Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Lost in the Rubble, Paranormal short

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Posted by Osiris (Member # 9196) on :

A ghost story I've been contemplating...

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There is no escaping one’s corpse when one is a ghost. No rest for the weary soul until the body is laid to rest. Tethered to mine like kelp to the sea floor, I sway above a mound of rubble.

This purgatory is filled with haze. A nearby yellow-hat waves into the gray wall of fog, finger pointing at a pile of concrete and twisted beams. The shadow of another man forms in the fog wall, he emerges. A white-hat. The two men crawl over the concrete and shine flashlights into dark spaces.

The ground rumbles. The shadow of a beast forms in the fog wall, a great steel claw - yellow like the man’s hat - emerges. The white-hat points at a ragged block of concrete. The claw pinches the block and turns away. Steel and stone vanish into fog wall, eddies swirl in their wake.

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Thank you for reading, I'm not sure if it works.

Posted by Bent Tree (Member # 7777) on :

Try reading this one aloud. it has a poem like tempo, but i feel like the voice is off.

Posted by LDWriter2 (Member # 9148) on :

I can see how Bent thinks it sounds like a poem. But if you didn't want that I think it could be easy to fix.

For example "Steel and stone vanish into fog wall, eddies swirl in their wake " add the word the before fog and add what type of eddies. Large? shades of gray?

Over all I think it works but it does need some tweaking. I'm not not sure if you need to explain what happened in the first 13 lines but it should probably be soon.

Oh the second sentence sounds a bit too cliche-ish for me. It can be done better.

Posted by snapper (Member # 7299) on :

The first paragraph is the hook but you lose me when you get to the hat guys. May I suggest you build on that paragraph? Perhaps explain how he died or where he is.

Posted by Osiris (Member # 9196) on :

Thanks guys and snapper. I was playing with the idea that the spirit, once disassociated with the body, would have tenuous access to memory, which is why the ghost seems confused with what is happening. That device seems to not work though.