Hello, Kathleen Dineen. This is a great work on scribophile that you have done today! I have read the first two pages of this pre-published work. But however, if it were to become a published short story, would the story be told in past tense rather than present tense? That is usually how books, novels, novellas, short stories, et certera et cetera are written. For example;

 The orange of twilight filters in through the window on the right.  I run my hands against the eggshell walls which glisten against the reds and oranges and yellows filtering through the khaki curtains.  The hardwood floors shine back in response, showing a newly finished sheen that only comes before the traffic of everyday wear and tear breaks it down again and puts that not-quite-clean look back on it. 

 

This is an example of what I was trying to hint to you about making your short story make more sense if it were in past tense. Also, where it says reds, and oranges and yellows, you should cut down the use of the word and in that sentence. Speaking of, do you remember that rule in English where you were putting commas and the word and to name objects, like cats, birds and mice, instead of cats and birds and mice? Here is what you should have written, The orange of twilight filtered in through the window on the right. I ran my hands against the eggshell walls which glistened against the reds, oranges and yellows that filtered through the khaki curtains. The hardwood floors shined (Or shone) back in response, showing a newly finished sheen that only came before the traffic of everyday wear and tear that breaks it down again, putting that not-so-quite-clean look into it.

The first edition, leather bound Edgar Allen Poe and William Shakespeare and Robert Frost books, with their black leather covers and gold leaf edges, shine enticingly, smiling out into the room

You also have a problem with using and more than twice when placing commas between objects. You also spelled Allen wrong in Edgar's name. That is usually a common typo among writers. So it is actually spelled like Allan. Write it like The first edition, leather bound Edgar Allan Poe, William Shakespeare, and Robert Frost books, with their black leather covers and gold leaf edges, they shine enticingly, smiling out into the room. All in all, the only things that you have to fix in this story are the usages of the word "And" and the tense that you have written in, which should be past and not present. With those errors that you may fix in your story, I am positively, positively sure that your publisher shall be happy with your work. Just let me know on my scratchpad when you are going to publish this work and what you think about my in depth critique. Take care and I hope that you get much praise from others who read from this work. As for me, I share your interests to, as I too, want a short story published called Heart of Ice. Bye bye now and I hope that I helped you on this critique!

 Hi Kathleen. I only read the first page of your story and then stopped to give you some advice before you attempt to publish this piece. While the desrciption was quite well done, at the end of the first page I was still reading desrciption.  That is not so good. They are called 'Short Stories' for a reason and here are a few guidelines you should follow when writing Short Stories.

Give the reader ONLY as much information as they need to reach the end of the story.

Get the reader to the end of your story as soon as possible.

Do not waste the readers time with trivial details.

In other words, give only as much background information as is absolutely requried for the reader to be able to follow your story, and get them to the end of your story without any side trips which may cause the reader to lose interest in the story. In a short story especially, you need to grab the readers attention in the first 2 pages or they may not bother reading the rest of your story. Sad but true.

As an Editor, I can also tell you that a short story of over 7.000 words will be difficult to publish, especially as a new author. You are much better off attempting a story of between 2,500 and 3,000 words if you intend to publish your short pieces. Space is limited in most magazines and editors will almost always pick two shorter stories over one longer one for publication, unless the longer story is written by a well known author.

Your wrtting style seems to be rather good, and if you ever decide to turn this piece into a novel you have a fine start. But as a short story it is far to long and needs to be trimmed down by maybe 4,000 words. I only tell you this because I do think you have talent--it simply needs to be directed along the proper path.

Hope this helps and thank you. Good luck with this piece.

 Hey, Kathleen. I read through the story and feel it is really Very Good. I guess I should have finished it the first time. However, good though it is, it is still (in my opinion) a bit too long for a short story. You mentioned that you have considered making this into a Novella. While that format will make it perhaps even harder to sell, I think that would be the best way to go with this piece.

There are still some minor punctuation and grammar problems to be worked out in future edits, but the story itself is very good.

You have a lot to say in this story and you express yourself very well. It would almost be a shame to shorten it down too much (although I still feel the first page of description could be trimmed somewhat). If you decide to make this into a Novella, you might even expand on the character's feelings, but for a short story there is just too much going on here. Bigger is not always better, but I feel this story deserves as much room as it needs to tell the story. Very nicely done. And while I do not usually enjoy this type of piece, it was well written and I was impressed. Thank you for allowing me to read it. 

 The orange of twilight filters in through the window on the right.  I run my hands against the eggshell walls which glisten against the reds and oranges and yellows filtering through the khaki curtains.  The hardwood floors shine back in response, showing a newly finished sheen that only comes before the traffic of everyday wear and tear breaks it down again and puts that not-quite-clean look back on it.  The white marble fire place, I spent so many hours of work on guards the room. It is original to the 200 year old brownstone’s living room and it opens warmly into the light of the floor to ceiling windows.   There are small ivy branches on the mantel piece, live and healthy, and painstakingly cared for that wrap around its frame and fall lazily down along either side of the open mouth of the fireplace.  The six vanilla votive candles are intricately woven throughout the ivy, each in its own protective green glass casing.  When lit, it gives the appearance that the ivy itself is shedding its skin and lighting the room from within.

This is a lot of description and I'm wondering, by the end, what I'm reading and why I need to know all this because, to this point, there is no story, but I've just read  somewhere over 100 words.

And that's my main comment.  I read for two more pages and still had no real idea what the story was about.  One general rule of fiction, especially short stories, is to start with the action and give only necessary information to further the story.   I'd like to take a look at it again once you've whittled it down, but this is just too much to read at this time.

Amber