Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-33470154-20180618012008/@comment-35711173-20180618021251

ArcOfRuin, To me that last paragraph isn't credible for a real life event. Think about it. Would the guy not recognize danger or death? Why would he think he could resurrect his friend by putting ice from his cooler on James's corpse?

Also, I am not scared by a boating accident. Until that last paragraph it sounds like two idiots in a dangerous blue hole who found an odd rock and one got themselves drowned.

In 2016, both of them should have a cell phone. Why didn't he make a call to 911? Let's assume he did. Let's assume for the purpose of this discussion that in half an hour the sheriff and an ambulance arrive. James is still quite dead - unless he isn't. What would happen to the protagonist? Note: With switching the date to 1976 and doing a little revising on words like YouTube you could get rid of the phone issue. Or you could explicitly say "No reception" or "Phone got dunked."

Just a few assorted ending ideas to contemplate:
 * James is alive and looks normal. Was he ever really dead? Is the protagonist mad?
 * James's body disappears and isn't found by divers. Is the protagonist suspected or even charged with murder?
 * James's body is missing. The sheriff and EMT's are found dead, slashed to bits in a gruesome way.  What happens to the protagonist?
 * James is alive and kills the protagonist in classic 1950's Bug Eyed Monster fashion.
 * James is alive but the protagonist drowned. Was James's death a hallucination?
 * The whole thing didn't happen. Maybe there was no James, ever.  Maybe the protagonist dreams it all from within an insane asylum or a deep coma.
 * Maybe the "I" is James and this James did some scary stuff.