Carr's Review of Jim's Story 10/26

To: Jim Dorffner
From: Carr
Re: “Greta”
Jim,
There are some things working well here in your story of Greta, the nurse’s dead sister who haunts the hospital where she works. First, the situation itself is good material for a short story. It’s a little bit quirky that Greta is haunting this place. It gives you an unusual situation. Second, you tend to have pretty realistic, simple dialogue in your work, and there is the same quality here. That’s good. Third, your piece here has some movement. The mystery of Greta is revealed at the end, along with the fact that John was in a coma/near death during the first part of the story.
OK. So where to from here? I think the biggest issue to address is the dual question, Who is the central character and what does he want? Right now I’d say John is the central character. But what does he want? That’s harder to say. He seems to have been in an accident. He was apparently by himself, and there is no evidence either way what caused the accident. While he is in the coma he thinks his parents are mad at him, and he wants to remember who was with him, but we don’t get any resolution to that. I guess we could say that he wants to die and Greta coaxes him back, but even then I’m going to wonder what change we have seen in John.
OK. So think about this: what if the central character were Greta’s sister the nurse? What wants/desires might she have, particularly related to Greta? Of course she might be surprised or scared the first time one of the patients mentions Greta. I was surprised how nonchalant she was when John first mentioned her. That seems weird. Then maybe she could be annoyed that Greta keeps showing up. Finally she might wish that Greta would show herself to the nurse, so she could see her. Do see where I’m going with this? If you shift the central character to the nurse, it gives you more choices for storytelling. It gives you more chances for surprises. Look at “Zoanthropy” again. See how your nurse could be like Alastair.
Second, I think your story could use more exposition/description like you have in the first paragraph. You create a nice scene there, and I’d like to have more of that throughout the piece. Let your characters look out at the world and show it back to us.
All right. This has much potential. See me with questions. Good luck.
CK