Thank you! This is one of the most useful critiques I've ever received. It offers so many things to think about and work on ... which is what I'm always looking for. I really appreciate the effort you put into this.

# Pickin' Particular Nits:

These are more nit-picks / particular quibbles which didn't deserve to be in the primary feedback, but I still want to bring up.

**#1: Adverb Abuse.**

This piece has a lot of really fantastic metaphors & similes. They're tarnished by a strange, and frankly unneeded, fondness for adverbs.

Now I'm not one of those people who will tell you that there is never a good time to use an adverb, but I didn't notice any in this piece which really justified their existence. Most of them were entirely unneeded, where as others could be plucked out and improved by re-arranging a word or two. This is actually one of the first things that jumped out at me.

**#2: Repetitive Description & Statements:**

Repetition can be an intentional literary device and serve a purpose, but in general I think it was inadvertent in this piece. Just to give you some quick examples:

*Soon I’m deeply* ***enmeshed*** *in tracking the latest trends in social media, trying to get a handle on 

# What I Liked:

**#1: It's well written.**

There isn't a whole lot to elaborate on this bit. This piece is just quite well done, and as a result most of the feedback I have is more nuanced and structure based than with a lot of amateur work.

**#2: Terse description.**

It's incredibly common for people to over-describe things. Clothes, walls, rooms, ect. You do a good job of avoiding this pitfall with mostly small and concise descriptions of key features. Admittedly this ties into the 'well written' note above, but I wanted to mention it specifically as it's far too common.

# Areas for Improvement:

**#1: I don't care about the protagonists actions or struggles.**

Every story needs to answer three questions within the first couple of paragraphs, or at the very least the first page.

Who is this character.

What is happening to them.

Why should I care.

These are the framework in which all of your narrative will take place, and they represent the most critical things to establish 

Thanks so much for your critique. That list of characters really stopped me; I never even thought about it but I'll definitely be cutting this back,  I'm not sure why but this piece has brought some of the best (AKA most useful) critiques I've ever received. Thanks!!!

part 2

>Lloyd sets his shoulders, as if preparing for combat. “Nathaniel Brewster, am I correct?”

So it just clicked in my mind that Nate from the intro is one of the Nathaniels. He is some sort of benevolent zombie and he uses the strong scent to mask his partial state of decay. 

&#x200B;

>“A lot of scientists believe that today.” 

What now? I've never heard of a scientist saying this. Maybe give a touch more backstory for this position. As a reader, I have trouble believing that any scientist believes that. 

&#x200B;

I really like the dialogue at the end of the 3rd section. It’s realistic. I think it would be easy to overdo the confrontation and make Lloyd look like a 90’s Disney villain. He’s still arrogant and condescending, but a believable amount. I like the way Isobel asserts herself, though it’s slightly out of character… where was this backbone when Lloyd was forcing his way into the house?

&#x200B;

>metallic crosses from beneath their jackets. They hold them up so th

I really enjoyed reading the story. I liked the character development and the reveal at the end. I would definitely read more of the story. I have a sectioned critique first, then I wrote out my notes for each of my readthroughs.

**Clarity:** Some brief issues with clarity at first. I wasn’t sure what UW was and I had to Google “Tulalip”. Then it made sense. You sprinkled some nice clues to the coastal town when you mention salt in the air and seabirds. But I literally had to search for the town name to get the setting. However, I don’t think it's necessary for the reader to know this is set in Tulalip, WA. You could remove the names entirely and leave it as an ambiguous coastal town.

**Believability:** I think this was one of your strongest components. You really connected with the small town feel. The way everyone knows everyone and they are overly-concerned with each other’s business. The only problem I had was with Lloyd’s persistence and determination to meet the man. His respon

Thank you for the time you spent on this. Your critique is very helpful, especially your remarks on conflict and the need to flesh out Nate. (Pun intended. Sorry.) Anyway, I got a lot out of this and greatly appreciate it.

Just a note here… as always I’m super drunk waiting for a lover to knock on my door. It seems these are the only moments I’m capable of thinking clearly and critically about other people's work. But by now the whiskey's really got to me but I hope you get the gist of what I’m trying to say. 

DESCRIPTION


The description is really clear and full of imagery. I don’t think that’s your problem, rather your problem is sharing what you didn’t share and what is actually needed to make your story complete to become a CLASSIC HORROR!!!!

Not to repeat myself, that would be point 1,2, and 3 as I mentioned before 


DIALOGUE


The dialogue is fine. I didn’t ever trip up there. You’ve got a talent to convey what is needed in dialogue, but a bad habit to repeat it in the following text. Just take a moment to decide what you want to convey, then have the dialogue do that part OR the following text.


CLOSING


I really did enjoy your story, although as I’ve mentioned there’s a critical part missin

GENERAL REMARKS


My overarching impression is that I liked this story. I’m a sucker for good prose. Your prose is excellent, although sometimes repetitive. The pacing was great, so appropriate for the story. Although the story itself should be longer or shorter, with either more cuts or more filling, I would go for the latter. 


CONFLICT AND DISPOSITION


Lack of conflict. The story is allowed to go about by itself without the leash of conflict to guide it. There were a couple of pages where I thought I just might give up on this story, seeing how it is leading nowhere. 


This story’s disposition is very interesting. There’s a long first stretch with very mundane things like waking up, greeting the dog, going to the shop. In between we are also introduced to the figure after which the story is named. I would have liked to have seen more of him, of his presence, direct on indirect, by his smell. When I got to the end, and realized how important this character was, and what other char

Some great points here! Especially about the beginning Isobel/Nate. I greatly appreciate the time you took with this. Many thx!

Many thanks for your critique. For whatever reason, this story brought out some of the best (most useful) critiques I've ever received and yours' is definitely included. Some great points here and I'm now jazzed to work on another draft.

Wow. This one's hard to critique because all in all, this piece is very well done. Truthfully, there isn't a whole lot to elaborate on. If this was published as is (minus a few minor corrections), I think it could hold it's own. That being said, you put it up for critique, so here's all the nitpicking I could do:


1.) **Punctuation**


I've made a couple edits in your google doc. All in all, this piece was much better than what you usually see on here. That being said, there's a few sentence fragments. Also, watch where you use commas when you should be using semicolons.

2.)  **Setting/Imagery**


Someone else said they liked the fact that you were terse in your descriptions, so I supposed this may be a simple matter of "to each their own." However, I personally think this could use a little more in some areas. You do a good job of describing *just* enough for the reader to get the idea most of the time when the imagery is only important for imagery's sake, but there's a few instance

I would appreciate any and all comments on this story! Thank you.

My story: https://docs.google.com/document/d/19-B1N5HjcYoCud7IRsPwF2LcGLiIU8ib1PhA8CRbg1g/edit

My critique is here:  The Song of Recklessness, Part 2 
https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/jp8dc8/3952_the_song_of_recklessness_pt_2/
More critiques (as requested)
To kill the weaver of souls https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/jl4lnm/2352_to_kill_the_weaver_of_souls/
One Who Walks w/ the Stars 
https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/jtjv0a/3445_one_who_walks_with_the_stars_arthurs/
The Video Meeting
https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/jvxcnt/908_the_video_meeting/

[3814] Coriander, Lemon Rind & Deer Musk