Lost for Words - My short stories

This is what would have eventually been an over 4 hour conversation with you (GH) on your story. Seeing as my time is running so short before I have to leave, I will give this to you as a guide about this story.

The doctor's face leaned in close to his own, and he opened his eyes to see his face.

This just seems redundant

solid concrete wall

again a bit redundant

The kind of look that is on a person's face when they suddenly have a long, sharp object rammed through their chest, and they don't realize that they're dying, even as the light leaves their eyes.

I like this, it is a bit graphic, but it conveys a good picture.

The doctor put up his hand. "No need. It's all right. My name is Michael Marino, I work here at West Pine Hospital.

This one made me have to do a double take. This Doctor had been talking with him the whole time, telling him of Jess’ condition, then he decides to say that he works at the hospital. I can understand if you are trying to find a way to incoroprate the name, but it seems a bit tagged on. I suggest removing that bit about him working there and putting the hospital name somewhere else.

Marino stared at him for several seconds, and then looked down at his clipboard. "Ms. Jessica Reynolds. Dead on arrival at 7:34 PM on the evening of Friday, March 16th."

This seems really cold of the doctor, imho.

His whole brain seemed muddled, like someone had taken a great wooden spoon and stirred his thoughts together

Again, a rather well thought out image.

His whole world, all his plans for the future, gone like dust on the wind, like ash, like shit in the toilet. Flush.

Well, I guess you can have too much of a good thing. For one, you just tacked these thoughts together too close to each other. I can see him with the “Dust in the wind mindset, but the whole toilet thing, It really stops the whole motion of the story. The whole second thought of ash and shit is so wrong for him to be feeling. I don’t know about you, but when a loved one dies around me, I don’t tent to think about my future plans being gone, or flushing.

Driving home that night was like driving through a heavy fog.

Forgive my nit-pickyness, but this kind of makes little sense. They had been in an accident, bad enough to kill two people and yet he is driving home without a scratch on him and in a car that must not be his. Try working around this, maybe by eluding to the fact that he had a friend take him home or something. EDIT: Upon reading everything I know the mistake here but make sure to look at my other entry about the car down 2 quotes.

That was for city cops, the rookie kind, the kind who constantly acted like they had metal poles up their asses. You could tell a rookie just by the look of him. He'd be young, usually scrawny, and always would have that arrogant little gleam in his eyes. Like he knew something you didn't. Haven't I seen you before? was a line they loved to pull on you. That's when you told them to fuck off and give you your ticket or move along, thank you, come again.

Again the Story line just comes to a Screeching halt and every passenger is asking why. This whole section is totally not needed. It kills the mood and makes the reader question why it was put in.

And the residents were growing sick of it. Dry times, the DJs on the radio said. Something wasn't right, you could feel it in the air. And every day when you woke up and stepped outside, expecting to feel the cold, crisp air rush into your lungs, you were greeted instead by an arid dryness that made you feel like you were dying. Your skin felt cracked, your nostrils burned, and every time you stretched, you could feel your skin stretch with you. A maddening bout of itching usually followed. Dry times indeed.

1.   Why do we care what the residents thought of the wether, this is about (or has been so far) one man and one woman.
2.   I talked with you about this in the YIM, it really does derail the story. You very quickly go from the third person view of this story to the first in an area that is really of no importance.
3.   You elude to this weather thing a few times, while it creates a setting too much detail of gets annoying and becomes pointless extra words

Her car was still in the driveway. The car that she would never drive again.

I thought they were in her car. Edit: Upon fully getting through the whole story, I realize that they were not in a car, but you should have said something in the beginning about the fact that Jess was walking and not driving.

There is no future here for me, he thought. I'm going to end it tonight.

Oh my, melodrama out the wazzoo. The last line seems a bit tacked on if not completely held on by duct tape. If you have ever talked to any apptempted suicidals, they don’t just say things like that. While keeping it is fine, it just makes it seem a bit wrong.

One thing that you constantly do is use "And" to start your sentences. Stop That, it is wrong and far too many people use it. When I was a Teacher's Assistant for my Honors English class, My teacher would make me mark down everyone who used that word to start a sentence. 99% of the time it is used incorrectly and totally made the reader have to stop and read the paragraph again for the sake of understanding it.

The last thing I am going to nit-pick on is the fact that there are far too many swears here. A good story does occasionally use them, but in excess like this, especially when the store owner was talking, it makes it sound really bad and it doesn't add anything to the feeling of the moment. In this case it takes away from the feeling of he shock when all you get is a long line of swears that makes you want to just get through it.

Other than those things (Which I know was a lot) The story in and of itself is rather good. Almost Everything past part 6 flows nicely with little interruption. Keep working on it and don't stop writing, you now know some things to watch out for when you are writing and improving upon those will make you into a very good writer.