END COMMENTS: What is it?  What’s working? What questions the piece raises? What suggestions do you have for the writer?

I think that this story and the author know what it is and what it wants to be, but the audience may not know what exactly it is because of how massive the scope is. You’ve got a really great idea and an incredible voice (It reminds me of Frankenstein’s narration of the novel), yet the details of the story get lost within the exposition. You said it yourself within your notes that you wanted to get to the “story you actually wanted to tell”. If that’s the case, then why not skip the exposition and get to where you want to be? There are a lot of things that are working in this story. Like I’ve said before, you’ve got this classical, almost Victorian-esq voice that really pulls you in to the story. The characters, especially Richard Brothers, really come to life in your dialogue, which flows naturally and rarely feels forced. I think one of the biggest issues I have with your story is the motivation of your characters. Arlo seems to be very passive and lies (on the second page) about how religious he is. If he hasn’t been religious for a while, then why is he so eager to participate in the task that Sharp sets him on? Richard Browns, while he was interesting as a character, felt underdeveloped in the motivational sense. The audience understands that he’s religious, but we don’t get a sense of why he wants to stop Sharp’s “heresy” and we also don’t get enough about the relationship between Arlo and Richard to justify why Richard wanted to keep Arlo from getting involved in the first place. In a sense, you may be too concerned about the audience understanding the background of the story instead of focusing on developing the “now” for the characters. On a more positive note, the research and time that you’ve clearly taken to develop this world is commendable and it shows in the smallest details. Your first page has wonderful descriptions of the shops and houses, and also makes use of your voice well. The only suggestion regarding your voice would be to take out some fluff, as it sometimes feels like you’ve just used a thesaurus for most places. Overall, you’ve got a great concept and voice, but you may need to develop the motivations of your characters more and decide the best starting place for your story.