Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-25048323-20140612000516/@comment-24821182-20140612074333

Thoughts should be put in cursive to distinguish them from spoken dialogue. Your paragraphs are way too big, and it's important you split them up to create new ones whenever person B says something after person A, so it's easier to tell who is saying what.

Ellipses should always be exactly three periods long, and neither longer nor shorter. You never need more than one exclamation- or question mark after a sentence.

If a piece of dialogue is followed up with "he/she/it said" then the bit of dialogue should end with a comma. If a bit of dialogue comes after telling us who said it, then it's justified to end with a period instead. In other words, it shouldn't be

''"Officer hoppins. What a shame." He said...''

but rather

''"Officer Hoppins. What a shame," he said... ''(corrected other errors in the second version).

As for the story itself, I think it could become something good, but the woman's supernatural ability to recall the entire story of the hat's owner right down to the most minute details seemed a little odd to me. I would suggest you find a different way to convey the story of the hat to us.