[S13]This pause doesn’t make sense to me.
[S14]I made the dog a girl here to avoid pronoun confusion between a“he” dog and“he” meaning Chance.
[S15]Shoot. Now I see that the dog is a boy/has a male name below. I still think this might be the simplest solution to the awkwardness above, if the author isn’t committed to it being a male dog.
[S16]I assumed this meant like a sweater dress and so the jeans below surprised me.
[S17]Looks like the font changes colors here. Didn’t know if that needs to be fixed or not.
[S18]Wasn’t totally sure if this is what he was saying,but I took a guess.
[S19]I’m not sure what this arrival is referring to. His birth? His arrival in the US?
[S20]Saying someone doesn’t look like he understands much English has the potential to seem racist, even if it’s“based on his responses, he didn’t seem to understand” rather than“based on how not-white he was, he didn’t seem to understand.” If that makes sense?
[S21]This doesn’t make sense to me. Closed how? What oddity?
[S22]I find“guy” in this section a bit out of place. It feels like a very 20th century word being used at a totally different time.
[S23]They’re outdoors, right?
[S24]I was confused that he said he was sure and she took that to mean he was not certain, since both of those mean the same thing to me. Easiest fix would be to change this to“I’m pretty sure that it wasn’t” so that she can clarify that he’s not totally certain.
[S25]Weight and importance were redundant here, so if the author doesn’t like“romance” here, I would just end the sentence after“just as much weight.”
[S26]The leader or Jamie?
[S27]There’s another surname throughout the story, Yodel, that I don’t know if it’s the same people or different ones, but for the sake of clarity, if this is a different family, I would give this woman a different last name so readers don’t wonder.
[S28]Is it Mrs. Schrock saying this? If so, remove the paragraph break after the speech and it will be clear. Otherwise, attribute this to whoever said it with something like“said Mrs. So and So.”
[S29]I would put something here about where they are, because the fact that they were close enough to a horse to be touching it (below) was a surprise to me. Maybe a description like:
They stood together in a stall, admiring a breeding mare who had been entered in the livestock contest.
[S30]Banter is light-hearted and jovial, so I think the author meant a different word here. Fine to use something other than“nagging,” but banter doesn’t make sense.
[S31]This is confusing because of too many she/hers in a row. Hannah wasn’t going to tell Miriam that she…eavesdropped? I would just spell out the“what” of“what she had done” and then it will be clear.
[S32]It’s not clear who Mamn is making the dress for– Sadie? Her cousin? Also I’m not sure I understand what that has to do with last-minute details being addressed. Dresses aren’t usually a last-minute thing.
[S33]I thought the wedding was a few days off, if she was shopping for it earlier in this chapter?
[S34]Does the author mean Isaac?
[S35]This may be an idiom I’m unfamiliar with, but it doesn’t seem right
[S36]This feels out of place here, without any way of pointing out that some of her new dresses might be purple.
[S37]Is this the right term for this? I have only ever heard head dress to refer to native americans, but I could be wrong.
[S38]She keep saying six brothers as though Issac (Isaac) isn’t the seventh. Did I misunderstand the relationships here? I would reword this to“Six of the brothers were doing…”
[S39]I can’t tell if this means that the locals come and USE the bakery, or the Yoder family bakes and sells goods to the locals and the market as well. Either way I would reword this, maybe“It was built so that we could provide baked goods for our neighbors as well as the market in Shipshawana.”
[S40]Need something here to indicate the passage of time. New chapter?
[S41]I’m not clear what her question is here– where she should eat? If she is supposed to cook? Something else?
[S42]Or some other ego-based feeling. Voiding oneself of self just read funny.
[S43]Need some kind of indication here that you are fast-forwarding in time.
[S44]I’m confused about who these new arrivals are.
[S45]I wasn’t totally clear who was doing the smiling here, so I took a guess that it was the guests, and tried to make it a little more apparent.
[S46]It seems pretty unlikely that a woman would not only refer to a guest (esp one of nobility) by his first name, but would take the liberty of shortening it without his permission. I’m guessing that’s another reason he’s offended here, but it seems like a misstep that even a young person wouldn’t make. I see that he is referred to as Sam throughout the rest of the story, so I am not going to fix it here, but I would consider finding a way, when it is appropriate to the plot, for him to invite her to call him Sam.
[S47]Need clarification on which duke this is.
[S48]I asked around, and the correct way for a duke to be referred to in this context is Duke Firstname, so either Duke Sam(uel) or Duke Arthur. That sounds odd to me, so she may want to find a smoother way to do these references. She could give them places that they are the dukes of, like the duke of sudsbury and the duke of Winthrop, for example, and then refer to them as“the Duke of ____” whenever it comes up. Or she can go with Duke Sam and Duke Arthur. I’ve highlighted it in yellow every time it came up throughout the story so she can do as she sees fit. .
[S49]Lakes don’t run
[S50]I can’t imagine he has bare legs, which means it would be odd for her to feel goosebumps
[S51]This didn’t make sense to me, because I don’t know how she is talking with both of her lips between her teeth?
[S52]I thought it was weird to say that he heard the truth but didn’t understand why she believed it to be true. I think the intent was that he could tell she believed what she was saying, but it was unclear from this phrasing.
[S53]If they are still there, it means only a few days have passed since she slept with them, which makes it very unlikely she would already be morning sick. This would be easily fixed by not saying above that they were leaving in a few days. She only needs a couple of weeks to get morning sick, really.
[S54]Is this a reference to the girl from above? There’s no mention of them eating, so I was a little uncertain if this was referring to something I was going to learn about later.
[S55]I didn’t like the idea of couches being filled with facts, and I figured you could get away with books OR furniture being filled with memories. If you hate it, it’s not wrong as it was.
[S56]Feelings (plural) makes me think of emotions, not physical sensations. If this was meant as a double meaning about her feelings for the duke, it still works in the singular.
[S57]We need a better way to make it clear that he’s managed to remove his pants :P
[S58]If you want to keep“old” instead of“of,” I think it should be hyphenated“few-days-old stubble.” It just reads a little funny to me like that.
[S59]I couldn’t figure out for sure if she had managed to end up on the horse, so this was my solution. If there’s a preferable wording it’s fine to change it.
[S60]This is sort of an odd expression. Is he asking her what’s holding her back? Or what’s keeping her there/with him?
[S61]Same comment. Maybe just“upsetting you” or“stopping you” would make more sense?
[S62]Clammy is the opposite of dry, it can’t really be both.
[ac63]
[ac64]SHE was used at sentence start 93 times. The author might want to consider some changes
[ac65]brief = redundant
[ac66]use of and every = redundant
[ac67]changed to you are- specifically because she was trying to hold her voice steady
; [ac68]cliche when really is thrown in there
[ac69]Sam has been used 144 times throughout- I am taking the liberty of changing some of them
[ac70]He has been used to start sentences 132 times. I have changed some.
[ac71]up was removed as it was redundant having just said lifted
[ac72]up was removed having just said lifted
[ac73]a tad bit cliche but it works
[S74]I don’t know what this means.
[S75]Nosiness would also have pushed him forward, not held him back.
[S76]I may be dumb, but it took me a second to get what part she was being sarcastic about. So I added this to make it clear what was going on.
[S77]This line doesn’t make any sense to me. What is she trying to say here?
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