What's Broken -- How to Critique

Are you ready to help 10 authors fix what's broken?  Here are some tips:

• Read the entire excerpt for continuity, and to help ground you (since most, though not all, of the excerpts drop us into the middle of the story).
• Then go back and critique as normal, focusing on what isn't working.
• If you can, explain why it isn't working.
• And, of course, if yours is one of the 10 entries, please take the time to critique a minimum of 3 others.

This should be an interesting exercise for everyone, and will hopefully be helpful to the 10 participants. Time to sparkle, everyone!