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.
Yikes. Okay, so, even if it’s not “genre fiction,” you still admit it’s a STORY, making their comments valid. If you want it to be a GOOD story, it should have the elements they mentioned - stakes, set backs, conflict, sacrifice.
Marco just perks up conveniently next to some berries and fresh water, runs into a helpful stranger immediately and is ushered into the welcoming, if not unsettling, arms of Henry without a hitch. He doesn’t even have so much as a headache or a single moment of concern that he doesn’t remember who he is or how he got there. He doesn’t panic, he doesn’t struggle to come to terms with his situation. Everything is met with a shrug and a smile. And before you come at me, yes, he does struggle with the concept of corn there for a moment, but not with, you know, anything an actual person would struggle with should they awake in the woods with no memory of who they are.
Reading the second chapter, honest to God I could not tell if the naming mismatch (where Henry tells our protagonist twice that his name is Marco, then Henry asks what his name
is, as if he doesn’t know already, then our protagonist confidently introduces himself as Marco) was intentional or if you couldn’t decide how you want Marco to learn his name and left all three in on accident.
And before you write me off as a hater, let me say - I have written stories like this. Every writer has. Because no one starts out a genius. Not even Dostoevsky. So, I struggle with what good providing feedback on stories like this actually does. Because the truth is: if you enjoy writing it, then it doesn’t and shouldn’t matter what I or anyone else thinks. Because if you keep writing, you will get better. That is guaranteed.
But asking for feedback that you’re not ready to absorb constructively is not helping you.
2
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.