravels it.

So what I'm seeing here is the bare bones of a fun story, and a next draft will require developing intimacy with your chosen POV character. Name, gender, sensory experience during the interview, maybe some internal monologue to help the reader step inside the POV character's skin a bit. None of this has to be heavy-handed, just a few well-chosen lines or words to flesh things out, if you choose to keep it minimalist. Point is, for the reader to experience the situation and the main character, we're going to need a little more development. 

Stories like this are so much fun to read. I hope you stick with it.

And I hope this helps. Please bring more.

[Alatariel]

Oct 4, 2020 1:01:00 GMT -6 Soliton said:

163 Words

Opening to a short story called "Evergreen"



"Either charge me or let me go. I told you what happened 20 times already." [We need context and a dialogue tag here. If opening a story with dialogue, you need to quickly give us character names, setting, and describe the scene. Otherwise the reader feels disconnected from the story immediately. I know it feels fun and mysterious, but it's actually confusing and detrimental to the future of your story.]


The FBI agent said, "We can keep you 2 two [numbers under 100 are always written out] days without charging you. So tell us it all over again. You’ll here for another day." [I'd add the dialogue tag at the end to keep things flowing, plus we haven't been introduced to the scene at all, so throwing "The FBI agent said" before the dialogue is disruptive.]


"Like a said, [add tag with emotional state, is he/she frustrated, calm, what? Also, we don't know who's talking still. Is this a man or woman or child?] it started the night after the second PTA meeting. I was sleeping beside my wife. It must have been about 3:00 am, deathly quiet [Is this unusual? Are there usually night sounds this person can hear outside the window?]. Someone was in the bedroom. A chill went up and down me. I could not move for fear. [This reads really stiffly, trying reading this portion outloud to see if it feels natural.] I knew if I moved they would get me. In my head, a voice said, ‘Wake up.’ I instantly opened my eyes and sat up in bed. There, I saw a young transparent girl in a long dress standing in the bedroom doorway. She glided away down the hall. I knew what I had to do and I did it."


The FBI agent walked away and aside said to the other agent, "That’s the exact same story they all told us."

As Raveneye said, the ending has a good hook and leads the reader to keep going with the story. However, DAD, you gotta give us 1) setting 2) character names 3) descriptions of emotions.

Also, pops, "" goes around dialogue, not ' '.  Also, don't split each line of speech if one person is talking. Not necessary, it's just confusing.

Do those and come back with it revised! I wanna see it.

[Soliton]

Would you believe I wrote this at 1:30 pm last night from memory of an old short story I wrote years ago?

(I see you detected that.)

Thanks for the excellent ideas. These will make me better and cleared a few questions up I had about the craft.

[ScienceGirl]

Hi Soliton,

I'll chime in where Raveneye left off. You may have reposted, but since you are interested in learning, I will toss a tip your way

Raveneye mentioned that you've given us the bare bones of the story. I actually did an exercise with bare bones once at a writer's retreat and it was a lot of fun. Bare bones can literally go anywhere. And then, you find your story amongst all your brainstorming and fine-tune it.

What you do is take each line and see if you can expand it into a paragraph or longer sentence using who, what, when, where, why and how.

The lady who taught our lesson gave us a line. "I've never used anything like that before in my life." And this was her example:

Who said the line: Bugs Bunny
What was he/she/it doing when they said the line: Hiding a small acme bag of miracle carrot grow behind his back.
When did he/she/it say the line? Late October, end of the carrot-harvesting season
Where did he/she/it say the line? By the fence of the carrot field
Why did he/she/it say the line? Because Bugs wanted the agent to go away so he could finish harvesting the carrots
How does he/she/it feel about the situation? Bugs is frustrated because the agent thinks the miracle grow was stolen, but it isn't.

Now that's pretty silly, but it relaxed us all so we could write our own. And honestly, every time I get stumped with a scene, I write out the dialogue first and add character actions, facial expressions, etc to sort of dress it up. But it always comes back to who is saying the line, what are they doing (or holding), how do they feel, where are they, and when is this happening.

So maybe, take this first line ("Either charge me or let me go. I told you what happened 20 times already.") and post what you come up with. Then we can work on the fine-tuning.