Thanks for the praise and edits in your work. Makes me glad that the critiques here helped. You're welcome.

> Reg says both "this is good" and "thanks", both referring to the spaghetti. Nick's response is "are you kidding?" because he thinks canned spaghetti is nasty and he assumes everyone else does, too. 

Yeah, the previous version only had those dialogue sentences which it tripped me up in the reading. The edits in the edited version clears up the interation and sequence.

> I never mention that Nick stands up!

Indeed, this edit prepares Nick's body language.

> I got up from the table.

However, as a note, one reader wouldn't think that this action could be enough body language to stop a man to resort to violence. I say it in this way because other reader reminds himself that Nick is pissed and could fill up the picture of Nick standing up, with his fists ready for a counterattack with a cold glare on Reg. Remind yourself that some readers will use imagination to fill the gap an

Thanks for reading and doing a critique. I'll respond to some of your points.

> I had to reread the first half of the story

I appreciate the effort you took in re-reading the older story. Your feedback is even more valuable because of that.

>So before this dialogue, there's this dialogue "Thanks" which clearly is Nick responding to Reg's compliment of Nick's special canned spaghetti of the house

Reg says both "this is good" and "thanks", both referring to the spaghetti. Nick's response is "are you kidding?" because he thinks canned spaghetti is nasty and he assumes everyone else does, too. He keeps it on hand just as an emergency meal if he's in a crazy rush. Or in case someone drops by unexpectedly and asks for food, as Reggie did.

>From what I see in the excerpt, the only physical action that I see in Nick is sitting across from Reggie, not even describing the sitting stance/pose, so if I were to confront someone, ask yourself this. How someone sitting across could stop me from 

In general, I liked that the focus of this excerpt focused more on to Nick by the middle of the read, letting the reader know that this sequel (in-work) is laying out the path for Nick and his character development, bringing a cathartic conclusion around Larry and the mess Nick let him do and coming to terms about Carla's death.

However, here is a rant that I have as I had to reread the first half of the story (God have mercy on me if anyone didn't have issues on this and it is only just me and my amateur critiquing skills).

**It doesn't need to look/format like some theater script but it'll be nice to know who talks.**

>“Are you kidding me? I can’t believe you’re keeping that stuff down.”

So before this dialogue, there's this dialogue "Thanks" which clearly is Nick responding to Reg's compliment of Nick's special canned spaghetti of the house. A classic one-on-one dialogue that builds up banter (this case being: Reg-Nick-Reg, as I thought it'd be), followed up with Reg's movement.

Thanks for reading and giving me valuable feedback.

Hi

I usually only do first page line level critiques on the google docs and also might give an overall impression of it.

Grammatically, I didn't find any errors, although I did only do a quick skim of it.

Someone made a comment suggesting you don't need the word canned. I'm the anonymous user who replied disagreeing, and I also commented on why you should keep it.

So at the line level on the google docs, the user "not telling" already did an excellent job of suggesting things could be cut and other suggestions.

Thus, I'm just going to give an overall feedback of what I find is not working with this first page (just my opinion).

**1st problem:**

I feel you suffer from white room syndrome. We need to be more grounded of where exactly the two characters are. From your first line, all I know right now is that Nick is sitting down. I don't know where exactly and on what. Could be on a sofa in the middle of the amazon rainforest. Could be sitting crossed legged on the floor in a hotel

**Exposition**

You introduced your characters and established the setting in the prequel, The Halloween House, so that is the only reason I’m mentioning it here. You did an adequate job describing Larry’s house, I liked your word choices, *sagging, warped, dilapidated,* to describe the house where most of the story took place. At our first glimpse of Larry, he doesn’t seem impressive; wiry, thirty, thinning hair. You describe him through Nick’s POV as having an aura of confidence, and the fact that he could animate the skeleton reveals that he is a powerful sorcerer.

**Setting**

The setting of *Bitter September Part 1* starts in Nicholas’ dorm room and ends with him driving his car, on his way back to Newport. The dorm room isn’t described much, I just know that there is a table and chairs, which Nicholas and Reggie are sitting at, and the window that Reggie looks out of. 

It’s a dorm room though, and most people are familiar with dorm rooms, they all look basically the same, so it

**Characters**

The main character is Nicholas Delacourt, who is also the POV character. He regrets going along with Larry Pike’s schemes, and never wanted to get involved. It’s not really clear why, Larry seems to have some type of hold over him, but it’s not clear what is going on there, and why Nicholas keeps going along with these schemes, without much resistance. He gives in easily, each time. If it’s simply because Larry is his best friend, then that makes Nick a loyal friend for sure, to a fault. I can relate; I had a friend like that growing up. Whatever trouble she suggested, I was down for it, even if I knew it was stupid and not likely to end well. That’s the stuff that turns into awesome stories!

Larry Pike seems a bit unhinged, though he seems to be intelligent. He also seems very self-centered, eliminating anyone who gets in his way, like the Golden Scroll. Unfortunately, this also seems to include his friends, as he was never very broken-up over Carla’s death, though he

**First impression**

I read the previous story The Halloween House, in order to get familiar with the story and the characters. I really liked that one; your stories never disappoint. But, I’m writing this critique based on this piece alone, like I never even read The Halloween House.

This piece begins with Reggie Finlay shoveling canned spaghetti into his mouth. I’m not a fan of canned spaghetti, so this gives me a bad impression of him right away. He comes across as a bit of a slob, also. I’m sure this was intentional, right? I think you intend to portray him as an unlikable character, so the reader is empathetic with the main character, Nicholas, when he thinks that he would like to punch Finlay in the face.

>“The urge to punch him in the face grew strong.”

This is the first hook, in my opinion. Up to that point, it’s just a scene with two guys talking, and one of them is shoveling canned spaghetti into his mouth. With his thoughts of punching him in the face, it becomes clear t

Thanks for the feedback, it is appreciated.

"I tried to convince him to come to his senses----"

That is a good way of indicating a pause since it interrupted the sentence and not some part of the narration. And it was understandable and not confusing.

"Yeah, and when he didn't..."

I would put a comma where the and is since it is separate from the "when he didn’t" part due to the fact that it is an introductory sentence and was started as one. 

"You are a really an ace detective?"

It is also good that you put the quote in a separate paragraph. Well done.

The other part:

The sentence is fine since it is not over wordy and it makes sense because the tone does. If not, then the tone will be out of translation, meaning it wouldn't make sense since the other commentor's edits makes it seems like the person that is talking to Nick likes him, when, in reality, he doesn’t. He is pissed. I explain this futher in the document.

"Of course I fucking blame you."

Like I said, with my other comments in the document, I said that you sho

This is part 1 of 5(ish) segments. It's a sequel to my *The Halloween House* story from last year. If you want to read that, it's [here](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ky8ptVlbV_Z9ikkJ_pJXvA_uUr2UvPwR-ZU0bWKpzHU/edit?usp=sharing).

Please let me know what you think, any feedback is welcome.

In this segment Nick gets a visit from Reggie, who shares some disturbing news.

Story: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aJVnFHHETdpCjW4v2_pC2FuyhyNFBygnyju70hZL5XQ/edit?usp=sharing

Critique: https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/o4gxm6/1762_the_mother_of_scales_part_1_of_3/h2rsgft/

[1371] Bitter September, part 1