Hi, 💙 Carly !

          Overall Thoughts
My first impressions of your story.

         I'm happy I had a chance to encounter this lovely snippet as a fellow participant in "I Write," and I'm here to share my thoughts! This was a vibrant, relaxing setting description that showed your protagonist's growing excitement and relaxation as the left the wild, bustling city behind for the sedate pace and fresh air and rolling wilderness outside. Your descriptions made me feel like I was driving down the road with Arlynn!

          — Character:

         Although your character is not the focus of the piece and doesn't take center stage, you still alluded to her need to escape the city and the complications it brought. I understood that she was leaving behind her problems with Lance and stepping into a beloved, familiar place as she traveled toward her destination. I love that she had a particular restaurant she stopped at. The sights and sounds and smells there were delectable!

          — Setting:

         Very solidly described! I loved the tone of this snippet and the vibrant language you used. Your descriptions of the scenery from the car, the produce stand, and the restaurant were all evocative. Well done! I loved the way you threaded emotion and experience through all the things she saw—the way she went to the Webers' restaurant "before Lance" and the way returning to that wild wilderness was to get her away from him. I loved the description of the produce she bought!

          — Description/Style:

         Very good. I ran into a handful of minor bumps that disrupted the flow of the story for me. I'll mention some of them below. I also noticed, scattered here and there throughout your powerful descriptions, a few places where the language could be tightened up a bit. Keep an eye out for the verb "was." It has no real weight, and sometimes you can replace it with a stronger verb.

This is just an example: "The cottage was just a few more hours north." This is a perfectly good sentence! However, since "was" has no real weight to it, you might be able to substitute it for a verb that has a bit more nuance. For example, The cottage waited for her just a few hours north. That's silly and off the top of my head, but something like waited for her/beckoned her could potentially develop that inviting, warm, home-like feeling you have going in the rest of the scene. "Was" is not a bad verb, but sometimes it can be replaced with a better one.

          Things I liked :
If something special stood out at me, I'll note it here.

I felt like I was breathing the fresh air with your protagonist, and my stomach grumbled with her! Powerful writing!

Even though I don't know the whole story, I could sense the problems Arlynn was leaving behind.

          Grammar/Spelling/Punctuation Suggestions:
These are things I saw that could be changed to improve the piece...

The further she got — further is for metaphorical distance (to further a goal). Farther is for physical distance (she ran farther down the road). In this case, farther is appropriate.

The congestion of buildings and traffic thinned — I love that you use the word "congestion" just after talking about breathing! It's a great way to make readers feel that stuffy breathlessness of the city. However, since you use the word "thinned," it breaks the metaphor a bit. If you want to carry over that connection with breathing, replacing "thinned" with "eased" or some other verb might be more effective.

The congestion [...] thinned / In its place, nature took up the torch. — This is the tiniest thing, but the phrasing seemed a bit odd. "Took up the torch" made it seem like the city was passing something good to nature, where in fact I got the impression from your words that the presence of nature gets nothing from the city and has a power all its own.

breathed in her first, deep breath — The repetition (breathed/breath) caused a slight stumble in an otherwise silk-smooth description.

So fresh the dark, rich soil — Your use of fragments works well for emphasis! When they're used too often, they can be jarring. This may not be the case for all readers, but I stumbled over this one.

A frontier landscape, — Formatting. I believe this paragraph and the previous one may be mashed together without double-spacing.

A least Lance would — at

The south, with all its demands and obligations(,) fell away
The heaviness that had been following her, eased up.— If you set off the phrase with commas on one end, it must be set off on the other end, as well. In the second sentence, you are separating subject from predicate with a comma, which isn't appropriate. For example, it's not grammatical to write a sentence like, "She, ran."

Cheeseburger, fries and vanilla milkshake was handed — were (because she received more than one item)

dappled display of maples — While sunlight through trees is often described as dappled because of the way it creates flickering spots of light on the ground, this description confused me. Are these maple trees actually spotted?

          In Closing:
Final thoughts...

         An enjoyable read! You have a wonderful ability to create atmosphere. Thank you for sharing your work, and...

Write On!



My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .