Hello!

First off, I like your username. ^_^ Bartleby the Scrivener?

It was freezing cold. Snow piled high. Night approached.

Not liking so many titchy sentences so close together, especially in a first line. You should begin with something smoother, to ease us into the reading. A short sentence and a longer one would be good, or a long and then a short, but three uber-shorts altogether is a bit much.

We waited. Waited for total darkness. Waited for the walk to begin. Waited for solstice.

See, here the pattern of three works better because you had a smooth paragraph before it. ^_^

Little did I know that all my doubts were about to evaporate.

Not liking this sentence. It’s too tell-y and obvious, too “Aiiee, something’s going to happen!” I think this would work better and be more subtle if you took this out. With it in, it’s like you’re working too hard. I don’t want to say overegging the pudding, because after years of never using that phrase, I’ve already used it once today and I think twice would be overkill. What I mean is, you’re trying too hard to make the night special. Let it speak for itself. Show us the specialness rather than tell us.

Minutes passed, the cacophony died out, and the choir began to sing as one.

After some time, we reached the turnaround of our journey; a steep and icy hill.

These phrases bug me. They’re so blah. This is a really important moment, so you should linger on it. Describe everything about it. You do a pretty good job of it in other places, but here it’s so bland and empty. These phrases tell us nothing about the time spent on the walk. Describe the night—there’s so much to see in a night sky. Stars? How many stars, how clear? Clouds? What colour clouds? The moon? What shape and type and colour a moon? The wind? What does the night smell like?

---

So! Overall, this was very good. It was well written and easy to read, and apart from the opening line, it flowed very smoothly. However, this could benefit from some more description. Your whole story is about just one night, so making it easily visualise-able is essential. Slow down and describe the walk and the singing more. The surroundings. Let us see every detail. The reflections of the lights in a black puddle. The colour of the moon. The crunch and colour of the snow.

PM me if you have any questions!

~Flounder

Gosh.

It was freezing cold. Snow piled high. Night approached. My twelve-year-old self stood outside the school with the other choristers, gripping noisemakers and lanterns. Parents, teachers and others joined the throng. We waited. Waited for total darkness. Waited for the walk to begin. Waited for solstice.

When I read this, I thought: this is going to be great. And not so surprisingly, it was.
Really, you have the perfect amount of everything. You really create a fantastic atmosphere of distance.
I love how you made something as simple as a walk with singing into something so mysteriously beautiful.

I really can't tell you how good this is enough. You're talented and I can't wait to see more!

NightWriter x