Sharing feedback on my first microfiction submission

I just got feedback on my first 100-word microfiction submission, which I wrote two months ago. It’s the first feedback I've received on my fiction writing. I’m finding it very insightful and encouraging, so I've decided to share it here with my submission so that it can serve as some guidance for those of you who are just starting out on your writing journeys. Also, I'm always looking for ways to improve my ability to provide constructive feedback to others, and reading the comments definitely helps with that.

My submission:

Untarnished memories

12-year-old Rywka sobbed while her ears were secretly pierced in the basement of a Warsaw tenement house, her brother, Józef, holding her hand. As golden crescents sparkled in her ears, the sorrow soon transformed into a smile. Two years later, her forearm will be tattooed with a stamp-like number. Her braids will be cut, her earrings taken from her. Józef imagines his sister’s fate as he stares at the familiar, now tarnished, jewelry behind the thick-glass display at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum. “Could it be…? It’s been so many years…” At that moment, in his heart, the Nazis still reigned supreme.

Feedback:

• “WHAT THE JUDGES LIKED ABOUT YOUR STORY:

  • You did a good job of creating a complete story arc within the confines of the very tight word count. You also did a good job of tying the two events together - past and present - via the earring.

  • The details in this piece are wonderfully specific. The first sentence starts out with so much scene-setting in the clauses, and it really grounds the reader in the story. Then the golden crescent earrings, the cut braids, the thick glass of the display - the specificity gives the story a sense of believability. 

  • Great description and pacing. Very emotionally charged and engaging.   

• WHAT THE JUDGES FEEL NEEDS WORK:

  • To make a story more interesting for the reader, try to eliminate as many non-content words as you can and use the most compelling verbs and descriptors you can find.

  • Also, try to vary your sentence length and use a variety of sentence structures to create interest. Most of the sentences in this story are of similar length.

  • One thing I'd recommend in revision is to be sure you're ironing out your tenses. The piece starts in past tense, then moves into future tense - her braids will be cut. Jozef imagines her fate, though, in present tense, while looking at her earrings some number of years later. It's not really clear what the current moment is, where the reader sits in time, and for such a short piece it can really be confusing.  

  • I would consider rewording "Józef imagines his sister's fate as he stares..." all the way to the end. As of right now, when I get to that line, I do not realize we are in the future until he says, "It's been so many years." This throughs me off a bit because I was not visualizing him as older because I thought we were still in the past. So I would simply consider rearranging to make it clear at what point and time we are in before we get too far into those last ending sentences.”