: Re: Is it a bad idea to have all the action in the beginning and all the dialogue in the end? I wrote a short story. All the action happens mainly at the beginning of the story. You can see

@Dunderdale623

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After reading the entire piece (from the link you posted), I'd say the story feels like it's all cut of the same material, so you don't have anything to worry about in terms of most of the dialog being at the end. There are some rough edges here and there - how did more beers get into his bag? "Jun left his room at 1:20 that night."? - but a light editing pass would take care of minor inconsistencies like this. I'm also guessing it was "proofread" with spell-check. (If you're not picking up on these sorts of mistakes in your own writing, you can try getting some beta readers or find a writers' group; a full proofreading and editing would be outside the scope of this site. A pro editing job would likely be overkill for a short piece like this, unless you decide to collect many tales into a book later on.)

While I'm not seeing problems stemming from bottom-loading most of the dialog, I'm seeing other issues. In particular:

If Lin doesn't have a soul, how will her consciousness live on after her death? Unless the consciousness is separate from the soul. Why is a lack of a soul something that gives people the heebie-jeebies? And why not Jun? You don't need to answer all of these questions in a work this short - sometimes an unresolved question can of itself be a great plot point. But at least acknowledging the question is a good step. (You partially do this when Lin admits she doesn't know why people are avoiding her. But be careful to avoid that these are just covering up flaws.)
Is lacking a soul important to the story? The lack of a soul is kind of a Macguffin, in that any property that Lin has that's weird or out of the ordinary could be substituted. In my opinion, Lin's lack of a soul should either be integral to the tale or dropped entirely. The telephone conversation might be a good place to address some of this.
This kinda feels like a piece of a larger work, since it doesn't really resolve. That's not necessarily a problem. You can choose to resolve this by, rather than continuing the plot until you reach a "natural" ending, setting up the end point you have earlier in the story. For example: The connection between Lin and Jun is obviously the end of the tale, so maybe you could emphasize Jun's loneliness a little bit more, since it's alleviated at the end. A word or two could serve to do this: The telephone conversation might mention that Jun's been reclusive lately. Or: Jun was afraid to approach Lin at first. Maybe we could find out that he passed up similar opportunities in the past? Similar in that he didn't talk to someone out of fear, not necessarily that they were lacking souls.

In summary, I really like this story. I'd take care to avoid tightening it too much; the loose, vague feel here is wonderfully atmospheric, so take care to not resolve everything. But a little tightening and polishing would really bring this home.

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