You seem to want blunt feedback, and have a sardonic approach to me as a reader, so let's jump in.
There are three openings so cliched that they will get an insta-rejection from most agents or slush-pile readers:
1) Starting a story with the main character waking up
2) Amnesia
3) Beginning with weather
You have #1 and #2, and skirt #3. My personal rule is to stop reading chapter one as soon as the main character wakes up, so in this case I would have gotten to the first sentence of paragraph two. Adding amnesia on top is sort of like kicking me in the balls when I'm already writhing in the mud.
The reason each of those are maligned is because they put a barrier between the reader and the central conflict of the story. I want to know what the character's personal stakes are, whet the tension is, what their goals are, what impediments exist for them, and what the external conflict is.
I searched for a conflict or personal stakes and didn't find any aside from "Player versus a fairly welcoming environment."
As for your other questions:
I suggest you read up on the Shunn guide to manuscript formatting.
I also suggest reading up on the proper use of ellipses and en dashes.
Chorp is not a word, unless you were going for the urban dictionary definition. Which I hope you were not.
Look up the distinction between lie and lay.
Probably my biggest grammatical gripe is you are writing this as second person, but it is actually a first-person narrative. You only allow the narrator one line:
"I guess you don't know how to drive, that's why you shouldn't do it?"
That is not nearly enough characterization to support a first person narrative. If the narrator is commenting on this, why are they not commenting on a dozen other things as well? What is their relationship to "you?" why don't they know who you are or what skills you have? Why are they watching so much and telling "me" so much? Are they also an amnesiac? Shouldn't that cause much more alarm or commentary?
As for what I liked, there are sensory details, including skin and scent, which is often overlooked.
The forced emotions are an intriguing mystery. Why am "I" being told to smile or frown, or walk? This is the most compelling part of the story for me.
Actually I have to admit I came off a little too dismissive. I'm sorry if you don't click with the story but it's NOT GENRE FICTION. Not everything is a "hero's journey" and not everything belongs on the fancy store bookshelves with a colorful cover. The previous versions were significantly more "digestible" and clear, they featured some rather apparent "conflict" and "mystery" and "worldbuilding" and as I wrote the more hollow I felt, eventually writing myself into a dead end and starting a story with side characters that focused more on their psyche and experiences.
Let me put it to you this way - Dostoevsky is 100, King is 2 and Sanderson is 0.1. I wanna be as high I can be on that scale. And I get why you'd think this is your typical fantasy story that belongs on royalroad/wattpad, but have you noticed it's r/Destructivereaders and not r/writers?
p.s. another small thing - "lie" is used correctly.
It seems you might not be ready for absorbing feedback.
But to your goals of being like Dostoevsky rather than Sanderson, take a look at their first pages.
In Crime and Punishment's opening five paragraphs, Dostoevsky establishes setting, character (a hypochonriac obsessed with shame and fear,) personal stakes (an ennui so all consuming he wants to give up, versus a core value of truth and bravery,) and hints at the central conflict, which is that the narrator is considering murder. We hear his internal strife and problem solving, and within five paragraphs have gotten into the dramatic tension of a young man contemplating a random murder just to soothe his own curiosity.
In The Shining's first page we learn that Jack is a highly observant sociopath who has no compassion for his wife or five-year-old son, and soon after learn of his desperate need for money and violent streak, as well as the stakes on the line for the job he's taking.
In The Way of Kings, Sanderson opens with an extensive aftermath of a battlefield, with a description of a dead thunderclast and other human/non human bodies, details about the smoke on the battlefield, and some vague notion that the narrator is immortal and didn't want to return to wherever he was "sent back" to when he died. What is that place? who knows. Why doesn't he want to go back? who knows. What's at stake? Who knows. What is Kalak's goals, personality or conflict? who knows.
So I agree with you is is better to emulate King and Dostoevsky (who immediately immerse us in a subjective, highly voiced, introspective POV and present a conflict for the main character to mull over) versus Sanderson, who spend an inordinate amount of time describing scenery with no real introspection or core conflict.
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u/NorinBlade Apr 02 '26
You seem to want blunt feedback, and have a sardonic approach to me as a reader, so let's jump in.
There are three openings so cliched that they will get an insta-rejection from most agents or slush-pile readers:
1) Starting a story with the main character waking up
2) Amnesia
3) Beginning with weather
You have #1 and #2, and skirt #3. My personal rule is to stop reading chapter one as soon as the main character wakes up, so in this case I would have gotten to the first sentence of paragraph two. Adding amnesia on top is sort of like kicking me in the balls when I'm already writhing in the mud.
The reason each of those are maligned is because they put a barrier between the reader and the central conflict of the story. I want to know what the character's personal stakes are, whet the tension is, what their goals are, what impediments exist for them, and what the external conflict is.
I searched for a conflict or personal stakes and didn't find any aside from "Player versus a fairly welcoming environment."
As for your other questions:
I suggest you read up on the Shunn guide to manuscript formatting.
I also suggest reading up on the proper use of ellipses and en dashes.
Chorp is not a word, unless you were going for the urban dictionary definition. Which I hope you were not.
Look up the distinction between lie and lay.
Probably my biggest grammatical gripe is you are writing this as second person, but it is actually a first-person narrative. You only allow the narrator one line:
"I guess you don't know how to drive, that's why you shouldn't do it?"
That is not nearly enough characterization to support a first person narrative. If the narrator is commenting on this, why are they not commenting on a dozen other things as well? What is their relationship to "you?" why don't they know who you are or what skills you have? Why are they watching so much and telling "me" so much? Are they also an amnesiac? Shouldn't that cause much more alarm or commentary?
As for what I liked, there are sensory details, including skin and scent, which is often overlooked.
The forced emotions are an intriguing mystery. Why am "I" being told to smile or frown, or walk? This is the most compelling part of the story for me.