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| Short Stories Short Stories, usually between 500 and 2000 words. |
07-20-2005, 02:36 AM
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#1
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Scribe
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Utah
Posts: 83
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The Larson Manor
Prologue
They were all intuders. Every last one of 'em. They had what was coming to them. I gave warnings, i told them to leave, but they didn't. Finally I had to hurt them. After that they left...that is their spirits. How I envy that those I got rid of could leave this cursed manor, yet I was stuck....alone.
For some reason I cannot reach the place to which they have gone. Reaching neither Heaven nor Hell. I am stuck with no friends, no love, no fears, no hope and no life. I am dead. A ghost as some might say or an apparation or even a lost spirit. I have pondered the question for years and years: Why am I stuck? Why can they go? Why am i so different from those who leave this earth to go to better places, and yet my life was not so different from theirs at all...it's my afterlife that is so diverse from the others.
Some may ask 'Why don't you let the people who come to join you in your house stay?' Well how would you feel if a stranger just decided to move in with you, remove your posessions, and carry on as if you arn't there. There is no help for me.
And so I carry on, as much as I can at least. I simply wait for the next person who dares enter the Larson Manor.
thanks for reading guys. Let me know what ya think.
I will finish it later im a little tired at the moment.
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Half of the world is made up of people who have something to say and don't say it.
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07-20-2005, 05:49 AM
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#2
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Prolific Writer
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Brisbane, Australia
Gender: Male
Posts: 444
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I'm assuming these 'intruders' are the new owners of this manor, and the ghost doesn't like them invading his/her space, so s/he gets rid of them. Yes? I like the approach and the pov, because I agree that no matter how nice the people are, a ghost probably WOULD see them as intruders...
At first that made me start reading with a real western accent. Then I started getting puzzled because none of the other 'them's' had been abbreviated, and I didn't know why that particular one had. I think it'd be more fluid if it were the full word.
The only other thing that kind of threw me was the ending. I was feeling sorry for this ghost, stuck in a place it didn't want to be, but the ending made it sound vengeful and bitter, like it wanted people to move in, just so it could punish and torture them...
I think this is a great opening though. As I said, I really like having this from the pov of the ghost, and showing these people as intruders. Can't wait to see more 
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07-20-2005, 09:37 AM
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#3
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Ink Slinger
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Fergus, Ontario CA
Posts: 2,676
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re: larson manor
I am ashamed to say I didn't get it until I read Peter's comments. Then it seemed clear enough.
I think what threw me was your careless grammar and typos. It reads almost like something you would echat out to someone on the fly. It therefore put me in edit mode, instead of read and enjoy mode.
Actually, upon re-read, all I saw was.
Quote:
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They had what was coming to them.
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had=got
and a couple uncapped "i"s and a missing question mark.
Not bad.
Maybe the problem for me is that it reads like a prologue (which it is) but I almost never read prologues. I'm not sure I believe in them. Prologues and epilogues are just lazy, telling cop-outs to my mind. If its worth mentioning its worth incorperating.
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07-20-2005, 01:33 PM
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#4
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Ink Slinger
Join Date: Oct 2004
Posts: 4,827
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I also didn't know they ghosts. But as a reader I have a hard time understanding sometimes. I'm sure I would have eventually got it if you continued.
I think it's an interesting idea. It's sort of a twist, in that it gives motviation on why ghosts scare people. Normally ghost stories are the other way around.
I think the beginning paragraph is really clunky. There isn't much flow from one sentence to the other. It's too much start and stop. Becuase they are short sentences with similar structure..
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07-22-2005, 12:46 AM
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#5
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Addict
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Northeastern CT, USA
Gender: Male
Posts: 114
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I agree with the comments that everyone else have made.
The real thing that I do not understand is why this is posted in the short stories forum. It isn't that there is anything wrong with posting a short paragraph, even one that is a prologue if you want people to look at it, but why is it here? It is not complete, as the writer has mentioned right at the beginning. Is it even a part of a short story, and not a novel? Has it even been spellchecked before being passed off as something that is complete?
Every day I see little, unfinished bits of work just posted here unfinished. There is nothing wrong with posting what you feel like, but I am beginning to feel a little confused as to why these bits and pieces are posted as complete short stories, the intended contents of this particular forum. I really hope that this type of thing would be posted in at least the Critique forum, if not a new forum for the beginnings of story/novel ideas where they can be tested out and people could give advice on whether to continue or not. This, or one of the other options, would be a far better choice of where to post pieces of a work like this.
Sorry to be critical here, as this particular writing was not the target of my statements. I have been thinking about this for a while now, and have felt fairly argumentative today, and I was looking around when this topic came up, an example of the subject of my meditation. I would take this thought up in a new topic, but it would therefore be violating my plea for a short-stories-only short story forum. As I said, this is far, far better than anything near the likes of Dante's conversation posts, but I still feel like it may be misplaced in a location where one would look for complete, fairly polished short stories to read.
Tim
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