Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-25907694-20150303002302/@comment-26027160-20150304074319

Coma?.. It does make sense when you say it, but I couldn't really tell it from the story. Your "fragmentation" leaves too many possibilities open. One could think that she tried to kill herself and ended up on the hospital (woke up and immedeately started to look for a suited suicide instrument).

The sentences "She used to be good. She used to be pure" can be interpreted as: a. The character did something "unpure" (ex. drugs- all those melting hallucinations and the melody out of nowhere, or killed someone) b. Someone made the character "unpure"- ex. sexual assault, murder attempt (which explains the "hallucinations", "random melody" and the hospital) c. The character became "unpure" due to dark thougths and depression and... d. She was in coma. How likely is it that the readers will immidiately (or later on in the story) think "coma"? The worst thing is that all of these alternatives fit into the story. The story is too... vague at this point.

The more possible the pasta is, the scarier it is. If the character, for example, turns on an unknown song on her computer (or it randomly comes up in her song list) instead of the song playing out of nowhere, the reader will be more freaked out. "Oh... So a song can change my life and bring me to depression... Maybe I'll be more careful about unknown songs next time... or something like that. The "song randomly starts playing" isn't very effective. Additionally, you mentioned that the character was "sitting in a classroom" and that the song sounded like "a muffled piano". Many schools have pianos and sneaky students who play the instrument. That assumption (made by the reader) can lead to misinterpretation b.- someone made her feel depression, so therefore someone did something to her, even though you state that it was the character who "abused life". It simply confuses the reader. In the "random song pops up", the character can be blamed for it instead.

Sorry for being harsh. Feel free to point out any mistakes and mis/misinterpretations I've made in this comment (I'm only a reader). Either way, good luck!