Correct use (unless you meant it to be “Belonging IS- A Short Love Story”) “The Belongings”.

Are you talking about the “feeling of belonging” or belongings as in “I possess a lot of belongings”? Important difference.

First line has a passive verb “was lying”. Avoid passive verbs like was and had. Ex: He had been looking or she was wondering work better as active verbs: “He looked” “She wondered”.

I’ve read far too many story and books starting with characters lying in beds staring at the ceiling.

Not good: “Having nothing else to do,”

Main characters who have nothing else to do are not interesting reading.

“his thoughts went to the awards dinner that was to be held next week, next Friday more specifically.”

Better: “His thoughts turned to the awards ceremony that would be held next Friday.”

Sentence structure is awkward. Try reading your work aloud. If you stumble over it or need to breathe in to finish a sentence, it is too long and complicated. Simplify.

“He was doing good as a writer and why not?”

A writer with grammatically incorrect internal dialog. It should be: “He was doing well as a writer.”

Leave off the “and why not? question. Jarring and self-conscious.

“Given his very active imagination and knack of putting it beautifully into words, his books were usually bestsellers shortly after hitting the market.”

This is telling, not showing, a brief info dump.

Mark Twain on the word “very”: Substitute “damn” every time you’re inclined to write “very”; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.”

Books are not “usually” bestsellers after hitting the “market.”

Books become bestsellers after hitting the bookstores. They become bestsellers after years of hard work, providing the publishers get behind the writers with massive promotion.

“This time round, Dave had been asked to bring a partner along.”

By whom? Publishers, agents, and award committees do not dictate to bestselling writers what they can and cannot do for social events.

“And, he wanted to take along a woman – beautiful, intelligent – someone he would be proud to have beside him.”

Don’t begin a sentence with a conjunction. Grammar fail.

He wants a beautiful woman beside him, so how does that make him different from 6 million other straight males? Points to the character for wanting her to be intelligent. Some guys don’t count that as a plus.

“After all, (insert comma) Dave Gomes had a reputation to keep!”

Avoid ending a narrative sentence with an exclamation point. It’s called comic book punctuation. If you can’t make the narrative exciting with words, then punctuation won’t help.

You make a declaration that he has a reputation to keep, but do not explain why in the next line. This assumes the reader is as familiar with the character as the writer. Trust that the reader does not know anything about the character.

That’s where I stopped reading. I work as an editor and this story is now being slipped into the return envelope. The writer needs to get Strunk and White’s Elements of Style and read every page.

The writer also needs to read a minimum of 300 other short stories and study how those writers mastered the form.

Go to the library’s anthology section and dive in. I suggest starting with Saki, Conan Doyle, Raymond Chandler, and O. Henry. Even if all you read are their first sentences you will learn from them.

Good luck

such romances happen only in stories….or to greatest fools….!!!

good words..well written….good short story…