Yech, though it wasn’t as bad as what I thought they were going to do. Virgin sacrifice by stoning? Pretty dark, but I like her defiance in the face of the inevitable.

That first sentence wound up really long. I know I do the same darn thing, but in this case it took me a few reads to follow. Just figured it was worth mentioning.

Great story.

When I first started writing THX really got me on track with his comments, take them to heart and make changes if you want.

He’s right, the first part should be broken up and a few are too fractured, I would suggest combining some of commas. If you are going for a sense of halting speech, you can try other elements.

SUGGESTION, NOT AN EDIT:

A group of people stood in the center of a large room, the light streaming through the cracked and shattered windows.

The light bounced off concrete sun-bleached floors, floors spidered with deep fissures fostered by decades of neglect.

Great Job!

Correction, some commas.

Your story reminded me of this too.
http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/lotry.html

Thanks for the feedback, THX and 32, I really appreciate your taking the time.

32: This is totally inspired by The Lottery. One of the things I love about Ficly is the chance to re-imagine thing you find interesting.
I am torn on the first sentence. I have been working on coordinate and subordinate cumulative syntax, hence the length. Breaking it into two sentences, one a subordinate cumulative, the second a coordinate cumulative; not a problem at all, but having “light” as the main object of second level subordinate clause in the first sentence, as well as the main object of the base clause in the second sentence, makes it a natural to combine into one sentence that can enhance the duple rythym (the light streaming, the light bouncing). That said, if it reads oddly, or it takes two or three passes to get it, then I definitely need to rework it.

This is the awesome thing about getting to practice and get (much appreciated) feedback from other writers!

The more I dug into that first sentence, the less I liked it. I’m not overly happy with the edit either, but hopefully it’s less confusing! Thanks again.

I had a myriad of thoughts of what her ‘punishment’ was going to be, but stoning was not my first thought, and therefore, I was surprised. :) As far as the first sentence, it is long. I hate repetition, so, to me, saying ‘light’ twice bugs me. I’d cut that second one out and rephrase it if I were editing. But that’s just me. :) Congrats on feature!

I would suggest replacing the comma after “windows” with a semi-colon.

Great sense of tradgedy throughout. The final line really is a shocker, and strikes home well.

Judging from previous comments, you had some trouble with the various versions of this and altered it appropriately. However, it doesn’t matter how good your writing is. If you’re anything like me, the more you read it, the more you’ll hate it. Sometimes, origin text really is true genius, and hard to recover once you’ve edited it.

That being said, this piece remains to be awesome. Good job.
Abby x

It’s been a long time, but I came back to this and had to edit it a bit. Some of the comments might not make sense now, but that was because the edits hopefully addressed some of the problems :).