Totality by Adam nadworniak - Short, Horror - As a total solar eclipse reaches its peak, a family's joyous viewing is tragically cut short when the father, momentarily absent, finds them frozen in expressions of terror, victims of an unknown cosmic force. 6 pages - pdf format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

Dear Adam,
I think this needs so trimming and simplification as a first scene. The Grandpa backstory can come in later. Mark wouldn't have been the only person inside during the totality (what 25 mins so I think distant screams of others finding a Solar Pompeii aftermath would be in order. Plus a foreshadow twist - Bailey's beads could be red or gold - spooky!! All best --

Hi Adam, this is well written and I felt the suspense rising, characters were well defined and it was easy to read, however you do commit the cardinal sin of giving us the reveal in your logline.

You want to tease with your logline, not give the game away.

Also, minor quibble, introduce Sarah on a separate paragraph, as in a separate (shot).

Anyway, this was very entertaining, if a bit grim, but I was left pondering  what the heck happened?

And as JtF said he wouldn't be the only one who didn't witness the cosmic event.

A guttural, primal SCREAM rips from Mark's throat, shattering
the terrifying silence of the suburban afternoon. It echoes,
a lone sound of a man left alive in a world suddenly,
horribly dead.

Just end on the scream I think.
And redo the logline.