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« on: January 06, 2011, 01:20:01 AM »
Sean,
One note. It is a bit easier on me if you can manage MS Office Document format or RTF. PDF doesn't allow me to do inline edits and comments so you stand the risk of my losing the reference for comments that I make. I'm not sure what Silk and Chaos would say about ODT but I know they have no problem with plain text, DOC or RTF. Something to consider.
The story is nice, but not compelling. The statistics are, I supposed, to convey the idea that something weird happened, but the ghostly quality isn't in the telling. It's more important to show how eeire it is than just tell us with math, something that makes a lot of readers' eyes glaze over.
Secondly the climax lacks compulsion and drama. The narrative and the images should grab the reader and not let him --as I did-- get bored and start wanting to skim rather than read just about the time he heads out the door for an old fashioned toxic root beer.
Also the short Jewish narrator with the Brooklyn accent (Rod Serling) does nothing to promote the story. It never really feels like twilight zone, because finding the comic book just doesn't seem magical and mysterious enough. Also the plasmosis from black mold is pretty obvious. Way, way over telegraphed.
I'd suggest reworking it and either trying to turn it into more of a moving love for the child, combined with intentional self sacrifice --something that would make it more of a Harper's type story-- or lay on the fantasy elements. Plasmoid delusions about yetis and Sasquatch do not make for Speculative Fiction per se. Trying to straddle the fence hasn't resulted in slip-stream as much as make it harder to do either genre in a strong way.
The oddities of expression seemed odd to me, but I overlooked them as they suggested an obsessive character, or a non native speaker as writing. In general you have a good hand, and I look forward to more submissions from you.