Section 1:
“He set his hatchet out by his chopping block”
-wouldn't it be better to say ‘set… down’ instead?
“Pain so great that it ate through Mortimer’s heart like acid, carving a hole. A cold, dead hole.”
-Feels like it could be smoothed over just a bit. Repeating ‘pain’ from after the last sentence doesn't seem to flow well. You could say something like ‘ The torment coursed through his heart like acid, carving a hole in his very soul.’ or something similar.
Section 2:
“ Lad Avery could not help, however, when she began to analyze her reflection, noting all of the wrinkles and spots that adorned her face.”
-obviously, there's the spelling error here. But what is it that lady avery cant help? Is she reminiscing about the times when she used to write/ the romanticisms you were mentioning? Might want to go back to make that clear.
“Lady Avery’s reminiscing was interrupted by movement in the garden of her estate”
-could probably cut out the ‘of her estate’ here
“A figure walking toward the manor from the garden”
-Seeing as you mentioned the garden earlier, you may want to reword this a little. You could describe how the mystery figure was moving toward the manor instead. Were they sneaking in the shadow? Were they boldly approaching?
Section 3:
“Not witchcraft, picturesqueness shimmying, that was nothing but evil”
-I’m not understanding the purpose of the sentence here. The compass was technically witchcraft as a sorcerer had enchanted it. ‘picturesqueness shimmying’ doesn't really relate to anything else in the sentence. And is the evil referring to witchcraft or the compass? This section needs some work.
( I know later Lorne comes across a witch so this sentence could be counted as foreshadowing, but it still needs work to make sense at the time you're introducing it)
“The air was dry and the wind forcing it down Lorne’s throat dried out his lungs, causing the occasional coughing fit”
Sounds a bit bland to have 2 variations of dry in the same sentence, you could probably spice this up a bit.
“Picturesqueness” just sounds off
Section 5:
“ Faster and closer”
Could probably just be reformatted into the previous sentence
Maybe describe the automaton
“More than, even.”
-Did you mean to say its fists were more than enough? If not then i think im just missing the point of what this A bit of awkward wording here
“Joshua heard a faint hiss and while”
Is this meant to be ‘whine’?
“weird chemically taste”
Just doesnt sound right. Consider describing the aftertaste of the chemical. Is a strong metallic taste, did it have a heavy texture, etc
Section 6”
“igniting foul and catastrophic machinery to life”
Igniting ‘the foul…’ sounds a bit better
To address your concerns from your post: I put your draft through grammarly didnt notice any SPaG errors.As for your concerns of the story being boring, I woulnt say the story itself is boring, the premise of having death hunt down his family’s killer throughout the ages is really interesting. However i would suggest you maybe go though and spruce up some of your descriptions. There are times you repeat the same words of phrases in quick succession or just briefly mention a person or place. I can understand the hesitancy of adding more to such a massive piece, but i think having a wider variety of detailed descriptions would help your piece
Overall this is still a very solid piece. I hope you continue to work on it so you can have it posted for the contest.
