A worked read, so you can judge before you send
Before you send me anything, here is what my read actually looks like. The draft below is mine, written for this demo, in the shape of the openings people send me. The read under it is the shape of what you get back.
THE DRAFT (demo, written for this page)
“My father kept the shop open for thirty-one years and never once called it work. I found the ledger after he died, and the last entry is a Tuesday, a bag of rice, forty-two rupees, in his handwriting, and the writing is steady all the way to the bottom of the page. I have been trying to write about him for two years, and this is the first time I have got past the second sentence.”
MY READ
What I took away: the ledger does the grief for you. A Tuesday, a bag of rice. The smallness is the point, and it lands because you did not explain it.
Where I stumbled: “never once called it work” tells me about someone else's inner life, and it is the only place you tell me instead of showing me. The ledger already says this. Cut it and the paragraph gets stronger.
Claims I would want sourced: thirty-one years, and the date of the last entry. Specifics like that are your best asset. A reader who can check one will trust the rest.
What felt off: “the first time I have got past the second sentence” is about the writing instead of the father. It is honest, but it is also a hedge, and a hedge asks me to grade you on effort.
What I would cut first: “the writing is steady all the way to the bottom of the page.” The steadiness is good. You have used the ledger twice in one paragraph. Save it for the place where it will hurt.
One paragraph. Four things you can act on now. The full read works the same way at six thousand words: what it did to me, where I stopped, what I would check, what I would cut, and one revision.
Your first look is free. Send up to 500 words, and I will send back the one line that would keep me reading, and the place I would have stopped without it. Five slots. Yours either way.