Page critique 10/19/23

[Nathan Bransford]

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; Jeeter Sharlow
Fiction

Had it been midnight of the winter solstice, the longest night of the year, had there been not the slightest illumination to fall on the streets of Fox Creek, West Virginia or even the dim glow of a solitary bulb suspended from a store’s ceiling Jeeter Sharlow wouldn’t have made one wrong step on his way home. He’d taken the same path so often on his way to and from school his feet had acquired the innate ability of maintaining the proper stride and to land where they were needed pointed in the right direction. Walking all the way home by himself was unusual. Having Alice, a neighbor who lived not far down his road or his good friend and class room buddy Carleen alongside happened more often than not. Friday conversations would be about what each was going to do during weekend. But this Friday Jeeter had seen neither one of them yet. He didn’t give it much thought until he came to a strange sight across the street at the Western Auto store.
Huddled in front of the store’s sidewalk window standing close together like they were trying to see through the same hole in a fence was a group of school kids. At the back of the pack he easily spotted Carleen, the tall student who never went home without carrying a book or two from school under an arm. Checking behind and not seeing his older brother meant Merle had stopped somewhere to smoke a cigarette with his friend, Orange Tabor.