I can see the potential in this for a good story but I don’t think it’s ready for submission quite yet. It reads more like an outline than like a completed story. It’s hard to put this into words but I’ll try to be as concrete as I can. I can tell you really care and I want to encourage you to keep trying. :)
It seems like it should be character-driven but there’s not much to the characters. There are too many characters and it’s hard to understand who they are or know anything about them. You’re telling too much, instead of showing. In a way, it needs to be slowed down and opened up. Have fewer characters but develop them more through what they’re doing and saying instead of explaining their backstories and personalities by way of the protagonist’s thoughts. (If you were at your dying grandfather’s bedside, would you really be thinking about your mother’s history of crisis management?) Don't have them all just sitting around and talking though! Show us who they are and what their motivations are and we'll figure out on our own how to feel about them.
There are a lot of excess words and lines that could easily be cut (most of any revision process involves cutting!) but you could maintain the length easily by expanding on key scenes that show people’s feelings and relationships in real time.
One example I can use to make suggestions on cutting to make things more clear and readable:
Your paragraph: " The air in the room was heavy and thick. A briny odor clung to everything. It was dim and dank, reminding me of a crypt. We did our best to keep the room looking like it always had with his stuffed deer head remaining on the wall next to the gun case, the silly mounted singing fish he loved, and the various family photos on the walls and dresser. This was important after having to bring in a bedside commode, hospital bed, oxygen equipment and other medical devices that made it feel like a hospital ward."
Here, you can shorten the first three lines considerably. Something like “Breathing the heavy, crypt-like air hurt my lungs,” can say it all.
Instead of “We did our best to keep the room looking like it always had…” and “This was important after having to bring in…”, you could just have a line about how incongruous the hospital equipment looked compared to the vestiges of normalcy in the room: “Alien stainless steel hospital equipment had slowly taken over but we had saved the stuffed deer head…”
The fewer words that can be used to describe something, the better.
Some questions that arose for me: What is the point of Lillian? (Every character, every scene, every action and piece of dialogue should have a point.) Who is ‘Manda Lynn and what is she doing? Her behavior doesn’t ring true to me. Why is she so upset about a nurse changing linens? And why does the nurse need to change linens at this particular point in time, when he is going to be dead soon? Why does the nurse feel the need to drill the death into the grandmother? Of course the grandmother might not want to admit the truth but the nurse wouldn’t be trying to force her to accept it; it seems cruel and unnecessary. And what on earth happened at the end? No character other than the narrator showed any hint of caring about ending the suffering of the grandfather so it seems strange that someone other than him would have shot him. Anyway, why shoot him if he’s going to be dying any moment? Perhaps you might change the timeline so that he’s not right at the end of dying. Maybe you can even give him strength to become part of the conversation himself, dealing with his own fear and mortality. But, either way, give whoever shoots him a good reason to shoot him.
I sincerely hope this feedback helps (of course, it's all just my opinion) and I wish you success with your submission to the magazine. I'd be happy to review and re-rate any revisions you do. Cheers!
(Note: I just now realized, after reading this for the fourth time, that it must have been the grandmother who shot her husband – and then herself? – and I think I missed it because, again, there were too many people and too many things going on in too short a time and I found it hard to attach anything to any one particular person. They kind of blurred together, in a way. That’s hard to explain so I hope you’ll understand.)
I liked this. It's got potential for a really good story. It's dark and really feels foreboding. I would recommend a restructuring though.
Starting with action will draw people in. Most people won't read past the first few lines if they are only back-story. Maybe make the attack on the brother the opening scene. I'd like to read more action and less of Jeremy's thoughts. If you need to explain why he is attacking his family, make it short and clear, perhaps by way of dialogue (either with a family member, to himself, or to the dark mass).
"Kill your darlings." There are a lot of excess sentences and words. Pare it down, cut it to the core. I know, it's hard. I have a tendency toward wordiness too. :)
As it is, we understand that the dark mass is some sort of demon tricking Jeremy into performing a ritual, probably to give the demon life. But it's not clear how the tooth fairy fits in and that seems a bit odd, somehow. Did the demon bring up the idea of the tooth fairy giving Jeremy whatever he wants? Or was it Jeremy's own idea? What, exactly, does Jeremy want her to give him? What is his motivation? What are his goals?
Perhaps, instead of starting with attacking the brother, you could bring in a new opening scene. Perhaps Jeremy's still at school and he beats up another student and the tooth idea gets introduced there. Just an idea.
It's a great start and I hope to read a revision before too long!
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