/lit/ - Literature

>>20838902
I am an 8 to 5'er in addition to writing to I am always on the clock somehow.

I don't have to work next week. Imagine all the writing I can do.

>>19337722
>>19333219
Done with work and decided to take a look here.
You opened with Samuel waking up, but subverted it by waking up in ashes. Many editors will throw away stories if they see the intro as waking up to a normal routine, but the conflict is already established. Something burned, but the protag apparently didn't. That may not be what happened, but that was the image it gave to me.
While I'm not a song writer or a poet, I liked guitar man's song. Probably the most fascinating thing you wrote here. I'd love to know more about where he came from and why he sticks by the gate to the underworld. The candle theme coming in with the ash piqued my interest. Any advice on how you composed it? I was going to study some hymns and try to write a few myself for a story.
I was surprised by how soon Samuel accepted his own death. Also a bit uninterested in him because he doesn't seem to have any motivation or feeling. I understand he can't express himself to others, but tell me if you were trying to tell us more about Samuel. That he prefers to explore the colorful, grassy path before "passing on" and presumably becoming ash doesn't seem to indicate much.
I don't agree with the boy waking up a second time, perhaps open the next scene in medias res. He's already down the trail of grass.
That aloof boy talking in the bucket made me laugh. It made me wonder if this place was mostly kids, and guitar man was an exception. When Icarus asked the protag's name and then stared at him, I found it really unsettling despite his friendliness to the other boy. That paragraph doesn't have much, but the intro with ash and melting down to the dew gave me this image that grass and dew might be more sinister in this story. I don't know where you're going with it, but it reminds me of "Thief of Always" by Clive Barker.
Do you know what comes next? How long is this story gonna be?