In summary

There are two main issues with the piece. The first is focus. This is a conversation between two people about friends they know, but the majority of the scene seems focused on the muddy details of their ramble. Whenever we’re close to learning more about the people, there’s more damp earth to negotiate. What is the reader more interested in?

Focus is also apparent in that aside about Oliver’s past and accent, which has no bearing on the scene. This kind of detail can come later. More urgent is some immediate character detail. We might be able to guess their ages from Zoe’s philosophy, but we have very little idea what they look like. What colour is her jumper? Is Oliver a Henry VIII lookalike? We don’t need much. A single adjective would work: slender, athletic, handsome.

The other thing is narrative organisation. The scene is very difficult to picture because the details seem contradictory or vague. Where are they initially? Is it grey or colourful? Is it raining heavily, or drizzly, or both? Are they walking on a path that has a marshy part, or are they lost in a bog and find a path by chance? Why are they walking and where?

The good news is that the piece manifests a passion for writing. This, too, can be a fault. Passion is great, but the writing should always be in service of creating images and sensations for the reader. The writing should be ‘invisible.’ When the reader has to stop and ask micro-questions such as ‘puddle or marsh?’ it means the writing is at the forefront rather than the scene and the characters.

There are many blips and tics in the piece. Remove them, make the prose do its work invisibly, and we have a great scene in which two characters reveal themselves in a highly visual setting. I do hate a cliché, but ‘less is more’ really is the secret to a lot of good writing.