Red Roses and Chocolate Brownies - Feedback

Here's what "they" (the judges) say!

On April 22, 2022, I wrote the second NYC Microfiction Short Story Competition Challenge.

I was given the following criteria to use in my story:
Genre: Romance
Action: Making Brownies
Word: Click
Length: 100 words (Maximum)

This is the feedback I received on my short story called, "Red Roses and Chocolate Brownies".

Dear Anita Wladichuk,

The feedback from the judges on your 1st Round submission from the 100-word Microfiction Challenge 2022 is below. We hope you find the feedback helpful and you’re proud of the story you created for the challenge. Thank you for participating and we hope to see you in a future competition!

''Red Roses and Chocolate Brownies'' by Anita Wladichuk -     WHAT THE JUDGES LIKED ABOUT YOUR STORY - {2116}  This narrator has a very strong voice. I like how we get a sense of their insecurities and doubts through the questions they ask themself. It's almost like they're asking the reader for advice or help.    {1651}  We get a strong sense of the conflict in this story, that the protagonist has been seduced by someone that is not treating them right. You do a great job of showing us the kind of things he is doing in the name of love/lust to manipulate the main character.  {2078}  I really enjoyed the tone of this piece. I could feel the narrator's back and forth and wondering about this Mr. Right. That intensity and that tension was all there and made me want to read on.   WHAT THE JUDGES FEEL NEEDS WORK - {2116}  Occasionally, the language isn't very precise, making it hard to grasp what the narrator is thinking. "Our presence alone drew us together," is an example of a sentence that is hard to wrap my head around. It's possible that the very next sentence says this same idea much better, so why not stick with one?   {1651}  This story is missing a payoff, an ending. Does the protagonist have a decision to make, for example? Do they end things with Mr. Right? I also think you have an opportunity here to subvert our expectations at the end. For example, we think you're setting up that Mr. Right is a human male, but maybe we learn at the end that he is a cat...an unexpected twist.  {2078}  While I enjoyed this piece, I would've liked to see us end somewhere different from where we started. The narrator presents all these questions of "what to do? What to do?" I would've liked to see some kind of choice based on those questions in the end. Is the womanizer aspect too much for this narrator? But this was a great piece, and thank you for letting me read it. Please keep writing!

You can read my entry by clicking this link: Article