Page critique 7/8/21

Offer up your page (or query) for Nathan's critique on the blog.
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Nathan Bransford
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Page critique 7/8/21

Post by Nathan Bransford » July 7th, 2021, 11:20 am

Below is the page up for critique on the blog on Thursday. Feel free to chime in with comments, create your own redline (please note the "font colour" button above the posting box, which looks like a drop of ink), and otherwise offer feedback. When offering your feedback, please please remember to be polite and constructive. In order to leave a comment you will need to register an account in the Forums, which should be self-explanatory.

I'll be back later with my own post on the blog and we'll literally be able to compare notes.

If you'd like to enter a page for a future Page Critique, please do so here.


Title: In Between Time
Genre: Historical Fiction
First 250 words

Cecil James Elliott hated the name his mother gave him. He didn’t care much for her. Not after her hospitalization in 1910, the year he was twelve. That’s when she told him she wanted to die. It was a Wednesday. Wednesday, October 5, to be exact. From that day, their relationship was troubled. In this year, 1919, he referred to himself as C.J., and they barely spoke.
C.J. was glad they barely spoke. Prohibition had just passed; he would have been worn out by listening to her blather on about how grand the forced enactment of teetotaling would be. To annoy her, he would have argued that prohibition would only increase crime. Yes, it was best they barely spoke.
On the occasions he was interested in a female’s view, he preferred the notions of Maggie O’Sullivan, an opinionated Irish girl. Stubborn – and what a temper that one had – but, oh, she was pretty: ginger hair, snapping green eyes, a warm skin tone, tall, willowy, and a hint of an Irish lilt in her voice. He knew the first time he saw her that she would be his muse.
“Your muse?” she said, pulling her collar up, and her red felt beret, down, over newly bobbed hair.
“Yes, my muse,” C.J. responded, conceitedly. “Surely, a Mount Holyoke girl knows what a muse is.”
“Of course, I know,” Maggie replied, clearly glancing down at the novel she was carrying – The God of the Seas. “I’m just astounded an Amherst boy does.”

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