Help with story writing?

Jack,

You used the word..."serious". I can tell you that NOTHING

is going to be serious, until you put your guts in something.

I could tell you who to emulate....but, this is a story for

someone who has some life experience. Have you ever

been depressed ? Ever know anyone else who has been

severely depressed ?

Depression isn't just a word. It's an illness. Very often

made worse with alcohol, and other kinds of problems.

You have to depict a man who is down...and out. In many

ways, down and out. Someone who has given up.

Why ? What makes a man give up ? I can tell you:

TWO things: LOSS and LACK.

Imagine a man. Age 39. On the cusp of middle age,

standing at a newly made grave. His face is blank,

because he is LOST. He has everything, and nothing.

The service he just attended, was perfunctory, lonely,

and mechanical.

What was missing at this funeral service ?

A little human kindness. But, there is no kindness to

be had. You can't grow kindness. You can look for it,

but it's just not there.

He feels as if he is shrinking. He feels as if his sadness

and lonliness will swallow him whole. He realizes that he

is succumbing to the darkness. He begins to envision his

life, folding in on itself....in and in and in....until he is reduced to a tiny, cold seed.

He sees himself sitting in a room....a blank room. Alone.

Bare walls. Bare table. Nothing. Just a thin wedge of light

finding it's way in to the room that is more of a coffin,

than a room.

Weeks go by. He doesn't work. He doesn't see his friends.

He will not eat. His stomach is as empty as his heart.

He is finally removed by the authorities to a hospital.....

After a month, his doctor writes his discharge orders.

The man gets out of bed, and walks, silently to the

hospital door, and sees his physician writing his orders

to leave the white sheets and cold air of the hospital,

to go home to......nothing.

He hears a voice behind him.

It's a nourishing, gentle, loving voice. The man turns,

and sees the object of his loss.

She motions for him to follow her.

He strides forward.

Down the hall, at the nursing station, the doctor and

nurses hear a crash of smashing glass. They run for

the room.

There, they find the big window broken, smashed outward.

His body is six floors below on the cold sidewalk.

Now, my friend....you fill in the "blanks".

Britt

There's got to be contrast..starting from bad to worse isn't really contrast..both are well..bad.

It will be more shocking/emotional/depressing if you start from great, then seep into bad then fall into worse.

Outline and research