Oooh Beasty! Thank you so much. Mmmm, I feel like I've just been very thoroughly poked back...

This is excellent feedback, Dean. Humiliating and depressing, yes; but only because it is true!!

No, I'm not really humiliated and depressed - more, angry with myself. Such a short story, and so badly done! It's true, I do tend to write with a sort of calm passiveness. La-dee-dah.

I virtually never put descriptions of people in - actually, that's one where I do not see eye to eye with the general advice given. Why tell me what someone looks like, when I don't need to know? If you don't tell me, I can imagine what I want. If you tell me the bloke is blond and clean-cut - well, I'll go right off it, frankly. I like dark and smouldering. Unless I'm writing a story where the physical description matters to create a specific type (usually a longer story), to me, there is no point. Not above 'long hair' or perhaps 'brown eyes'. It seems to me actually to limit the reader's imagination, and to reduce their enjoyment. That's how it works on me, anyway - superfluous and often off-putting.

Also, some of your advice contradicts Ruby's. Well, specifically, the paragraph you rewrote. And this is one of the points I'd like to pick up for general discussion, where I mentioned I don't necessarily agree with Ruby: you have included knowledge of the other person's feelings. Ruby always says the narrator can't know what the other person is feeling, and wants 'I think' or 'I reckon' or 'I imagine' or whatever added in. It's a real shame Ruby can't be around too much at the moment, I'd love to get her in this discussion.

Why? One can absolutely read people's emotions in their faces. One can absolutely know that someone is frightened, angry, etc. Body language and expression are important communication methods.

And anyway, I am God, as a writer. Even if I'm writing first-person, it is my person. And if I want him to know, why shouldn't he? Is that omniscience disallowed in first person, automatically?

On the style comments Dean - you are right. I am simply guilty of lazy writing. No, not simply, or not entirely - but I repeat words too often without looking for the right word. (Well - actually, yes I do! It's a middle-aged female thing - vocabulary somehow begins to elude us...). I shall try to be more succinct; more active; more action oriented; and use more adjectives.

I'm glad it's a short piece. Next re-write due!

Thank you, very, very much for putting the effort in. I really do appreciate a good shredding.