Can You See Me? (Prologue)

Hello! I'm here, as requested... though it seems like you've had a lot of reviews already, so I'm not sure how much help lil ol' me will be, but it also looks like you've edited a lot since most of them, so... well, enough rambling. :) Onto the review. Since this is part of a novel, you're probably not looking for lots of nitpicks, so I won't point out comma-issues (of which there were only a few) and such, but there are a few awkwardnesses and such that I'd like to bring to your attention.

Everything’s fine, he tried convincing himself. Things like this happen all of the time, just relax...It’s going to be fine. No matter how much Liam ran that through his head, there was something unrecognisable in the pit of his stomach that told him otherwise.

First underline: for some reason this sounds awkward to me. I would be more inclined to say, "... he tried to convince himself." But that's up to you.
Second underline: this also felt awkward. Something about "told him otherwise" just sounds forced to me. Maybe rewrite it to something along the lines of: "... something unrecognisable in the pit of his stomach that knew he was wrong." or "... something unrecognisable in the pit of his stomach that couldn't help but contradict him."

He thought of the way Eirin would never leave a dinner table without brushing up the crumbs, and the way she always managed to convince their daughter that her school teacher could hear every word that she spoke.

I don;t understand what you're saying in the last bit. :/ I think you mean that Eirin would tell her daughter that her daughter's teacher could hear everything that she (the daughter) said? But I'm not sure how that fits in in the context of the story. I would say you should either elaborate on this or take it out completely.

Nothing could last forever, and that fact had slapped Liam in the face. He sat back down on the chair and sighed, rubbing his temples. He hadn’t even heard the news yet.

There isn't really (so far as I can tell) much point of saying the first sentence, because it's just telling what you show throughout the rest of the piece. And the last sentence isn't needed either, since I already know he's waiting for news. So maybe just keep the middle one?

Liam’s eyes weren’t taken off the man’s face for a single moment. He nodded at him before sitting in the seat beside Liam.

Sentence #1: What does that mean? >.< Sentence #2: this is awkwardly worded. Maybe try: "He nodded at Liam before sitting in the seat beside him."

Liam didn’t care what his name was, and right now, he didn’t feel like shaking anyone’s hand. Where was Eirin?
He detachedly shook Ray Porter’s hand, wishing he’d just tell him what on earth was going on. More importantly, where his wife was.

These two lines (the red one and the blue one ^.^) basically just say the same thing in two different ways... I suggest either combining them somehow or just taking out one of them. I'm also not sure I'm so crazy about the word "detachedly," but that may just be me...

Small pools of water tried their best to escape from his eyes, his thoughts electrifying through his mind.

I'm not entirely sure, but I don't think you're using the word "electrifying" correctly. Or maybe it is correct, but it's unusual and it stood out awkwardly to me when I read it.

In another room, there was a red-haired woman, making sure that the tiny child in the incubator before her remained stable. Other nurses fussed around with medical equipment in the wooden shelves, along with documents and papers.

1. I don't think you need that transition, since you've just had the break, with the asterisks and everything. It's obvious you're changing perspective. Also, the wording was a bit awkward here. I would suggest something more like: "A red-haired woman stood by the tiny child, making sure its incubator remained stable." Though I'm not sure how an incubator works exactly, so I don't know if it can be kept stable or not...
2. Wooden shelves? Hm... that makes me think that either this is taking place a long time ago or the hospital is old-fashioned. I really don't know what I'm talking about, but it seems to me that plastic has been the material of choice for most hospitals ever since the '50s, before which it was probably metal.

The cries began to escalate, the young nurse trying to calm the child down.

Slightly awkwardly-phrased. Maybe something-like-but-not-necessarily: "Though the young nurse trying to calm him down, the child's cries began to escalate."

The air in the room became tight, almost as though it was chocking something.

Maybe it's a dialectal thing (or maybe it's just another example of my exceeding ignorance) but I've never heard the word "chock" before. Did you mean "choking" (as in what happens when you get something stuck in your windpipe and it stops you from breathing) or is "chocking" indeed what you meant?

A sudden smell of something unexplainable and unnatural filled the room.

Unexplainable? You think just by saying it's unexplainable you get off the hook and don't have to explain it? Nice try, punk. :P I'd like to see some actual description of the smell. Get flowery and overly wordy if you like -- but don't just say it's unexplainable and be done with it! Pssht! Though I will admit that I loved the way you described that "ghost" scene.
---------------------------------

There I went! I said I wouldn't do too many nit-picks but then I got all carried away and couldn't stop myself. *cough* Do excuse me, good sir. Anyhow...

I liked this quite a lot. You built the suspense in the beginning really well, and you managed the jumping from perspective to perspective masterfully. I got an excellent idea of the complexities of Liam's character -- he's a little bit selfish, and spiteful, but he also knows it and hates himself for it. The moment where the mother's "ghost" appeared was beautifully haunting, and I adored the end. I found it sad not so much because Eirin died (I hardly knew her, anyway) but because I can already see that part of Liam is dead too. He will never be the same. And because of the way he was coping with his grief, I don't think he will be a very good father to the child because though he will probably cover it up even from himself, he will always have a certain amount of loathing for the baby for killing his beloved Eirin. He may not ever even understand that the boy is just as (if not more) haunted by her death than himself. Anyway, I'm rambling a bit (it's late! >.<), but I mean to tell you that this certainly sucked me in as much as the beginning of a novel should, and I found myself wondering at two things while reading it: "is this really his first time writing in third person?" and "is he really only fourteen?!" Really, it has quite a lot of potential if you ask me.

The main thing I think you should work on is the characters' reactions. You're dealing with pretty mature and complicated emotions, and you're doing really well (I've never had the courage to write about anything nearly so emotional as a man losing his wife in childbirth) but I still think there's something missing. It's kind of like what you said about my piece: there are places you describe too much and places you describe too little. Other than all the ellipses, Liam's emotions after hearing the news don't seem all that different from his emotions before hearing the news. The way you describe his suspense in the beginning felt to me like he already knew deep down that she wasn't going to make it. And he knew too. But then, after the surgeon told him, I was expecting Liam to admit that he had been feeling that way all along, but he didn't. He didn't exactly feel numb either, or particularly angry, or guilty, or desperate. One moment he's denying it, then he's frustrated about it, then angry. I know it must be really hard, especially because he is such a complicated character and even he doesn't know what he is thinking. But I think maybe if you spent a bit more time on each emotion, especially the denial, (more of the "this can't happen to us... we've escaped tough situations before and we'll do it again" kind of stuff) it might get across a certain brain-numbness. His mind needs to operate a little slower, otherwise it feels a bit to rehearsed. Also, I found Ray's reaction a bit strange. It's not that Liam's emotions aren't a bit strange (Ray probably expected him to at least ask to see the child) but I would just think that, as a doctor, he wouldn't be so surprised. Everyone reacts differently to shock and loss, and I would think he would know that.

Another thing I'll comment about is voice. Just because it's in third person doesn't mean each POV shouldn't have its own voice. Try and make the narrative feel different when it's from Liam's perspective than when it's from Ray's or the baby's, or whatever other perspectives you will introduce throughout the novel. I love it when I'm reading something and I can tell just by the tone which character's angle I'm looking from. (<--way to end a sentence with a preposition! ... oh well.)

Oh, and there's one more thing you can work on. I think it probably comes from your lack of experience writing in third person, but you tend to repeat names a lot unnecessarily. I suggest you read through it carefully and wherever you can replace "the nurse" or "Eirin" with "she" and "Ray" or "Liam" with he (etc.). I didn't point these places out in my review, because that would be tedious (for me to write and for you to read) but if you want help with that let me know and I'll show you a few places that can use improvement in that way.

Now I'll talk about about the first chapter or prologue question. Fistly, what's the difference, really? They're pretty much the same thing, just with different names -- aren't they? Well, okay, I guess there's a small difference. But I still think the decision is completely up to you. It really depends on where you plan to take this and how. since you say that the rest of the novel is going to be forward in time, I'm assuming most of it would be about the boy's life, so maybe make this be a prologue, because of the big jump in time? But then again, if you plan on doing a lot of jumping around in time throughout the novel then it would be fine to have this be the first chapter. Personally, I think it would be great as a short story. But that's because I don't know what you have in store. ^.~ I have to wonder where it will go, though, because it seems to me that you've left a perfect amount untold, leaving me with questions (can the boy see all ghosts or only his mother's? Will Liam continue to resent the baby for killing his wife?) but also wrapping things up nicely. I guess I'll just have to wait and see what comes next! Though, if you ever start feeling completely writer's-blocked, know that with a little work this could be an excellent short story.

Anyway, I should probably go now. I've never really reviewed novel beginnings before (well, maybe a few times...) but I was trying to give you some suggestions that will help you in the future. In any case, I hope some of my rambling was at least a little bit helpful! As always feel free to pm me or write on my wall with questions/comments/arguments/defenses/whatever else you can think of.

I eagerly await your next installment.
a

Hey, Unc. Nephew here to review as requested. I was supposed to review this yesterday, but I forgot which folder I saved it in. *sigh* Anyway, how’s it going? I feel so bad for being the last one to review this, making me the worst one. Plus, I was so excited to get a review from you, but I had other bunch of requests to go through before this, and I had the reviewer’s block again, and I wanted to take advantage of the reviewer’s block and write, write, write, and…no more excuses. LOL I’m here now. Haha! And oh so hyper. (I should have put that in a spoiler. Too late. =P )

So, I haven’t read the other reviews yet, and I’m hoping I don’t repeat anything. Here it goes…(I think this will be a long one. Yay!)

NITPICKS


Nitpicks will be pink font.
Pay attention to those marks in purple font.

>>

Liam didn't deserve that... He'd just gotten a promotion; everything was going so well... They'd had some issues with money in the past, and they'd often had to ask relatives if they could borrow some. It was all okay now though... Not that it even mattered. Liam had his wife and his children; that was all he needed. He didn't even have that now.

The ellipses just bothered me. Ellipses indicate that there were more. (Kinda like etc?) And it just feels like you didn’t tell us what else there was to say. Stick with periods.

>>

As you’re aware, several complications have occurred with your wife’s pregnancy, resulting in an emergency caesarean section.
¶
Don’t tell me what I already know. Bloody get to it already.
¶
“During surgery, we realised that things weren’t quite going to be as easy as we originally thought. Your wife was losing, and had, lost an awful amount of blood. We had to be awfully caref-”

We already know who’s talking. I think it’s better that way.

>>

Ray watched carefully as Mr. Bevan’s face whitened, his lip shaking. Small pools of water tried their best to escape from his eyes, his thoughts electrifying through his mind.

Call Liam Mr. Bevan and the doctor—Ray. O_o I guess you’ll have to stick with one way to address these men: Liam, or Mr. Bevan; Ray, or Dr.-–uhh—what’s the doctor’s name again? =P

>>

“Your child though..." he continued; a small, but genuine smile growing on his face. "He’s weak and will need a lot of help, but he’s going to be fine.”

Replace semicolon with comma.

>>

Someone couldn’t just die like that... Not Liam’s perfect wife. She was strong; how could some short operation, lasting minutes break her so easily?

The ellipsis again. It’s better if he was thinking that I guess (in italics), or simply get rid of the three dots. =)

>>

The baby had a surprisingly thick mop of white hair on its fragile head, his eyes a deep blue colour; exactly like his mother.

I think a comma would be better in the semicolon’s place.

Green highlight: His features remind me of Sunshine.

>>

The cries began to escalate, the young nurse trying to calm the child down.

The phrase was a bit awkward there. Maybe it’s better if “The cries began to escalate even thought the young nursed tried to calm the child down.”

OVERALL: Grammar was really, really good. Just a few nitpicks with the punctuations.

Okay, just now, I read the other reviews—ehem—scanned. LOL Anyyyy, I didn’t see any repetitions. =) So, I’ll go on and start babbling.

First, remember, as much as possible, please, don’t try to leave out stuffs by putting “~” then inserting a new paragraph. As much as possible, try to narrate through it and smooth out from one happening to another. The asterisks were fine because you were going from a room to another room, but the “~” (Man! I don’t know what you call that. O_o and it’s in our alphabet. =P) can totally be zapped away! Swooosh! Gone! Because it just distracts the readers; there wasn’t much to skip on and use—that. So, I suggest, take those all away and just smooth out the paragraphs.

I’ll give out an example:

Not that it even mattered. Liam had his wife and his children; that was all he needed. He didn't even have that now.

~

<<delete

Ray watched carefully as Mr. Bevan’s face whitened, his lip shaking. Small pools of water tried their best to escape from his eyes, his thoughts electrifying through his mind.

It's that easy really. =P I'm just nervous that I felt like I couldn't explain it much. LOL (But you're not stupid, Unc! And I'd even argue with AngerM for you! You're not a pea-brained Welsh...)

The only thing I can think of why you were doing that is because you were changing POVs, but trust me, you don’t need that mark. Just go on with it. You’re telling in third person! (Haha! I remember you telling me you know everything…:lol:) No need, just tell us that he thinks that, she thinks that, a thing was doing that without their knowing; it’s all fine. We don’t care how the narrator knew that because YOU ARE OMNSCIENT with your story. =)

Of course, there are times you should be careful slipping out stuffs or giving out too much premonition, but if you have to show what one character is thinking and it’s important with the flow and plot, just go on with it.

Next, I find the ending a bit hard to grasp. At first, I thought the nurse was the one who was being described as being sucked from nowhere, then I said, “Hey! It was the mommy! (Wasn’t it? O_o) You were kind of losing the reader there, so watch out for vague descriptions.

It starts here:

The woman allowed her lips to curve upwards as she laid her eyes upon the baby, whose crying had lessened slightly. As the woman's figure became brighter, the infant's sobbing calmed down. Not for long.

And ends here:

While the woman was vanishing, the young nurse continued soothing the baby, not turning around once to look at the darkness behind her. Not feeling the choking feeling, the tightness around her body. What had just happened was invisible to the naked eye.

Just there did I realize I was lost. I had to reread it to get to it really. (And that’s a warning because I’m not much of a distracted reader—plus, I’m now here in my room, alone and in full concentration.) I know it was hard to point out ‘cause both of them are female, but I’m sure you can tweak the nouns and pronouns a wee bit more just to make it a wee bit clearer.

Other than those, you’re fine. Hapshhh… the third person narration is really, really fine. Awesome job actually!:D This just shows your versatility as a writer. From wacky Ollie, to this weirdo with a sixth sense. Oh, now I’m wondering if he’s cute.

Ehem—*pulls up collar*

I give you a two-hand-two-feet applause for doing it so well, and we’ll see what will happen next. I hope I helped, and go go go keep writing! =))

~ Jash ♥

P.S. I think I missed out some stuffs. I rescanned the other reviews, you started out with the mother’s pain? O_o Why didn’t I read that?! And Eirin was once Aerin? =))

P.S. S. I voted for prologue. =P

I'm going to come back and do a proper review later. But I just wanted to say that

1) This was awesome. I look forward to more with perhaps a little bit too much enthusiasm.

annnd

2) I'm in the midst of writing something for the Postscript contest thingy. I am now terribly intimidated because I saw you are writing. I think I might die.

3) I don't think I'll actually die, don't worry. I'll survive the crushing wounds somehow.

Great job.

-Coral-

Oy, Fingers. Punk here.
So, again, late but nonetheless I still managed to make it.
However, I don't have much to say again so bear with me if I somehow sound repetitive.
Now, I'm not going to nitpicks because (insert valid reason here).

Alright, let's take a quick look at your opener. It was great, everything I needed from an opener. It was gripping, it pulled you in and kept you going. Then, you starting talking about the mother, Liam's wife. Honestly, I felt like you over explained it and there were times where I felt like I was reading the same story over and over again. Might want to get rid of some of his "she was perfect and she couldn't just die" thoughts because I felt there were somehow a bit repetitive. For example these two paragraphs and their 'money problems'.

Liam didn't deserve that... He'd just gotten a promotion; everything was going so well... They'd had some issues with money in the past, and they'd often had to ask relatives if they could borrow some. It was all okay now though... Not that it even mattered. He had his wife and his children; that was all he needed. He didn't even have that now.

And...

This couldn't have happened to Liam, to his family. They'd gone through money struggles, Eirin and him had brought up two children on their own, they'd had to deal with judgemental attacks from relatives. How could she just be gone? After everything they'd sacrificed for this life, she couldn't have just left her family like that.

Also, *judgmental.

I'm not that great at writing third person either so I can't fully critique on that. Although, I noticed that some parts were hard to understand with some POV changes but that could have just been my dodgy reading. -___-
Anyway, if we look at your characters here, the most developed one is Liam, although we still don't receive much from him since all he does is talk about how his wife meant the world to him. The part where he begins to question whether or not his child's life outweighed his Wife made me stick out my tongue in disgust. I already dislike him, unfortunately. Hopefully that turns around and if it doesn't then this baby will have to please me.

Plot wise, I can't tell much from this but it seems like a good story. I have no read your previous draft but it seems like this one is better. XD
In the end, the whole darkness thing was slightly confusing. I didn't quite picture it well and well, I got kinda lost at the end with what you meant by the whole thing. Who was that woman or the darkness thing? O.o
But overall, I enjoyed reading this. It's very cool and it's got some awesome description and you painted your characters very well. Nice job, Fingers.

-Shear

Hey Skins, here to review!

The operating room doors hesitantly opened, revealing a rather small man wearing a green surgeon’s outfit.

Um, this sounded kind of weird. Like the doors don't open themselves(of course there are automatic doors, but still it was kind of weird to say the doors hesitantly pulled open. You could try doing some other experiment with the sentence.

The Start:I am not sure whether I liked it or not, but it was more or less good. But there were thoughts here and I could actually picture less. But this is a short thing, and I think that can be covered up. But on the whole I found the opener quite intriguing, trying to anticipate the reason he was so worked up.
So, Skins, this was a neat piece and very well-planned story. Honestly, right now I am confused as to how this story is going to progress and what would happen, even though I have read the earlier version. I think the story is now not clear to me and I don't even know if you are going to have the same pattern and characters here, too. It's like the name stayed, the concept stayed but the character, the plot line and all has changed and I hope it's for the good.

My main nit-pick here would be that although your writing was smooth, the grammar good, I didn't actually feel anything. I am not sure if it was your problem or mine. But I thought to tell you what I exactly think about this. The time in the start when the doctor's perplexed as to why Liam was not feeling very happy at the news of his newborn son or some of the sadness had not wilted away, I would like to say that I know he had this thought in his mind that he was probably very shocked, but I still found the doctor unreasonable to have such a thought on his head in the first place. I mean couldn't he have been more sympathizing with the man who had just lost his beloved wife? His reaction seemed very weird, and also the shock and all for Liam was also less. You could have done more with elaborating his pain. It's just what I thought. Secondly, when the doctor says that they could have saved only one, and they saved baby, it was again weird. Because generally in such emergency cases, forms are signed by the husband of the lady and he decides whom he wants the doctors to save. That's what happens here, not sure about the place this is set in. But if there is no such option and also the doctor's had no other option than to save the child, then you should mention it. All and all I would say that this was good, but could have been a lot better. You should have brought in more descriptions and the last scene could be re-written and dramatized more. Sorry, if you don't agree. Your grammar and wordings were great and I have no problem on that account and I know you'd improve the points I gave. So good luck, girl!

Keep Writing,
Shubhi

Okay, so believe it or not, this is kind of an experiment of sorts for me. I have never been ambitious enough to quote someone's work, and actually WORK in there. So we'll how this goes. II'll try to do my comments in bold or something. Dun dun dun...

Skins wrote:

CYSM.jpg

Liam Bevan paced back and forth in the more or less empty hallway. He ran his hands through his coarse, dark hair, glancing at his watch for the fiftieth time. These things were supposed to be quick, so what was taking so long?
Everything’s fine, he tried to convince himself. Things like this happen all of the time, just relax...It’s going to be fine. So, super picky little thing right here- sometimes it can be difficult to determine when to use italics for a character's thoughts, depending on your writing style. If you look at the sentence before "everything's fine", that's also a thought, though it can be the expression of a feeling too. I dunno... just seems odd to me. Probably just me though. No matter how much Liam ran that through his head, there was something unrecognisable in the pit of his stomach that couldn't help but contradict him..
Liam shut his eyes. He thought of his wife's smile, her laugh, her one sided grin.... He thought of the way Eirin would never leave a dinner table without brushing up the crumbs, and the way she always managed to convince their daughter that Bambi used to live in the forest behind their house. Love this; great character building and establishment of their tenderness and relationship.

“Hello, Mr. Bevan.” The man held his hand out for him to shake. “I’m Dr. Ray Porter.”
Liam didn’t care what his name was, and right now, he didn’t feel like shaking anyone’s hand. Great reality of character and whatnot. Nice urgency as well.
He hurriedly shook Ray Porter’s hand, wishing he’d just tell him what on earth was going on. More importantly, where his wife was. I think that this last sentence would be better separated with a hyphen or semicolon. Nitpickiness, though.
“As you’re aware, several complications have occurred with your wife’s pregnancy, resulting in an emergency caesarean section.” Great job at establishing background w/o info-dumping
Don’t tell me what I already know. Bloody get to it already.

“I’m sorry, Sir, we did everything we could. It was too late for us to save your wife.” This last sentence feels a little bit awkwardly phrased to me, but hey... it's an awkward situation.

~

Ray watched carefully as Mr. Bevan’s face whitened, his lip shaking. Small pools of water tried their best to escape from his eyes, his thoughts electrifying through his mind. Perhaps another word than "electrifying"?
“I’m ever so sorry, Sir.”"ever so sorry" sounds a bit archaic in some way. Maybe take out "ever"?

Skipped a big section... it was all gold.


The light around the woman turned a sudden grey colour Maybe another word than "grey"? I know it sounds stupid, but whenever I hear "grey" I think of something lifeless and drab... I have a feeling this was more stormy and turmoiled than smooth and simple. Just a nitpick though., darkening all too quickly. Within seconds, it was a midnight black. The air in the room became tight, almost as though it was choking something. Darkness sneaked into the atmosphere, becoming far too vivid. Vivid seems a bit odd here- it's getting darker and darker, when vivid is generally associated with the increasing of brightness. The woman in the now black light’s face fell, her arms rapidly reaching out for something she wasn’t quite able to grab.
A sudden smell of something bitter and unnatural filled the room. Maybe reword to something like"A sudden bitter smell filled the room, unnatural and *some other adjective here*? I dunno- this sentence feels a bit out of place to me with how it's currently worded. It spread a sickening feeling that took over aTwo a's here. a person's senses, crawling into their nose and sticking to their throat. A swirl of black smoke wrapped itself around the woman’s body, pulling her into the light still forming behind her. You make comparisons to "a person" and what seems people in general -abut it's only the baby experiencing them, right?
It stole Eirin Bevan from this world, forcing her into another.
As quickly as she'd appeared, she was gone. Nothing remained but the echo of a terrified scream.
While the woman was vanishing, the young nurse continued soothing the baby, not turning around once to look at the darkness behind her. Not feeling the choking feeling, the tightness around her body. What had just happened was invisible to the naked eye.The last couple sentences are fragments; usually, I'm all for fragments, use them probably a little bit too much, but they feel awkward here. The next couple are totally fine though. It was impossible to feel, hear, or smell. Or at least it should have been. There was one, small exception.
His lungs aching from the screeching, the newborn baby could see the darkness clearer than anything else in his new world right now. It was terribly, terribly wrong. Wonderful end right here.

Okay... so that was an odd experience. For me. Probably not for you. By now, you're probably used to this.
Anywho- sorry. I think that almost all of this was more nitpicking than anything really helpful. The trouble is, you're really good. There's pretty much nothing to critique.

OVERALL:

Wonderful writing style; it's simple, barebones in some ways, but is excellent and more than enough to set the scene and tones. I love how you adopt your characters' worldviews and personalities so well. It's almost like you're schizophrenic (in a good way, I promise). I'm definitely looking forward to reading more... sounds pretty intense so far.

Great job!!!

-Coral-

I like this! You're always a great writer!
Keep Writing!
Nike

Hey there Skins! Tis WD here! I'm super happy that I got around to reading this. Yay! So, you have a very nice writing style; it flows easily for the most part and it has moments where it hits the moment being portrayed just right. I like your sense of pacing, the way the prose slows down and speeds up according to what is happening. And your characters are coming across pretty well here. This is a nice start. I haven't read any previous drafts of this, so I'm mostly going to be talking about this fresh, but I hope my comments will help you out as you think about revising this. ^^

I'm going to start with a few technical/believability/moments for elaboration stuff and then touch on a few more general things, kay? ^^

Liam Bevan paced back and forth in the more or less empty hallway. He ran his hands through his coarse, dark hair, glancing at his watch for the fiftieth time. These things were supposed to be quick, so what was taking so long?
Everything’s fine, he tried to convince himself. Things like this happen all of the time, just relax...It’s going to be fine. No matter how much Liam ran that through his head, there was something unrecognisable in the pit of his stomach that couldn't help but contradict him..
Liam shut his eyes. He thought of his wife's smile, her laugh, her one sided grin.... He thought of the way Eirin would never leave a dinner table without brushing up the crumbs, and the way she always managed to convince their daughter that Bambi used to live in the forest behind their house.
Nothing could last forever, and that fact had slapped him in the face. He sat back down on the chair and sighed, rubbing his temples. He hadn’t even heard the news yet.
The operating room doors hesitantly (meh, word choice) opened, revealing a rather small man wearing a green surgeon’s outfit. Liam froze. He searched the man’s face, begging that it would reveal something about what he would soon say. Nothing.

Let's talk about the beginning. I like how the prose mirrors Liam's rather frantic thought process here. That was very well done. Thumbs up! However, I think some more movement and body language here would help round out Liam's reaction. What is Liam's physical reaction to all this anxiety? We get a little bit of this, but more would be great. How does he feel? Does this make him feel nauseous? Also, the moment when he thinks about his wife is a nice touch, but I think it warrants further elaboration. He seems to dwell on those memories, so don't be afraid to slow down and show us the details of those memories! It will round out the character and make the emotional punch more understandable.

Also, watch out for strange word choice here. How can a door be hesitant? Does the fact really slap him? Can a door reveal something? Reading aloud would help a lot with this.

“I’m sorry, Sir, we did everything we could. It was too late for us to save your wife.”
All that Liam could do was stare. No... Things like this didn’t happen, not in real life. Only on the television, in the media. Eirin was fine yesterday, more beautiful than ever. She couldn’t just be... be gone. Not like that. She was smiling, laughing... No...
There was a feeling he had, something that told him to expect this. He'd tried to push it away though. He just assumed he was looking at the worst possible outcome. No matter how much he'd thought about the end result, or how much that gut feeling had prepared him for it, the reality of he whole thing couldn't process in his mind.
The calmness in Ray Porter's voice made him feel mocked. Nothing about this moment felt calming. Liam's chest tightened, his breath being cut short. He had to be dreaming - he begged to God that he was dreaming. The kids? Meredith and Aiden... They couldn't have their mother ripped out of their lives in one night; they didn't deserve that.
Liam didn't deserve that... He'd just gotten a promotion; everything was going so well... They'd had some issues with money in the past, and they'd often had to ask relatives if they could borrow some. It was all okay now though... Not that it even mattered. He had his wife and his children; that was all he needed. He didn't even have that now.

Once again, the thought process is great here. But I think we need more of an image of Liam's physical reaction to the news here. Going into his head is great, but we don't want to lose that perception of space and where he is right now. Also, the premonition thing. This beginning just runs right over this creepy, interesting fact and it just throws me off right now. Why? Because the beginning half tries to explain it. It doesn't explain it in full and it doesn't just hint at it and keep going. I think you need to decide whether you want to hint at it and leave it for further elaboration or lay it all out here. And if you hint at it, make it fast, relevant and let Liam's reaction to it be the intriguing force, then move on. Make sense?

He glanced at the man opposite him, eagerly waiting for a response. Waiting for a warm smile, or a sigh of relief from him. It was strange though. Liam Bevan's reaction was far from expected. The tears in his eyes did not dither at all and he only became whiter.
He was used to strange reactions, but the way this man reacted was something Ray had never seen before. Didn't he want to see his newborn son? The last thing he had left of his wife? He tried his best not to judge the man beside him because he knew how the effect a situation like this could have on people; he'd had to experience many times before. But still... Ray furrowed his eyebrows, baffled.

I have a hard time believing this. Surely the doctor has seen something like this before--if not, I imagine he's pretty new to the job, something which would need to come through in his character. I mean, I guess he could find it strange. But we need more insight into his character to make this believable.

The next section with Liam again--I really like how you are focusing on thought process. It's a great way to get into a character, but I would urge you to let Liam move too. Let him engage in action. Don't let his thought process override the down and dirty tricks of body language and action.

The part with the nurse is nifty--I like the image of the darkness and Eirin's body. A lot. Great job there!

So, I'm going to touch on general things now, okay?

POV shifts

I like hopping between POV's. The novels I've written all use POV-hopping to a degree; it's a great technique and it's really handy. However, it also has a lot of pitfalls, and right now I don't think it's pulling its weight. Why do we need the sudden switch to Ray in the beginning? Why can't we just stick with Liam and have him pick up on Ray's uneasiness? I don't really know Liam very well yet--partly because the amount of thought process is overpowering the amount of body language and partly because of this POV switch. Remember, this is the very beginning, so you want to hook the reader with character above all else. The filling out of setting, supporting cast and all that can only work if it flows out of a strong character hook, which catches the reader's attention. The part with the nurse isn't bad--I think the mystery with the darkness is very important and very interesting. But I would urge you to get rid of the Ray part for now.

Thought process and action

I've already touched on this, but right now we get tons of thought process and not so much action and body language. Thought process is awesome and you pull it off wonderfully, but I would urge you in revising to really focus on the image of what is occurring and pull out those details. The body language, the visceral feeling, the expression, the reactions. All these things develop characters and establish dynamics like nothing else, so use them!

Read your sentences aloud!

This is one of those things that comes the more you write, so I'm not going to harp about it. ^^ Some of the word choice and sentences here border on awkward. A lot of it is working well, but there are moments where I get hung up on sentences and individual words. If you want me to, I can pick these out, but I think it's more beneficial for you to do that. ^^ And you do it by reading aloud! I encourage to read everything you write aloud! It will work wonders for those awkward sections and for the rhythm of the prose.

So, to summarize, this was a good read! I like where it's going! What you can work on: think about the POV shifts, develop the characters with more action and read aloud! I'm excited to see where this is going and I definitely want to read further chapters.

Nice job here! Keep writing! If you have any questions or just want to chat about your story, feel free to PM me!

HI Skins! here as requested... I'm going to give you my overall impression by just reading it:
Grammar:
Excellent, no problems what's so ever.
Storyline/flow:
though I like how much you explain what's happening most don't ( I have this problem as well) Others want us to show and not tell. But I think it's just fine

the story has an awesome beginning but I think maybe adding a prologue and making this a chapter would be better. a prologue could be whatever happened to her to make the cruse come or whatever.. Just so we know.

Impression of MC/C:
my impression of Liam was he was a loving man, who loved his wife and would rather have her than the child. He had no idea of the curse and his wife hadn't told him (or maybe didn't know herself) and cared more for himself (in the moment) than his children (till he got over the shock of the death)
Is that really the aim you were going for???? because if not you might want to change: dialogue/thoughts

It's a great story (with just a few tweaks needed) So on to ch.1!!!!!!!!!!!!!
~pointe