I love density, I don't think that's a problem. But it just feels like a lot of what was presented here didn't accomplish much for the story other than upping the word count. I definitely get the joy of reading dense sections of description that's full of motion and vivid imagery, or thoughts that are full of voice and opinion and therefore characterize, etc. 

I got that he was writing the piece as it reads. I just wasn't sure if that specific section I pointed out was meant to be present thought or past because of its placement. I think there's another point later where his present thought starts a new paragraph and that worked better for me. 

If it had been "oppressive structure" instead of "oppressive aspect ..... structure" that might have helped. Because "oppressive" can refer to more things than just physical size, it tripped me up until I got to the associated noun, which was a vague one. If that makes sense. 

"Difficult to read" - I'd say it's mostly subject matter. More int

I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy it and my apologies about copy/paste permissions. I’ll have to work harder on the wordiness/density for sure. I do want it to be fairly dense though. 

The character has writer’s block which is linked to his sleep problems. He writes in his journal which is where the switches to present tense come from. Perhaps I should’ve included a brief introduction to him and the city, or perhaps posting two excerpts was a mistake.

The violin and the letter are extremely important to what happens in the story so I feel fine about taking up six hundred words to introduce it. I plan on the resolution coming later.

The alleys are lit but the canal isn’t, so the light coming in to the canal from the alleys is effectively guided by the alleys.

I considered ‘oppressive structures’ to be a common expression meaning big, intimidating, or looming structures, so the part about moonlight was supposed to be an enhancement of that image.

Thank you very much for your time and crit,

This gave me the expectation that something was going to happen to the narrator before he returned home, out here in the dark. Nothing happened. He only disagrees with himself a sentence later to say that the dark is "desolation", which means he wasn't actually fooled. And then the foxes are described *another* sentence later as fearful, scurrying, so why would their movements have lulled him anyway? These strike me as contradictions instead of what I'm thinking was supposed to be a logical back-and-forth. Even if it felt logical, I'm not sure what is gained by this section. Nothing happens in the dark in this excerpt. I don't learn anything about the narrator or the setting in these sentences, except that the foxes exist here. It feels like words for words' sake. 

> I feel a certain kinship with them now, they scurry; I know their fear.

Comma splice. Also switch to present tense? Could be argued it's a present thought mashed in between past actions but with it all being one paragrap

#**GENERAL IMPRESSION**

This was very difficult to read, both in the sense of engagement and clarity. Excerpt 1 feels more like an... experimental prose exercise than an excerpt from an actual story, and excerpt 2 felt extremely off-balance in what was given attention and what was not. Some scattered mechanical issues, especially around the dialogue-heavy sections, that made it difficult to tell who was doing/saying what. And finally I found the narrator's personality--what I could tell of it--grating on its own. 

#**EXCERPT ONE**

Okay, so, basically nothing happens in 621 words. That always feels so weird to type because I am a huge fan of "slow pretty words" and I often find myself being the only one to say a piece was *not* too slow for me. But these words are not pretty enough to propel me through this piece and really, basically nothing happens here. Even then, the traces of *something* that *do* happen are so buried under a thesaurus that they might as well not be present at a

Ah, right. I did occur to me that you might be British, as I've heard it used that way before. I used to watch a lot of Coronation Street. lol. Good luck to you, man.

I’m glad you enjoyed it, thanks for taking the time to read. There are certainly technical errors that I’ve missed. Stood is actually a recent development in British English; I didn’t write that way intentionally but because that’s the way many British people speak. I’ll have to think about changing that.

This is high quality writing. I love your turns of phrases.  However, I should remark, and please understand I know you probably have some editing yet to do, that the punctuation requires a bit of touching up.  Commas, in particular, inserted more regularly, should address that issue.

'Berel plucked a catalogue from the bookcase in his hall, opened it to a choice page, and handed it to me.' I think 'choice,' appertaining to its meaning, may have been wrongly used here. I may be the one erring here, but it deserves a check, perhaps?

'stood in Berel’s kitchen, eating his cheese and talking about painting; we had a fried-egg sandwich each'

Why not 'standing' in the kitchen to allow your verbs to agree in tense within the confines of that sentence?

Further along greets us with more issues of tense. I hesitate to add them in here, as I hate being this fastidious over a document which, I'm fairly sure, is still being edited. And please, let me continue to emphasize one thing, I regard yo

**Excerpt Two**

> Its red brick is solid, but here and there is displayed the handiwork of bored delinquents.

I'll bite the bullet and say I like the way he's describing the house. This shows a bit of humor and derision and character in a way I couldn't quite parse from the headache the first excerpt was giving me. 

I really can't get over the grammatical mistakes, but I really, *really* can't get over the dialogue mistakes. The capitalization and formatting of dialogue tags is entirely inconsistent, and said is absolutely not dead, so please toss your readers a bone so we know who's talking. We don't know these characters remotely well enough to follow dialogue bouncing without a marker here or there. We do get some. We don't get enough.  
The absolutely painfully realistic dialogue is difficult to get through. It doesn't help that our narrator adds colorful commentary like Peter is glib and a dilettante. Which only serves to remind me that I don't want to read the conversation (be

Hey! First off, thanks for your notes, aha. I somehow missed them, but through my habit of peeking through other people's critiques I found the notes you left for me!

Next, I'll dive in. I think there's always a lot of value in seeing how other people write, because then you can see how their own preferences work towards their advice. I assume you'll take that into consideration, since you now know where my own preferences and faults lie. But, since this tricky flowery stuff tends to be my vibe, I wanted to return the favor. Doxy covered my thoughts well, so I'm going +1 most of their thoughts and advice and supplement when necessary.

**First Paragraph(ish):**

>I’ve started earlier than usual, I can write by the light of dusk rather than my lamp. It’s not unpleasant, and even I can’t deny the beauty of a setting sun.  
>  
>Last night’s misadventures resulted in the acquisition of the curious object that now lies at the foot of my desk. I trick myself that there is life in the night

OK, X\_Irradiance's review meant I just had to give this a read. I can do better than them!

Yeah.. I do not know who you are trying to copy but it is not working. I know you are trying to copy someone or something because people do not write like that as far as I have seen. It is like you are trying to do it mechanically but you don't understand the mechanic.  Wait, is English your first language? I have hit a few where that had caused issues.

It is very hard to read.

Bored to death after 100 words. The fact I read that much is a huge generosity. Next.

Hello everyone,

It's been quite a while since my first post. I got quite a negative reaction but I've been working hard on this and am looking for more feedback, so hit me with your opinions and thanks in advance!

[Excerpts from A Draught of Day and Night](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aEthwStAYIpTzw4zmlE-fLgJCP7eG7GFb_WJFDPNS68/edit?usp=sharing)

[1180](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/vz9gy7/comment/igfp28q/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web2x&amp;context=3)|[2747](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/vwqokq/comment/ig05sei/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web2x&amp;context=3)

Edit: Copy/paste permissions are now allowed, apologies for the inconvenience.

[2935] Excerpts from 'A Draught of Day and Night'