Hey, Barrio! Double-space this sucker, then shoot me a PM and I'll leave you a comment. I'm morally opposed to forcing my eyes to read those fat chunks of paragraphs in such a small font on-screen.
Got YWS?
"Most of us have far more courage than we ever dreamed we possessed."
- Dale Carnegie
Boy, that was dense! That formatting is great on WordPerfect or whatever program you use, but it doesn't work for us readers. It hurts the eyes.
On to the big stuff.
The first thing I noticed was that the kid is very well-spoken for a toddler. Usually kids don't fully understand humor until they're six or seven, and this toddler was using some pretty teenage sarcasm on his mother with the whole 'please' thing. Watch out for stuff like that.
We need to know that the mother is lonely in order for the whole 'reconnecting with family' thing to work. She seemed pretty content with her life, at least as content as most of us are. Give us a scene of her crying over a photo album or something gushy like that.
And the number one rule: SHOW DON'T TELL. Before you showed the entry into the grandfather's journal, you told us all about it. So why should we read it? Spice up the journal entries, make them vibrant and tragic and exciting and violent all at the same time. We love that stuff.
Another thing is, (excuse my ignorance) wa there a reason you chose 1917? because I know my grandfather is seventy years old and he was born in the thirties, so that leads me to believe that either your time is off by quite a bit or this story is not set in the modern day. Make that clearer to up, because if you show us a TV we automatically assume that it is 2005 or later. Or at least I do.
This is a small detail but why did you tell us everything that was no the desk? I assumed there would be pens and paper and things, because it's a desk. Unless there's something really bizarre on the desk, like a plastic zebra or something, we don't need to know.
About the first phone call, um, why? Who is Oliver? Who is Susie? I thought she was talking to Fiona. Bottom line is, I didn't care about it.
I'm going to guess where this story is going. Katie learns about some family secret around her grandfather while she is reconnecting with her family in an old estate on beautiful grounds. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's how it seems. So, sorry if this seems wrong to you, but I have to ask. What's the kid for?
As far as I can tell, the kid is only there to take up space and increase your word count. He's a cutie, but the story can function just as well without him. Think about it. Ignore it or don't, it's just a thought.
Over all: 7 out of 10. Work on it. It has potential, but it's just not there yet. PM me if you ever get around to a second draft. I'd love to read it.
“To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world.” - Freya Stark
