Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-29447668-20161018022111/@comment-28266772-20161019144831

The cough had spread in her chest until she could no longer work [for the life of me I can’t say why but this sentence just doesn’t sound quite right]. At that point, [I don’t think the comma is necessary] she had been fired from her job. Without money, she lost her health insurance coverage, since only employers offered that precious commodity. [that final clause feels a touch redundant; in fact looking back this entire introductory paragraph is a long-winded way of saying that she lost her insurance as a result of losing her job]

One day, as she was buying groceries, she coughed so hard that blood came out of her mouth [you have a plain style of description which is a shame because this story relies on invoking an emotional reaction in the reader]. Store security detained her and reported her to the Health Department for treatment.

"At last," she thought, "I will get to see a doctor!"

After a long wait, she was ushered to a counter, where she was ordered to hand over her purse, watch, and jewelry. "Excuse me?" she asked.

"How else will you pay for your treatment if you have no job?" the officious nurse snapped.

Meekly and silently, [no comma] she did as she was told.

"Go through the door at the end of the hall and your suffering will end. The Road to Heaven is short." '[you’ve given away your story twist by here. ‘Road to Heaven’ is not a subtle euphemism]'

The quasi-religious message was odd, but she was too weak from illness and fatigue to question it [at times your style slips into telling us what happens instead of showing us]. She walked down a long corridor and saw a door decorated with flowers and crosses. More religious messages [fragment]. She shrugged, opened the door and stepped inside. The door automatically closed behind her.

Once inside, things were even odder. She found herself alone in a tiny chamber with nothing in it at all. Even the walls were bare of all decoration.

Thinking she somehow went into the wrong room, she tried to open the door. To her horror, she found that it was locked.

Then she looked again. There were strategically placed vents in the ceiling.

Her suspicions were confirmed when a mechanical voice said, "Welcome to the Road to Heaven. To make your journey as painless as possible, please stand in the center of the room and take several deep breaths."

A second later, the poison gas began to be pumped in through the vents.

-

Mechanical issues – None as far as I could tell. Some of your commas are unnecessary but their placement isn’t what I’d call incorrect, just superfluous.

Styles issues – it’s too barebones and too much telling, not enough showing. Your story relies on the audience feeling a connection with the woman but I don’t feel as though the words themselves do much to facilitate that. There are almost no descriptions of events or people, but rather just statements and as a consequence I can feel the story’s attempt to elicit sympathy, but I don’t actually feel sympathy.

<p class="MsoNormal">Plot issues – I think the Road to Heaven quip is too basic and obvious. It’s not subtle or clever enough to pull off a twist; it pretty much gives itself away instantly. I don’t know if you want us to sympathise with the woman or be shocked by the ending but I didn’t think you pulled off either. I think the basics of it is this; you need to create an actual story that follows the outline you’ve created here. You need to flesh out x number of scenes to describe the woman’s narrative arc from employment, to unemployment, to detention/death. You need to use the lengthier exposition to offer in-detail descriptions of events and characters to elicit sympathy from the audience. You also need to be aware of the fact that you are going to struggle to keep your twist under wraps while creating an immersive world, and instead you may just be better off using the story to create a distinctive dystopian setting.