I've applied many of your suggestions to my working copy and the piece is much stronger.

I have a problem with over-explaining things, and just when I think I've cut enough someone comes along and shows me that there's so much more fluff to remove, lol.

Thanks for the critique.

I was reading through the first three pages thinking, wow this is delightfully boring but largely well written. It was like reading a Wordsworth poem about paint drying. But it got better, from page four onwards you rectified a lot of my readers woes. More stuff that I had half the mind to cross out made sense, and maybe that's the way writing it supposed to be. 


Still, some of your verbs did not quite belong to your narrative voice. 


> Beckoning for attention


Was not a big fan. I felt disappointment, honestly, when I saw how out of place that was with your talent. I understand that you're trying to characterise the boy but there's better ways to do it. Perhaps


> Pleading for attention


or 


> Showing off his ...


I like the scene you're building at the start, its chaotic, but you missed out on some easy opportunities too I think. You were creating a crescendo of sounds, the toddler then the ejection of toast then the chirping. Why not go for the alarm too! The smell of burn

Hey, thanks for the praise, I'm glad you liked it. You're not the only one to be tripped up by the names, so that will certainly need to be addressed. Also, you might think you're being nitpicky about the skeleton, but that kind of info is super helpful. As a layman I just figured it'd be noticeable.  I'll probably change that body to be less destroyed and transfer the visual of a skeleton over to one or both of the individuals playing checkers.

I dig it.

I like the structure, I think it works well. The first half shows Olivia at home and barely in control of what's going on, the second shows her at work being calm, in control and not taking shit from anyone. We get to see two sides to her, and there's a tension between the them that works nicely. I like the transition,  setting up James ready for the payoff, and the abruptness of the change of plans really pulls me in. Specifically - James telling her not to be worried about their families, and then he turns up dead. Perfect dramatic irony and it really works.

The first half is the weaker of the two. The focus is split between Anna managing the household, the lingering presence of her dead husband, and explaining the taskforce and the wave of murders.

I think you could safely push most of the 'work' stuff from the home scene into the driving scene. I like Alan's chair, Alan's briefcase, Alan's absence in Anna's life. The suitcase is like the bridge between work and home - 

Hey, thanks for the heads up; I added a read only link.

Reminder for those who need it:

**Avoid intrusively formatted suggestions on the Google Doc**

The first few pages of this document are littered with crossed-out lines, or even in-text suggestions and annotations. It's bloody annoying, and makes it frustrating for others to read or critique. A suggestion for any submitter who reads this: post two documents - one read-only and one comment friendly. In an ideal world this wouldn't be necessary, but sadly there're some less than courteous critics out there. 

Stickying this comment in hopes that the primary offender, who shall not be named, sees this while writing a critique.

This community has given incredible feedback that has transformed my writing, so I can't thank you enough. Thank you so much.

This is chapter two of a work of unknown length (maybe a novel?). It's a supernatural horror/thriller.  I'm going to provide a link to the first chapter, in case you want context, but I'm only looking for critique of chapter two, and I have only contributed enough critique points to the community to cover the words in chapter two.

I've also added a read-only version of chapter 2 in case the line edits get distracting.

Finally, I don't have a title for the story yet, so "The Starving One" might not have any relevance to this chapter; just ignore the title for now.

[[2967] The Starving One, Chapter 2](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vNvMKi4kN1cJh0_W_dhjtrT9ccv1KDHqtVi90RbDuZc/edit?usp=sharing)

[[2967] The Starving One, Chapter 2 - READ ONLY](https://docs.google.com/document/d/14VZws8BmgwwkkaIJgN2scFBEh5ozqV0rQj3EMBYCV1A/edit?usp=sharing)

---


[Chapters One &amp; Two](https://docs.google.com/document/d/16ouk0peBIZCyaOdngTqABKS_H7VAwLfcUg1z03rgFtY/edit?usp=sharing), if you want more context.

## Critiques:

[[975] The Blue Devil](https://old.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/o60p9l/975_the_blue_devil/h2rw0b2/?utm_source=reddit&amp;utm_medium=web2x&amp;context=3)

[[3359] Short Story: Milk &amp; Honey](https://old.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/ogguti/3359_short_story_milk_honey/h4r18oa/)