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“She is dying, Rigel. There is nothing more we can do.” The doctor said. “What do you mean there’s nothing more you can do! You can save her life!” Rigel said, his dark brown eyes pleading. “She just had a cold. How could this happen?” “I am sorry Rigel. I truly am. We have run all the tests and nothing comes up. The simple fact is we do not know what is killing her and nothing we have tried has done any good. I am afraid all we can do at this point is make her comfortable.” “How long?” He asked, his voice barely a whisper. “Days, maybe a week. Certainly no longer than that.” The doctor broke eye contact, looking down at the clipboard in his hand. “We will keep her as comfortable as we can. If you would excuse me?”
This is a short story I am working on. The SciFi element comes into play really after these lines. All comments are welcome and thank you in advance! Eric
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We've got the dialog, but we could do with more significance: how Rigel feels about this.
I am not sure if you're starting in the right place. Maybe. Certainly if this story is about the interaction between Rigel and the doctor, it seems likely.
Even if not, if this is the scene to start with, I want to know more of the emotional tone of their interaction. Does the doctor seem not to care? afraid to give the bad news? weary? sad himself? How does Rigel feel? Is he so distracted by the disaster that he doesn't give a rip about the doctor, or is he annoyed?
You might also take parts of the plot and put them into exposition. Since this isn't a screenplay, you don't have to put them into dialog.
Nits:
"his dark brown eyes pleading": since we're in Rigel's POV, we can't see his eyes.
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Are we in Rigel's POV? The only evidence for that is that character POV writing is usual and Rigel is (thus far) the only named character. But it is true that most readers will assume Rigel is the POV and thus feel distressed by the lack of sympathetic identification provided in the text.
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