✨ Blind Critique 2024 ✨

Story Number Six

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

Again, this is a very well described scene. I really description you've used here as it helps to set the scene. It gives me a creepy, eerie vibe that I love and I'm beginning to think this maybe something like a horror or a thriller.

*******************************

Love love love the descriptions! I think the way you make this whole scene pull together is absolutely brilliant. Nothing really that I think needs to be modified; it really just flows together so nicely.

*****************************

The intrigue in this is good. I'm curious to know more about the character and what his connection with the woman he's thinking of is. There is a sinister undertone to it which is interesting and I think you do well to illustrate his various feelings. One thing I'd critique is to be careful with some of the descriptions. The opening is a little redundant to say 'one dark and dreary day' and then describe the rain. Both of these descriptions are doing the same job; I'd probably suggest going straight for the description of the rain rather than the stiffer 'One day...'.

I'd also (and this is entirely up to the writer's discretion) maybe suggest putting the main character front and centre from the very start. Sometimes starting with description of a scene in entirety distances the reader from the main character. Foregrounding the main character within the description of the scenery could help with this as it immediately flags the POV rather than having a loose, untethered description from no one's perspective.

***********************************

First paragraph kind of repeated itself. "One dark and dreary day", and then "Clouds of charcoal grey", mean the same thing. I like the black marble headstone how it's separated. Very dark and foreboding.

Second paragraph is great, but remove "of them", when showing where the vicar is standing.

Other than that, the rest is great. Could make some things a little more efficient, but this is a good start.

************************************

I get the scene/ setting you are trying to portray and its somber and built well but I feel like the moments are quite disconnected and they don't seem to blend in enough to make a full scene.
This man's emotions though are well described, and you've also used a flashback, but perhaps if you use some dialogue you may be able to convey more the readers.

With some editing you'll have a stellar piece.

For some reason I pictured this guy to look like Snape.

**********************************

6.

I like the mood of this opening, and how the memories affects the guy. I don't like that the vicar is muttering; that's not something he would do with the grave gathering. It may come across as muttering to the guy at the back because he is further away, his mind is elsewhere, and it is supposedly raining. But the description of the vicars voice is not from the guys POV, it's from some indeterminate omniscient POV.

The scene starts with a dark cloudy rainy day over the graveyard, BUT apparently nobody at the grave is holding an umbrella, or huddling double or triple to share an umbrella, or wearing raincoats, or are simply getting soaked from the rain. Not even any soggy ground, especially around the grave itself, if it's freshly dug/covered. I don't even get the sense that the young mans long black hair is wet. So you need to revisit the scene and decide on whether its still raining and make sure the rest of the scene is in sync with that; or whether the rain is down to a drizzle or finally stopped etc.

*********************************

I love love loved this. You really set the mood and your writing was great it really made me feel the effect of a funeral. And now I want to know whose it was and whether the story will go back in time or go from this showing homebody's grief you really made me interested.

I would say the only advice is maybe as the beginning is rather slow you do the same with the man reminiscing as it would match the flow a lot better and would make he grief seem worse and more drawn out. This could either be by making them longer paragraphs or being more descriptive and showing why they felt the way they have said.

Either way it's a great start to the book and would make me read on.

***********************************

I honestly don't see any reason to put the entire first line in capital letters, just for the effect.

Second: How can the graveyard be lonesome when there is a funeral taking place, and people have gathered there?

Well, the young man with the rose, standing in a distance to the crowd, apparently had a close relationship with the deceased person. If I were a homicide detective, I would take a very good look at that man and wonder if he had anything to do with her death.

************************************

The opening line is giving "it was a dark and stormy night" feels. Definitely turned me off from the start, but that's really a personal preference. If that's what you were going for, keep it. As for the rest of the scene, it has really strong descriptions that set the scene beautifully and I enjoyed the little glimpses of how she made him feel and their short lived relationship. I'm curious as to what exactly happened and who he is though.

**********************************

Still finding it difficult to provide the kind of feedback I'm accustomed to without further context, but overall this is good. I have a personal issue with the two uses of the word "whilst" since the voice is colloquial and that word is most certainly not.

Other small technical details stand out. "For the few minutes" might be more appropriately "for a few minutes" since those few minutes aren't a subject or an object of any prior sentence.

Overall very good, evocative and empathetic.