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A rat, gnawing at the crumbling wainscoting, caught the attention of the room's sole occupant. He turned away from peering through the cracked and dust-grimed window to glare at it. The rat paused in its excavations and stared long and hard at the empty chair. The old man, whose immense bulk filled the chair from side to side, stared back. The rat’s hackles rose and it gave a shudder before continuing its work.
Sir George Gifford, the chair’s occupant, went back to studying the unkempt garden that grew between the two wings of his house. It was early evening and the creatures, which made such a wild habitat their home, had already retired for the night. They left George alone in the desolation that was his home and in the company of his unwanted room fellow.
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This is the beginning of an historical novel set in early 19th C England. It is a ghost story, amongst other things. It is finished but needs fine tuning. Any offers of feedback would be appreciated. Thank you.
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A rat, gnawing at the crumbling wainscoting, caught the attention of the room's sole occupant.
The commas caught my attention, but I didn't actually think they were necessary. I also felt misled by the sentence's structure, since the subject of the sentence is "A rat", but the story is actually about the object of the sentence, "the room's sole occupant". Together, these made this a hard first task for a new reader to your fragment.
stared long and hard at the empty chair. The old man, whose immense bulk filled the chair hmmm... I assume that this is a ghost story, but I just can't be sure. Because you've switched point of view mid-paragraph this is a bit confusing.
Assuming the story is about Gifford (not the rat), I suspect the narrator can safely reveal that something supernatural is occurring - since the narrator can see Gifford, after all.
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I feel like there could be a cleaner way to introduce the fact that Sir George Gifford is a ghost. Without knowing that this was a ghost story, I was confused at why the rat was staring at an empty chair when there was an old man in it. It might help to use something more attention-grabbing than a crumbling house? I feel like beginnings usually should have something be about to change, or something having just changed - something to indicate right away that there are going to be problems for the characters to deal with, usually new problems that are interesting and unique. This beginning feels more stagnant.
I like the idea of having a ghost as a character straight off the bat. I'm not that knowledgeable about ghost stories, but still, I haven't heard of that happening before, and I really like originality.
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