✨ Blind Critique 2024 ✨

Story Number Three

Hello Writer Number Three, here is your feedback from Blind Critique.

I like this. I'm an Earl Grey drinker as well. However it is such a unique scent it would be lovely if it was described here. Really think about the smell of it, and the taste of it as not everyone will know what Earl Grey smells like.

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I love this little opener! And I like the relationship between Tavish and Rehan so far. Not really seeing anything I dislike or that needs improvement

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I like the voice of this and the style of the dialogue. It really brings the characters to life and shows their personalities. A point of tension in the narrative is hinted at too with the comment about finding a good match and I like the intrigue of the poison (the sensory details are a lot of fun too!). One line-edit would be to remove the comma after 'Within it'. The '...was a bespoke tea blend' is part of the same clause as 'Within it...' so doesn't need to come after a comma.

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Would recommend with Tavish examining the box, then his remark. It gives a slight buffer before going right into dialog. Also, is the second line of Dialog from Tavish as well? Common sense would assume so, but since it's on its own line, I can't be certain.

Whose cogwheels? Rehan's? Could fix clarity if you kept split dialog in one paragraph. Unless another character speaks, there is often no need to split the continued dialog of a single character to another line. Exceptions can obviously be made.

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This sounds like a murder mystery! I like that I got that impression even before I reached the line with poison with tea, great job in conveying that unease before spelling it out.

I didn't quite like the cogwheel unnatural speeds, that sentence comes across as overdone/a bit too much with the whirring speeds. Unless, of course, we're talking about a robot.

Add an action beat to the cutoff question so we know with certainty that it is Tavish who is asking. Also, in the last paragraph, the he (should be capitalized as start of a new sentence) which as a pronoun should refer to the immediate preceding male which is Rehan, can't be Rehan. So there the name of the other person has to be used, thus: Tavish turned around, his coat.

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I loved this start. I know barely anything but you leave me wondering who or why the poison was there for. I don't even need to know who is involved in the scene with the plot of murder and the great quote at the beginning it really pulled me in along with your great descriptions which I really enjoyed.

It's more of a question as I was left a little confused. What time period is this set in? It feels like it's not modern from the language used and they way the characters are speaking either way a kettle is just used to heat up the water the flavouring would not be within the kettle so I would change this to teapot.

Great start though and honestly would definitely make me want to read more.

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I like this. This has a definite murder mystery vibe to it, in the tradition of Agatha Christie (tea, especially Earl Grey, plus poison - it sounds like a classic). The two characters we meet at this point seem down to earth and very analytical, which I appreciate.

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Your dialogue feels organic and the pacing is swift, but not too fast. It feels natural. I do personally feel like it lacks some context in terms of setting, like where are they and whatnot, but it's a small scene, so I'm sure that that comes later. I also really like the italicized part at the beginning to start it off.

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The quote at the beginning of the opening sequence was intriguing. It made me want to find out what it meant in line with the rest of the story. The opening sentence helped deliver this feeling of mystery and intrigue even more. However, the dialogue about finding a match felt out of touch with the implications of what happened. To improve this, you could use a variation of the dialogue that would be more suitable to the tone of events and change the retortion to something more on topic with what has happened. The information posed in the dialogue can be revealed later.

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Your dialogue feels organic and the pacing is swift, but not too fast. It feels natural. I do personally feel like it lacks some context in terms of setting, like where are they and whatnot, but it's a small scene, so I'm sure that that comes later. I also really like the italicized part at the beginning to start it off.

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The quote at the beginning of the opening sequence was intriguing. It made me want to find out what it meant in line with the rest of the story. The opening sentence helped deliver this feeling of mystery and intrigue even more. However, the dialogue about finding a match felt out of touch with the implications of what happened. To improve this, you could use a variation of the dialogue that would be more suitable to the tone of events and change the retortion to something more on topic with what has happened. The information posed in the dialogue can be revealed later.

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Strong dialog helps knit this together. Some pieces might be more descriptive than necessary unless there's a specific plot-centric reason. Small things like "cube shaped box" where box would work, or even better, a description of the material it's made from, something to denote status or some other characteristic of the people involved, or something specific related to the poisoner. Love legitimate uses of the word "bespoke" but it's also redundant in this case - if you're concerned that the reader won't know what it means, don't use it at all.