Young Writers Society

There’s a cemetery down the way, a couple metres wide and a couple more long. The only good thing about this place is the ghost with the most irritating mannerisms. He is worm-chewed at his pearly white ends like wind polished marble or bone someone took the careful time to sculpt and gloss over like a prize for the mantelpiece. He comes out in his ashen glory of fading height and a mop of hair that’s neither blond nor brown but some greyed shade in between.

“I used to be in commerce, an entrepreneur” is what he rolled out to me with careful syllables.

“Most people who say that these days don’t have a job at all.”

And that made him laugh, for whatever reason. At least I think he laughed when he threw his head back with his mouth parted slightly and his shoulders shook and quivered in rhythm with the wind. I wouldn’t know, no sound came out and I’m no expert on ghosts.

“How’d you die, mister?”

After all these conversations, he still won’t tell his name maintaining he’s got to stay mysterious as a ghost can be. But I can see the way he looks at his tombstone like it were an unsent love letter or when you realize decades too late that you lost something really important.The words once carved in have been smoothed out and pressed like my mother’s linens free of lines and the fold I made over time in the bedsheets. I’m sure he can’t remember his name.And even though someone liked him enough once to have his name carved into the rasberry-grey marble for everyone to see, they clearly haven’t come around here in a long time.

“That’s an age old story friend. And it’ll take till morning to explain it.”

He paused to lick his lips, cracked and flushed down to the colour of moonstone, and to roll his tongue in thought.

“Death is like arithmetic friend,” he said slowly, softly and unsure of his words. “I could say I died drowned or sick or shot to death in a bar fight but that’s not the case, and in any case there’s always more to it like an equation.”

“Enlighten me.”

“Well, there’s always why.” he rolled his tongue in his mouth thoughtfully. “And those mechanics of death are tricky. For example, there was this one boy who got here something like three years ago. Young thing with a voice so scratchy it was hard to listen but he wanted to know how you drowned. All I could say was that water went down the wrong tube and splashed in your lungs until air couldn’t come in or out."

And he tilted his head to the right slightly, so the muscles under the grey tinged skin of his neck stretched out, and dug his fingers into an abandoned pot of dirt.

"Little guy told me he choked on the water of the Mississippi River and it took two months for him to wash up to shore.”

I could just imagine the boy now, blue skin sunk in at the cheeks. The ghost licks his lips again before exhaling quietly.

“I could say I died because of my girl. A pretty one with hair the colour of the wheat fields my dad used to plow when the harvest came. And a drawl that turned the air around me thick as honey we she parted her lips. And I could say I died because of my brother, broad chested guy. He was by far the best business partner I could have ever gotten my hands on but at the same time the worst brother any human could live with. Or I could say it was them two together fucking each others brains out while I was giving up the ghost in Kansas City, Missouri.”

He paused again to frown slightly with the edges of his mouth dipping downward so the wind could imitate him again.

“You know how awful it is to die in Kansas City? The incessant rack-clack-clack of train tracks is irritating.”

“Why were you in Missouri?”

“Oh, I don’t know. A business trip my brother was too ‘sick’ to do himself.” he muttered, “You and I both know he was just making sure he’d have time to sleep with my girl .”

But I didn’t know, so I just nodded quietly. It’s odd to see a ghost sit with his feet inches apart with his elbows on his thighs, when you know he’s human but not quite. I watched him observe a hole in his jeans intently as if it could tell the rest of the story.

“How’d you die, mister?”

“With a gun of course, just like anyone else who isn’t dying of cancer or old age.”

--

Hmmm, not too impressed. There doesn't seem to be very much of a purpose to the story; it's more of a rambling narrtion.
The bgeinning was what gave me the most trouble. I had to go back a little at first, since you introduced the idea of a ghost so quickly. The "He's" in "He’s worm chewed at his pearly..." could have been "He is" just to draw it out. Also, you need a hyphen after "worm".
If I had to guess, I'd say you were working under a word limit, since that's how it feels: fast intro, fast and senless outro...
Might I suggest you make this longer? If it's true you're working under a limit (or stress) then there's not much you can do, but you could definitely revise the fast-pacedness of it all.
Actually, no, it's not fast-paced. It just seems as though there are large pieces missing, as though it were meant to be larger.
Anyways, to recap: make this longer and slower. He's dead, for crying out loud, he has all the time in the world to waste.

Oh, and yeah, your MC is almost dead him(her?)self. There is absolutely nothing about him here.

Jenth

I actually found this pretty interesting. Jent's right, it was in a way a rambling narration, and yet it was dry and I personally loved the descriptions that were given throughout this, and all-in-all I liked this a lot. The only error I really saw was around the beginning, "He’s worm chewed at his pearly white ends like wind polished marble or bone." I was kind of scratching my head on that part.
Otherwise, I thought this was definitely a cool read.
Keep writing,
StoryWeaver

Here I am, Kammy!

It's interesting and I like the premise and how you got on with it, but at the end, I'm like 'so?' If I were to draw a graph, it's rise with a positive slope and the suddenly fall down half way and stay flat. It seemed to lack something, and it had flat ending.

The only good thing about this place is the ghost with the most irritating mannerisms.

Only one? Where do the others go?
Narrator: So, ghostie is the MC. Cool! I like how the Narrator guy is asking all the questions, but aside from this, there's no point to the narrator. What is he here for? Is he just dead and puzzled? Is he dying? Why is he asking all this? He is, right now, no more than a voice. I should liek to get a solider idea of him.

“Enlighten me.”

I found this awkward becuase it broke the flow of the image I created of the narrator.
MC: I like the guy! He's rambly, but it adds to the story. It's interesting. I found the death-arithmetic line a bit weird... because the connection didn't make sense in my head. But, that's probably me.

He paused to lick his lips, cracked and flushed down

Cracked what?

And as Jenth said, the pacing is a bit wonky.

I think work on the length, if you have the liberty to do so. If not, maybe skip some rambliness and make it a tad more solid? Still, good read!

~Lava

Hello, Kamas lad.

So I read your story, and I think I kind of get what you were trying to so here. I respect the morbidity of it. It reminds me of a Tim Burton movie or something. I genuinely like the angle and all. You have this man interviewing a ghost? It's sort of an awkward setting for a story, I suppose that's why I like it. There wasn't as smooth a flow with some of your sentences though, I have to say.

In the beginning you had that opening description of the zombie ghost guy. It was a very roughly written description in my eyes. Almost like you were trying to hard to seem metaphoric or interesting. If you retweaked the way you made that opening paragraph of description, I think the beginning would be much better.

I think your ending was solid, though I had some trouble deciphering who said what! This bothers me because I think it greatly distinguihes the point in your story and ties everything together. Is it the dead guy who is asking how the person speaking to him died, or is it the other way around? I'm not sure, but I think it's a vital detail so it's why I ask.

Anyway, nice short story all in all. It was an interesting read. Very unique. I think it could use a tad polisheing up with certain parts and sentences maybe, but overall it is still very interesting.

-Smylin'

Ew, this is about ghosts and little girls?

Kansas and Missouri? Where's Dorothy? I want toto!

The least you could do is have a cowardly lion.

I suggest sprinkling croutons and parmesan cheese over this to a high bake setting.

I'll review this furreals after I get groceries and am presentable to the world.

(srsly, I would never ask for that in chat. Don't even try it. And I don't want to be solicited for it either.)
p.s. anyone reading this should just walk away, who isn't Kamas, MeanMrMustard, or a small group of other people

I see you played with that sentence some; let's see what can be done later today, eh?

Hola!!

I really liked this. The other reviews say you don't have a purpose, I didn't see that. *shrugs* The dialogue was really nice, very realistic. I love the ghost, you portrayed him awesomely.

“I used to be in commerce, an entrepreneur,” is what he rolled out to me with careful syllables.

“Most people who say that these days don’t have a job at all.”

Haha, burn!! Loved this. Ah-hem.

The words once carved in have been smoothed out and pressed like my mother’s linens free of lines and the fold I made over time in the bedsheets.

This sentence is too long. Throw some commas in there somewhere.

“I could say I died drowned or sick or shot to death in a bar fight but that’s not the case, and in any case there’s always more to it. Like an equation.”

That would make it look better to me.

And he tilted his head to the right slightly, so the muscles under the grey tinged skin of his neck stretched out, and dug his fingers into an abandoned pot of dirt.

This makes it sound like the muscles under his neck dug his fingers into an abandoned pot of bird. Maybe if you rephrase it, or replace the comma with a full-stop?

And a drawl that turned the air around me thick as honey we she parted her lips.

Huh? What does that mean?

Apart from those nitpicks, I really liked this. Hope my review helps. ^.^

With prose, you need to make me feel in another world past visual and sensory collisions; my mind, the prose mind, and even some of your mind need to meet if only for moments. That's all it takes to wrap me in and tear me asunder. This is like music, but instead of a solo or an ensemble, even a quartet, prose is an orchestra both in a single player and in many parts; sometimes even the absence of the orchestra itself, but still an orchestra.

I don't buy this prose, and your unnervingly clear self-conscious awareness of how your prose must look is vibrant as well. I've had college students write a thousand times worse than this, and they supposedly English/Literature and Creative Writing majors could barely churn their work out. They're molly-coddled, neutered children that are supposed to shun away from the stark reality that they for the most part, suck. Then one of them gets the bright idea to submit to a publisher or lit magazine with high hopes, and what happens?

A Beatles Rockband 3D absurdist graphically rendered elephant falling off the edge of the world into foamy clouds that they fall through like cool-whip and never stop falling. Reality has never been slapped into their wrists like the sharp edge of sharpened metal ruler; reality is uncaring and merciless when you are self-conscious or, even worse, not conscious enough.

So why are you doubting yourself when your foundation is so sound? To not get an ego? People that matter will always, should always, be around to stop you from having this. If you do get one, I will gleefully help you lose it at a moment's notice.

There’s a cemetery down the way, a couple metres wide and a couple more long.

"There's a cemetery down the way"; so is the connection in your narrator's diction implicitly created for familiarity? Because the way is broad and general enough for me to think this way is simply any way. In media res? No, because you're depicting a tiny window into this world you're going to take us to, but, like I told you before, you're too general. You have this curious problem of being poetic when you should be prosaic, being prosaic when you should be poetic, and then completely missing on either and shaking at the knees like a Bugs Bunny character with rattling teeth and wobbling eyes.

When you sit down to write prose, it's not just what you FEEL come to you, but it's to display both through and in words to a reader on what they see in those words about you and the story so they can see through both the words and you to something different. First lines of any prose are tone-setters, the do or die marks; whether a reader will latch on or drop you like a one night stand or relationship full of awkwardness. Vanity isn't enough when you need depth, and that goes for all art, and life. But now I'm preaching.

The only good thing about this place is the ghost with the most irritating mannerisms. He is worm-chewed at his pearly white ends like wind polished marble or bone someone took the careful time to sculpt and gloss over like a prize for the mantelpiece. He comes out in his ashen glory of fading height and a mop of hair that’s neither blond nor brown but some greyed shade in between.

Showing, some telling, and awfully poetic descriptions and forcing of concepts. Just tell me this: is he appearing, is he moving, is he freaky, is he creepy. Be simple. Be effortlessly exact. When you have this skeleton created THEN you can layer the prose, then you can elaborate on the prose, then YOU can put character into the prose. Right now you use unusual phrases and descriptions that simply don't make depiction to the reader all too easy: "pearly white ends", "bone...for the mantelpiece", "fading height", "but some". First, you're redundant in your descriptions like you're trying a complex metaphor but stumbling in making the extended metaphor extended. Let me show you how to do this in my prose:

He is a worm-chewed exhibit, with pearly white knobs and crooks and heels all smooth as a baby's flesh but yellowed like wallpaper curling from a decade old practice of daily layered cigarette smoke, his ivory appendages like the fond memory of a first hunt's bounty some rich plantation owner had rubbed to a shiny gloss for years but now dead could not help but let cobwebs drape his crevices and sinew, fill his tendons and cavities with grisel and dust, like he was laid to rest in life but killed yet again in death.

^It's not perfect by far, there's so much more I could do with it, but this is the non-bullshitting you need to do. Get patterns, get routines, gets succinct but meaningful language that hints and plays with the nature of what you want to depict. Because your diction needs to be playful BUT active and engaging. Don't simply communicate to me on an ordinary level.

“I used to be in commerce, an entrepreneur” is what he rolled out to me with careful syllables.

So this just happens? No introduction of walking up and engaging, starting, causing, no means of placing us into the spot, the moment. Just dialogue? And what do you mean he rolled out to you? How are these careful syllables? If you're going to make his speech seem peculiar, reflect it in the speech as well. Make every word and characteristic poignant.

“Most people who say that these days don’t have a job at all.”

Witty, sassy. Obvious, but not too cliche. It depends on what you do with this, and by this, I mean the implicit and non-spoken interactions of personalities: body language, chemistry, rhythm, movement. Because, while your dialogue is not droll or mundane, you're investing too much weight in it without creating a world for the dialogue to exist in and be comfortable. Are you yourself unsure here?

Or rather, are you trying too hard to do something with this narrator?

And that made him laugh, for whatever reason. At least I think he laughed when he threw his head back with his mouth parted slightly and his shoulders shook and quivered in rhythm with the wind. I wouldn’t know, no sound came out and I’m no expert on ghosts.

Your narrator is peculiar in the nonchalant and detached perspective they have. Here they're speaking to a ghost and you play this down completely with the irony of simply asking the ghost about what it doesn't have anymore: life, and what it did in it.

Oh, please stop being so blunt in some of these sentences. He might have laughed, you don't think he laughed, and then you are no expert and no sound came out; get to the point, illustrate this without telling me.

“How’d you die, mister?”

After all these conversations, he still won’t tell his name maintaining he’s got to stay mysterious as a ghost can be. But I can see the way he looks at his tombstone like it were an unsent love letter or when you realize decades too late that you lost something really important.The words once carved in have been smoothed out and pressed like my mother’s linens free of lines and the fold I made over time in the bedsheets. I’m sure he can’t remember his name.And even though someone liked him enough once to have his name carved into the rasberry-grey marble for everyone to see, they clearly haven’t come around here in a long time.

“That’s an age old story friend. And it’ll take till morning to explain it.”

More of the same. Think about pacing. Think about my relation to finding out events that have already happened and where exactly I am at in the story and my relation to it.

He paused to lick his lips, cracked and flushed down to the colour of moonstone, and to roll his tongue in thought.

“Death is like arithmetic friend,” he said slowly, softly and unsure of his words. “I could say I died drowned or sick or shot to death in a bar fight but that’s not the case, and in any case there’s always more to it like an equation.”

“Enlighten me.”

Too stale. Too dry. It's not just a conversation here, not just a colour of moonstone. Not a little gesture. Get out and tell us what this little narrator is like. Consider the perspective the story should be told from, and if it would be prudent to play with your narrator's personality some or move to the ghost. You're neglecting elaborating on your narrator so much I can't follow their comments because they seem completely remote of feeling except curiosity. There must be depth here or it's dead weight.

And I'm stopping there, because we talked about the rest before and I'll keep repeating myself. While you're a talented young writer, you aren't realizing how to embellish, to elaborate, and to inject life into to everything; you're skirting the waters and sticking your toe in with much too much hesitation; you've got to tell me what it's like for this narrator to see this ghost. To hear this ghost talk. Because these two have met so much you make assumptions here like we'll just fit in with the two of them; how do we possibly meet the narrator here then?

WE just meet an eccentric ghost and an uncommitted narrator. Substance Kamas, without it I'm drinking vinegar mixed with baking soda, not spiced rum on the rocks with lime and caviar.

A/N: I'm trying.

You are, it's not easy is it? Keep going though, each time you make progress.

Mature and intelligent. Somehow you managed it, I don't take ghost stories too seriously but your closing line sent the breath back down my throat. You've had a bunch of great reviewers, I haven't read any of them, but I'm sure any criticism I have will have been covered already.

The ghost and the narrator are simply a framing device for the real story, that unravels and is simply incredible.

JP