Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-28298312-20160503154416/@comment-28266772-20160503162137

Okay so a common error is you replace the word "due" with do". So the following sentences which read,

"encouraged to kill her do to it being the end" & "do to us being quite wealthy" should read "encouraged to kill her due to it being the end" & "due to us being quite wealthy". There are other similar errors that you should look out for and correct. For example, in the last paragraph it reads "The women stood there..." when it should read "The woman stood there..."

So yeah, there are a couple of grammatical errors, but other than that you can move straight onto fixing more deep seated problems.

Firstly, I think the first section should be written in the past tense. Most fiction is written in the past tense and the present tense just generally feels weird unless there is a solid and clear reason for it's use (e.g. "I'm broadcasting this message from my bunker where my closest friend is dying next to me blah blah blah etc.). You don't provide us with a reason and that's a fair choice, because the reason is that it's a zombie's internal monologue, and revealing such a fact ruins the twist. Nonetheless, I'd recommend switching to the past tense to keep it consistent and easy to read. It wouldn't hurt your story, it only helps.

Secondly, I wouldn't focus on the arranged marriage. It's quite culturally exclusive (pretty much alien to all westerners), and so is a little bit jarring. Failed marriages on the other hand? Every culture knows that. It's easy to understand, quick to explain, and doesn't take up too much space. (e.g. we got married, it was awesome for a fortnight, and then boom she got fat and her mother in law moved in). So I wouldn't bother explaining the whole social standing thing... just make it clear that it was a marriage that went down the drain after a short period, and before divorce could be finalized the dead started to rise.

Thirdly, I'd try to make the last line a little bit clearer. I didn't immediately understand what it meant until I read it again and realized that, okay, the wife had killed him the first time. Maybe phrase it a little differently to bring that to the reader's attention. Something like... "A part of her knew that she should have felt something from killing her husband, that maybe she should have cried or been upset. But, then again, it just didn't feel as special the second time around."

So overall, I liked your story. Didn't see the twist coming at all. There are a couple of minor errors, nothing big though. I'd recommend you switch to the past tense in the first half to keep it consistent throughout, and also that you simplify your explanation of the marriage (even if you keep the arranged part, just don't focus on it too much. People read horror for the horror, not family drama). Finally, I'd rephrase the final line to make it clearer to the audience that the wife killed him in the first place, and that's why he's a zombie.

Regards,

Christian Wallis

