It may seem strange to get a review on this one-shot so long after posting it, but I hope it’s a nice surprise. I have a habit of perusing the challenge submissions from time to time and I came across this.I had trouble following the opening paragraph, and even after finishing the story I’m still not quite sure who the other woman and the man are, though I’m guessing that they are Lucius and Andromeda. But I could be totally mistaken about that, because it’s not clear. True, it’s not really all that necessary that I as a reader know their identities, but it would satisfy my curiosity if later in the story Narcissa’s thoughts drifted back to the memory. You get your reader interested with a mysterious opening, but you never go back and capitalize on it. So despite your strong ending I finish the story still feeling unsatisfied.
My other problem with the opening is that it’s very difficult to know who is saying what. Is the conversation between Narcissa and the man only? Or is it between all three of them? I’m not quite sure. You can leave out some of who is saying what in order to make it flow well, but you leave it so unclear that I spent a lot of time trying to puzzle out who was saying what. It would help if you gave us more pronouns (he, she, and I differentiate the three characters), even if you don’t want to reveal the speakers’ actual identities yet.I really liked the later part of the story, the ending especially. You did a good job weaving back and forth between the italic and non-italic sentences. It was very readable, which is difficult to achieve with that structure. The short, simple, and yet powerful italicized phrases worked very well. I especially liked how you stripped her identity: “Narcissa no more. … Malfoy no more. … Black no more.” Very powerful, and very well done.
The last three lines my favorite. They mirror the three lines that open the body of the story, bringing the work full circle. It’s a dark ending, but poignant. A strong ending to a good story. Keep up the good writing!
I like it! You have some very nice phrases in there--"What we believe is powerful. Belief can kill." It's very intense, and although short, to the point; very well written. 10/10--and please write more! ;)
Good work. It was short, but it got the point across nicely. Keep writing stories - it may be your first, but you did a really great job.
You adopt a nice style here. Some authors like to leave the interpretation of the story open to readers, so they can guess and think about it -- but you have to admit, this method of storytelling is a double-edged sword. A flaw of this chapter is that its orientation is weak.
Author's Response: Thanks - I'm constantly editing this story. It is my first, and I know it's not brilliant
