Young Writers Society

For a creative writing contest at my school, deadline May 4, maximum 1500 words, so reviews are very much needed/appreciated. Especially tell me if it's too confusing, because I'm worried about that. Merci bien!

Ghosts

Sometimes, focusing on details is the only way you can keep yourself sane. I was standing in the middle of the hallway, hearing the familiar sounds of the intensive care unit, concentrating so I could differentiate between them, when I first saw him. I didn’t notice much about him, at first. I didn’t think about the way the intern fumbled with his chart, or how you could see he hadn’t said anything in a very long time. I didn’t think about the way the old man looked incredibly fragile; they all do, but I didn’t see that there was something about him. Not at first, anyway. Instead, I listened to the shriek of sneakers on linoleum, the cries of grieving families, the sound of the trolley as it bounced against the wall in the hands of a particularly clumsy orderly.

I did my paperwork, tended patients, went to the bathroom and came back. I couldn’t stop thinking about the old man's face. It kept haunting me, like someone I had known in a past life, so I went to my desk and looked at the name beside room 415. Eric Langley. I put the sheet away. I looked back into his room. I tried to concentrate on the sounds again. Squeak, squeak…oh God no, please God…clink, clink, clink…

Clink.

‘We'll find one in the graveyard.’

‘Eric, this dangerous.’

The girl stirred her coffee as she whispered to the young man sitting across from her. She wasn't paying attention, and her spoon kept hitting the side of the mug. The town was not jumping at this time of night, and they were alone save for a waitress reading the newspaper in a corner. She paid no attention to the curious scene – a white teenage male having dinner with a black girl. Once they left the cafe, they headed down the road towards the cemetery gate, whose rusty padlock Eric skillfully picked. Sarah was shivering; it was summer, so she couldn’t have been cold. She was fearful. ‘You want my jacket?’ he asked.

‘No.’

They browsed the headstones, looking for something. It was starting to rain, and the drops were hitting the ground. Drip, drip…

Drip, drip. The water fountain was broken again. I smacked it with the back of my hand and looked at Langley again. He was sleeping, head lolling carelessly onto his pillow, and there was a string of drool escaping his lips. He was the kind of man that you could tell used to be a mountain, strong, but now the peak had crumbled into little more than a hospital bed and breathing tubes. His hands clutched at something invisible as he twisted in the bed, trapped in a bad nightmare.

‘This is going to give me nightmares.’ Sarah looked out at the bridge as Eric parked his truck on the side of the road. He opened his door, half-turned in his seat, and asked Sarah if she was getting out. They each took one end of a large black bag out of the back – it must have been heavy, for Sarah stumbled a little and had to steady herself on the car.

‘One, two, three,’ Eric murmured. On three, they swung the bag up and over the side of the bridge. It landed in the river with a splash. When he was sure it had sunk to the bottom, Eric strode back to his car, but Sarah stayed crouched by the bridge, watching the ripples in the water get smaller and smaller. ‘Are you coming?’ he asked, finally.

One of the other nurses was glaring at me like she had just asked me something. ‘Are you coming?’ she repeated. I shook my head no. I saw the intern in Langley’s room again, adjusting his IV medicine this time. She was nervous, he could tell. I saw him pretending to be asleep when he was actually glancing at her fingers, clumsily stabbing and missing his vein. I couldn’t stop myself. I entered the hospital room, nodded at Langley, and took the drip from the intern, who fled in relieved silence.

He was staring at me with those eyes, so much I almost stumbled and missed his arm altogether, but somehow I managed to get the needle in the right place. When I finally met his eyes, I realized that they weren’t actually looking at me. They were looking sort of past me, as if he were waiting for something, watching the far distance. I stayed still for what seemed like eons, and then, not wanting to disturb his reverie, began to quietly back away. That’s when he turned them on me.

I felt the shock flow through my body like electricity. The shiny blue irises were reduced to small rings around the dilated pupils, but the spark of lightening was still there. I could tell he wanted to say something, because his mouth was twitching and the eyes looked like they were working hard to convey a message. It didn’t come through. So Langley grabbed a napkin and pen from his bedside table, the sudden action almost tipping it over. He scribbled down two words and handed it to me. SARAH LIVES.

The name “Sarah Jackson” flashed through my mind along with a slightly smaller word, “suicide.” I didn’t know why it happened, it was just one of those unexpected moments of clairvoyance where everything becomes known, just like how I was sure the boy in my vision had been Eric Langley. I left the room then, the sliding glass door closing behind me with a satisfying click.

Click. Eric closed the door behind him, dropped his backpack on the couch, and rushed into the dining room of the small house. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I lost track of time.’ He sat down at the small table in between his parents and served himself a plate of mashed potatoes.

‘Have you heard about Sarah Jackson, dear?’ His mother always took a bite, chewed, and swallowed her food carefully before speaking.

‘No, what’s this?’ his father said.

‘Drowned. They found her washed up near the bridge this morning; at least they think it’s her. The body was too mangled to be certain.’

‘Poor girl. Wonder how her father is taking it. Must be terrible.’

‘Yes, the poor man.’

Neither of them noticed that Eric had stopped eating. Neither of them paid attention to him as he dumped his plate in the sink and headed up the stairs to his room. Neither of them realized, until it was too late, that that night Eric had packed a small suitcase and left town.

I resurfaced from Langley’s vision and returned to my own reality. The noise grew louder until it reached a normal level. No one was screaming, no one was staring at me, no one had noticed anything out of the usual. I walked away from the door, ignoring the protests of my head. That one, the dinner table, had been my last glimpse into his past. I knew it, but I didn’t know how I knew, until I looked into his room.

It was empty. One of the nurses was remaking the bed, readying it for the next patient, which could only mean one thing. With his admission scribbled on a napkin in my desk drawer, he had let go. Maybe there was a light at the end of the tunnel, after all. Maybe he had just wanted someone to know the truth; maybe Sarah Jackson deserved it even if I still didn’t know what that whole truth was.

So I descended the stairs to the hospital morgue. The morgue creeps most people out, with dead bodies lying out and in drawers, but not me: sometimes I go down there to think, or to remember. I like the peace and quiet, I like the chill, I even like the faces because they all look so relaxed. I asked the lab assistant about Langley. He pointed me towards the back, where someone was laid out under a sheet. I uncovered it, just enough to see the face. His skin was chalk-white and papery, like it’s supposed to be on dead people, and his eyes were closed, but otherwise he looked the same as when he was alive. His hand was hanging off the table. I took it.

And with contact, I saw everything that had happened back in 1939. I saw Sarah, bruised purple from her abusive father; I saw her in bed with Eric; I saw her bent over the toilet, clutching a drugstore pregnancy test; I saw them discussing their options in the café; I saw his eyes harden as he decided that faking her death was the only way that she could escape; she held his hand and assured him that she would do anything if only they could stay together; they dumped the body into the water; Eric panicked when the body was discovered sooner than he had planned; they were at the train station; Sarah, nine months later, held the stillborn baby and sobbed. I could see them try to stay together for a few years, until the sadness of the dead child was too much to bear and Eric moved up north, where he eventually died alone.

Maybe not completely alone. I sat there for two hours before I left, absorbing all of the information, listening to the silence of the morgue. I guess he needed someone to know his secret, a story of love through deception. I don’t know why he chose me to share it. But that’s how Langley was, elusive, never blatant. You could stare at him for hours until he looked at you, waiting for the contact that would never come.

Hey Mars! Blinkster here. =]

familiar sounds of the intensive care unit buzzing in my ears, concentrating so I could differentiate between them.

The way that you've written this makes it seem as if the intensive care unit is concentrating and not you, which makes it confusing instantly after--I'd put an "and I was" after the comma.

Clink.
‘We can find one in the graveyard.’
‘Eric, this is getting dangerous.’

Ok, the transition here is dangerously non-existent. At first, I thought room 415 was a café and two people were eating in there. It really confused me. Just put in a simple "#" or the asterisk thing "****", just after "Clink", to indicate a scene change.

ground like drip, drip…

Like? How else? I'd rephrase this to "ground in a drip, drip...".

Drip, drip. The water fountain was broken again.

Same thing with the transition thing. It just confused the hell out of me, and then I have to skip back to check I haven't missed something.

I shook my head no.

As opposed to shaking your head yes? If you're worried that the reader could misinterpret, I think subtlety is still the best route.

Alright, there go all the nitpicks.

Wow, Mars. Honestly, this was fantastic. The character development of this mystery nurse was spot on, you didn't excess in descriptions and the story was well-placed. Excellent. Now, for the purposes of being a little less one-dimensional, I'll think up something constructive.

Story

The story that went through the piece worked very well - if a little hazy with all the wild transitions, as I said - but to me, I felt somewhat cheated at the end. It was powerful, but the second last paragraph wrapped everything up so easily. The greatest skill in this would have been to induce a somewhat subtlety. Say, for example, instead of throwing in the entirety of Eric's story together at the end like that, you had scattered out the details throughout. It would be mysterious, as if piecing together a puzzle with pieces missing and others invisible. Perhaps a challenge, but if you ever feel like editing this you might want to think about it.

Chronology

With all the transitions (or lack thereof) and the different orders of time, I felt myself very lost. At the start, we are led to believe that something is wrong in room 415, but then later on, she's injecting Eric with something so I'm wondering what is in fact problem, and then he's told to be dead, and that's without all those other flashbacks--there are different periods of time with both the nurse's era and Eric and Sarah's. Some formatting (italics and not, for example) would help to break it up, as well as scene breaks and such. It's and essential point to consider. Otherwise I'm lost in muddle--although it made sense at the end, there's a void where nothing seems to fit. For the nurse, however, it would, wouldn't it? Even if only a bit by a bit, if you understand.

As it stands, however, this is brilliant. I'm sure it'll win the contest. =] Not a lot more to say, sadly, but if you have any questions, feel free to PM me.

Best,
Blinky

Eeep! Mars! So sorry that I didn't get to this sooner. Somehow I missed the deadline mention.

(Also, since you're a bit over-budget when it comes to words, I'm going on a deleting spree. )

It was a Thursday, if I recall correctly.

Dates, I dunno, they just bug me. I don't find it fits the flow of the piece, since it starts off as a flashback but then goes even farther back in time. I just don't find it adds up.

concentrating so I could differentiate between them.

Why? If you can't give an explanation, you can just delete this line.

the sound of the trolley as it bounced against the wall in the hands of a particularly clumsy orderly. I didn’t notice much about him, at first. I didn’t think about the way the intern fumbled with his chart, or how you could see he hadn’t said anything in a very long time. I didn’t think about the way the old man looked incredibly fragile; they all do, but I didn’t see that there was something about him. Not at first, anyway.

~ This might be my ignorance on proper British English, but I thought "trolley" was something like "mail cart." It took me a moment to realize that it was a moving hospital bed. Therefore, I found the transition from talking about the intern to talking about the old man rather sharp.

~ I think "orderly" would be better as "intern" for the purpose of consistency. ^_^

Bolded line-

~ Who are you talking about here? It could be either man, now that I understand this passage.

~ How can she tell he hasn't spoken for a long time?

I did my paperwork, [s]I[/s] tended patients, [s]I[/s] went to the bathroom and came back.

I'd delete all the "I"s after the first one, if only for word conservation.

I couldn’t stop thinking about him. It kept haunting me

~I thought "him" was talking about the intern, not the patient, since we don't know the intern is female yet and her last line was about the intern.

~ "It" should be "he," since you're talking about a person. ^_^

Squeak, squeak…oh God no, please God…clink, clink, clink…

I'd delete the third "clink" here.

Sarah was close behind him; it was summer, so she couldn’t have been cold.

You haven't given us any indication she was cold. ^_^ And, since you're on a word budget, I'd just delete that whole mention.

I smacked it with the back of my hand. and looked at Langley again.

There is a period after "hand" that shouldn't be there. ^_^

trapped in the throes of a bad nightmare.

"In the throes" could be deleted without loosing anything.

Sarah looked out at the bridge as Eric parked his [s]navy[/s] truck on the side of the road.

Colour description is the first to go when you need to cut words.

They were looking [s]sort of[/s] past me,

I find "sort of" disrupts the flow here, and since you need to cut words...

began to quietly walk away.

Walk or back away? If she's walking away, I'd think her back was towards him. ^_^

The name “Sarah Jackson” flashed into my head along

I think "mind" wold sound better than "head." ^_^

it was just one of those unexpected moments of clairvoyance where everything becomes clear,

"Clairvoyance" and "clear" are a bit repetitive here. I'd replace "clear" with "known."

between his parents and served himself a plate of mashed potatoes.

More word chopping: "Plate of food" instead of specifying the food.

That one, the dinner table, had been my last glimpse into Langley’s past. I knew it, but I didn’t know how I knew, until I looked into his room.

You contradict yourself by giving another vision later on. ^_^

he had let go and passed on.

Somehow I find these two terms contradictory. Normally I wouldn't bring them up, but if you need to cut words, I'd cut one of these terms, preferably "passed on."

His skin was chalk-white and papery,

I don't think "And papery" is needed.

Eric panicked when the body was discovered sooner than he had discovered;

The second discovered (Italisized) should be replaced with "planned" ^_^

where he eventually died alone.

"Eventually" is a word you could cut if need be.

~

Set up: This was a touch confusing until I realized what the italics were. Once I understood that things made perfect sense.

I liked the way things flowed between past and present, but I'd remove the lines that make it clear this whole thing is a flash-back already. It drags things down and makes the flashbacks to 1939 confusing.

Pace: I very much liked it. The only time I found it was rushed was when you mention her laying by her desk. Since we never seen her reach her desk, ti's hard to fully swallow that she moved around before having that vision. Last we knew, she was in front of his door. ^_^

Overall: Once I understood what you were doing, I just loved this. Very well done.

One thing about the title, I don't find it fits. I'd take change it to something like "Visions of the past" (or whatever you so choose). I just don't think "ghosts" says much about your story.

Anyways, that's my review! Hopefully I got it done on time for the contest! (Sorry about that!)

Questions? Drop me a line.

~Rosey

Um, omg, I'm sorry it's taken me such a disgustingly long time to get back to you. I didn't check my critique thread till a week or so ago and so I didn't even realize you'd posted it, and uni's been breaking me dead so I haven't really had time to work on this. This is too late to help you for the creative writing contest, but if you're still editing it, here's a critique to help you through it. : )

First of all: I like your story. I am a sucker for stories that switch from past to present to past and you carry it off quite nicely. I like that hint of supernatural that you don't ever fully explain; it's a nice touch. (Unlike Rosey, I actually really like the title; I think it suits the concept of the story very well; I think it conveys the idea of people not fully there, people who are shadows of what they once were.)

I do think that you do need some kind of space/asterisks/line breaks between the switches from past to present. I understand what you're trying to do with the italics, and in some places it almost works, but the fact of the matter is that every time there is an italicized bit, it kind of took me out of the story. It disrupts the flow and spell of the story (and for such a story, I think the spell is quite important) and reminds you that you are, in fact, reading a story. I honestly think that a double/triple line break would do the trick, although I don't think you can format it like that at YWS anymore. Even asterisks work. I do love that you connect the past and present with those tiny transitions of sounds or dialogue or whatever, and I think they would work twelve times as effectively if you did separate the switches in POV.

Anyways, on to the story!

I didn’t notice much about him, at first. I didn’t think about the way the intern fumbled with his chart, or how you could see he hadn’t said anything in a very long time. I didn’t think about the way the old man looked incredibly fragile; they all do, but I didn’t see that there was something about him. Not at first, anyway.

A couple of things here.

First of all, when you say, "I didn't notice much about him," we assume it's the intern because that's the first male character you mention. The old man seems like kind of a side note in this description so it takes awhile for the reader to process that you are, in fact, talking about the old man.

The other thing is that I am not such a huge fan of describing the things that she didn't notice. It takes us out of her perspective for a moment, and while it does a great job of capturing the world around her, it doesn't capture the world as she sees it, which is crucial because it's from her perspective. So I would suggest nixing the "I didn't notice" stuff and mention all of the things she did notice, including her gradual interest in the old man. It'll also have the convenient side effect of building the reader's interest in the old man as she grows more and more intrigued with him.

And again, you definitely need to rephrase the bit about the intern because as it stands right now, it seems as if she is strangely interested in the intern.

Instead, I listened to the shriek of sneakers on linoleum, the cries of grieving families, the sound of the trolley as it bounced against the wall in the hands of a particularly clumsy orderly.

"Shriek" = "squeak"? The word "shriek" implies a prolonged noise, while the noise that sneakers make, even when they squeak/squeal/whatever, is pretty short.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the old man's face.

See, again, this is weird from her perspective because in the past paragraph, you've made a particular point to note that she hasn't yet noticed the old man, and then you fast-forward to her not being able to get him out of her head. Do you see what I mean? There has to be a moment in here, somewhere, where he does catch her eye. Because otherwise we've skipped a crucial moment. And the fact that we're seeing all of this in her perspective makes that lack of transition (not noticing him to not being able to get him out of her head) really jarring.

I put the sheet away.

This, again, is a little awkward because you don't mention her picking up a sheet in the first place and then you fast-forward to her putting the sheet down. When you first wrote, " I looked at the name," I assumed you meant the name on the door, or that she eyed one of those little clipboards outside patients' doors or something. So we need some moment here where she picks up the sheet or opens a folder or something, which may seem minor and insignificant but still takes us out of the story for a moment.

‘You want my jacket?’ he asked.

New paragraph for the dialogue!

They browsed the headstones, looking for something.

The word "browsing" (while an excellent descriptor) implies a leisurely activity, like they're shopping for gravestones, while I imagine this action to be underscored with more urgency. I would suggest finding a synonym that suggests more intensity.

Also, "looking for something" is bland and kind of non-descriptive; again, I'd suggest finding a synonym that gives a better visual. Even "searching" would give us a better impression of what's happening, or some similar word.

He was sleeping, head lolling carelessly onto his pillow, and there was a string of drool escaping his lips.

You don't need the "and there was", they're just needless words that don't add anything but clutter your sentence. "lolling carelessly onto his pillow, a string of drool escaping[...]" works just as well, if not better.

Sarah looked out at the bridge as Eric parked his truck on the side of the road.

Again, find a stronger verb! "Looked" is bland and non-descriptive on a night when both of these characters' lives are changing in a fundamental way. This woman is on the verge of escaping the imprisonment of her life and starting over in a new and amazing way. This moment especially is a huge deal for her — this is It, the Moment, and there's pretty much no turning back. Which is a pretty long-winded way of saying that I feel like the word 'looked' could be replaced by a verb that better describes her state of mind — "gazed", for example, or something similar that kind of suggests her state of mind.

One of the other nurses was glaring at me like she had just asked me something.

I think you can cut it at "glaring at me" + "Are you coming?" conveys that just as well with half as many words. : )

The name “Sarah Jackson” flashed through my mind along with a slightly smaller word, “suicide.”

This ... feels silly. I don't mean to be a jerk, but I'm not sure there's really any other way to say it. I don't have words flash through my head, let alone words in various font sizes. This is a moment that really pulled me out of the story; it seems shoehorned into the story as a thing to conveniently introduce Sarah and her attempted suicide. I could buy an image of a black woman or maybe even an image of an abused black woman or even a body floating on the riverside — or, if you really feel the need to include it, I could (reluctantly) buy into the name 'Sarah Jackson' flashing through her head. But 'suicide', in smaller letters? Not so much.

I didn’t know why it happened, it was just one of those unexpected moments of clairvoyance where everything becomes known, just like how I was sure the boy in my vision had been Eric Langley.

Run-on sentence! I'd suggest stopping a sentence at "I didn't know why it happened." And then have "It was just one of those unexpected moments," etc., as a new sentence.

Click. Eric closed the door behind him, dropped his backpack on the couch, and rushed into the dining room of the small house.

I would like some indication that time has passed. I only say this because up until here, the flashbacks have been pretty much back-to-back while this one takes place significantly later. (At least a day later, no? I imagine that's the minimum amount of time it would take for them to find the body and for the news to travel to neighbours.) So something — anything, even Eric looking up momentarily at the sunset or, I don't know, wondering where Sarah is or something similar — something to indicate that this isn't right after he dumped the body into the river and said goodbye.

His mother always took a bite, chewed, and swallowed her food carefully before speaking.

This is a little weird because you're talking about what she does before speaking when you've already written out her dialogue. Also, a little too much detailed information about a pretty minor character, especially because it's information that doesn't really contribute to our overall mental image of her.

And at this particular moment, I'm much more interested in Eric's state of mind than his mother's.

I knew it, but I didn’t know how I knew, until I looked into his room.

Don't need the comma after "knew".

One of the nurses was remaking the bed, readying it for the next patient, which could only mean one thing. With his admission scribbled on a napkin in my desk drawer, he had let go. Maybe there was a light at the end of the tunnel, after all.

Too much repetition of something that is established with the first two sentences. ("It was empty. One of the nurses was remaking the bed...") Also, reinforcing it again and again kind of destroys any subtlety you have goin' on here. If you really feel that this isn't enough information, maybe put something about all traces of Eric Langley had being wiped from the room, but I really think that the "With his admission [...] he had let go," and beyond kind of ruins the effect that the other sentences create.

The morgue creeps most people out, with dead bodies lying out and in drawers, but not me: sometimes I go down there to think, or to remember.

This rings a little insincere to me, at least the, "I'm not afraid of morgues" because, seeing as she is a nurse and is in constant contact with the dying or the dead, of course she's not afraid of the morgue.

His skin was chalk-white and papery, like it’s supposed to be on dead people, and his eyes were closed, but otherwise he looked the same as when he was alive.

Again, this rings a little insincere. Particularly the "like it's supposed to be on dead people" — that descriptor sounds as if she has never seen a dead person. Which, again — she's a nurse! She doesn't make suppositions about what dead people look like, because she's seen dead people. Lots of them. Or so I would assume.

I saw Sarah, bruised purple from her abusive father; I saw her in bed with Eric; I saw her bent over the toilet, clutching a drugstore pregnancy test; I saw them discussing their options in the café; I saw his eyes harden as he decided that faking her death was the only way that she could escape; she held his hand and assured him that she would do anything if only they could stay together; they dumped the body into the water; Eric panicked when the body was discovered sooner than he had planned; they were at the train station; Sarah, nine months later, held the stillborn baby and sobbed.

Whoa, this is 1939?

That changes a lot of things.

First of all: drugstore pregnancy tests did not exist in '39. They didn't exist until the 70s, I think — at least, they weren't in drugstores till then.

Secondly, this changes the context of the cafe conversation that they have earlier in the story. Because if she's black and he's white and it's 1939, I can hardly imagine that they would choose a public cafe to talk about running away when they would be so obviously conspicuous. (I also find it difficult to believe that they were left alone, that the waitress wasn't eying them curiously, and that no one remembered afterwards that they had been seen together.) Especially especially because they (as in, the characters) were already jumpy and nervous, especially because her father is controlling and crazy — for a 1939 interracial couple paranoid about being discovered, a cafe doesn't even start to make sense.

And related to this specific excerpt — I feel like all of this information gets dumped at the end of the story when it could be worked into the actual narrative much more effectively. I think you could incorporate each of these as separate flashbacks, and I think it would work much better to the advantage of the story and the characters if you did so; instead of having all of this information thrown at us at the end, we'd be able to sympathize from the beginning about their problems and their plight.

If making each of these moments a separate flashback sounds exhausting (and I can understand that that's a lot of writing), you can probably also incorporate this into the flashbacks that already exist. For example, she could be bruised in the cafe and they could make some allusions to her father (they don't have to be direct at all). She could mention something on the bridge about the baby, or something — don't feel obligated to use the examples that I am providing, but do consider working these into the story instead of shoehorning them into the end.

As a final note, I would encourage you to do a bit of research on both nurses and on 1939 (and maybe on 1939 interracial couples) to make the entire story more plausible. There are certainly moments when the nurse stuff doesn't seem one hundred percent true, and ditto the 1939 stuff; a little bit of research will go a long long way to help you through that. And the details can be the death of a story, which is to say that if your characters and your settings don't sound like the characters and settings that they are supposed to represent, if it doesn't seem real enough, then the whole story can kind of collapse in on that. Especially especially with stories that have a hint of supernatural; keeping the rest of the story grounded in details and facts and capturing the atmospheres / eras that you are presenting is invaluable to making the surreal more surreal.

Anyway, good luck with this, and huge huge huge apologies for not having written this earlier. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions, if you need me to clarify anything, or anything else. Have fun writing! : )