✨ Blind Critique 2024 ✨

Story Number Five

Hello Writer Number Five, here is your feedback for Blind Critique.

Now this is how to describe food! I wish the previous scene above, number 3 described their Earl grey tea the way you've described your smoothie. It really shows us a hint of your characters personality when it comes to their order and I can tell from just this small scene that they know what they want and like to get their own way. Personally I probably would have drank the grapefruit one just so as not to cause a scene.

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This is a lot of fun, an entertaining voice and an interesting character. It moves the narrative on while effectively building up a picture of the character and their issues. There is tension (getting to work on time) and obstacles (the character's crappy day). And I really enjoy the 'splat' sound in the middle of the sentence, super fun. I don't have any critique for this other than one tiny tiny thing. I'd put a hyphen in 'fruit-containing' before 'drink' to make it '...holding the offending fruit-containing drink...' to neaten up the adjectives.

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Amazing opening paragraph. Just saying.

Actually, this whole opening is great in general. It's funny, engaging, circumvents the trope of a boring morning beginning, while explaining it enough to understand what happened without droning on.

I honestly don't have anything to critique. Great job. I maybe wondering if the MC is male, reads like male but I can't be sure.

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Firstly this is written well, except for the words ' offending fruit containing drink' which sounded a bit off to me.

Apart from this, you've brought out the personality of your character already in just these few lines and that's really good. I feel like this is going to be a CEO or office romance, that's the vibe I'm getting.
This is quite a bit of a cliche start though, but I'm sure it's good to those who enjoy the genre.
I like your humor with the 'not-mango smoothie and I', that was fun to read. You've put in a lot of info in two short paragraphs and that's a talent!

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5.

This was a fun read. My first thought was my daughter would disagree with the MC (she hates mangoes, God knows why). They say bad luck comes in threes, so I did chuckle with the splat the number 4 bad luck. I like the way it broke into the narrative.

There's nothing I didn't really like. The narrative is a bit verbose and could be tightened up a bit, but it works for the 1st person POV. A comma is needed after 'no' in the 4th paragraph.

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I liked this first part of your book a lot. You really showed your characters personality straight away. I got the sense that they were a bit straight forward and stroppy. And seemed to have a bit of bad luck. I like when people don't make their characters perfect which showing in the beginning of a book can't set it apart. And the fact its just a normal day to it make you feel like you are just joining her.

I'm interested to know why you decided to tell us Annette's name who I feel like won't turn up in the story again but not the main character. It's completely fine not bringing up their name straight away but giving us someone else in the first sentence makes it a memorable name. It's not something you have to change more of a question really. I would also say maybe have distinct paragraphs would work better and make the text feel less squished togther.

I'm interested to know what happens next so it did a great job.

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Classic first-world-problems here. Though I totally understand the main character - I would be annoyed of such a rotten morning as well, and grapefruit is not a good substitute for mango. For a moment I had the feeling Anette was doing this on purpose (well, perhaps she was...) The last few lines were the intriguing ones, and I am not quite sure which tone the story is aiming for. But with the somewhat comedic undercurrent shown here, this might be something I like.

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I felt drawn in from the start. I'm not one for stories set in contemporary settings, but I would definitely check this one out from this scene. I too would question why anyone would substitute grapefruit for mango. I wouldn't even think they'd taste anywhere near similar to each other. Gosh I'd think I'd take banana before grapefruit haha. The only thing I might suggest would be to remove the "home to my job as a journalist" part. Having said where she works, as a reader I would automatically assume journalist without needing to be told. If any readers question what she does there, I'm sure as they read further in it would become apparent. So personally I wouldn't feel the need to mention it here, but that's only a small suggestion.

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I liked the overall composition of the beginning of the story. It perfectly introduced the character, making me feel immersed in what was going to happen next. I would have certainly read on if given the chance to. However, the main issue with the beginning is the technical side of the writing that can be cleaned up quickly. For example, the use of and beginning two sentences in succession of each other. It disrupts the flow. To improve this, check if it is needed in either of the sentences. If a sentence is just as impactful without it, my advice would be to take it out.

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I felt drawn in from the start. I'm not one for stories set in contemporary settings, but I would definitely check this one out from this scene. I too would question why anyone would substitute grapefruit for mango. I wouldn't even think they'd taste anywhere near similar to each other. Gosh I'd think I'd take banana before grapefruit haha. The only thing I might suggest would be to remove the "home to my job as a journalist" part. Having said where she works, as a reader I would automatically assume journalist without needing to be told. If any readers question what she does there, I'm sure as they read further in it would become apparent. So personally I wouldn't feel the need to mention it here, but that's only a small suggestion.

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Without more to go on you'll have to take my comments with a grain of salt - the first half of this passage seems incidental, not really useful to the plot or character development, except to establish that the MC likes mangos over grapefruit.

There's also a kind-of-awkward combination of past and present tenses, underscored with the onomatopoeia near the end. It's difficult to identify the voice (apart from it being the MC's).

I don't want to say you're lacking this because I can't see more than this brief passage, but it seems more a stream of consciousness than an excerpt from a plotline. That could easily be a wrong assessment, but I'd be looking for hints, no matter how small the piece, that each detail contributes to or advances the storyline in some way.