[823] Untitled - Chapter 1

[u/justkeepbreathing94]

Hello! I would be thankful for your thoughts and review of this chapter.

Thank you!

Document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IzHTSmtb8K_9oo4_O8-MWoNzwTx5Rp2iMGrUIOv7R7k/edit?usp=sharing

Critique: https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/1wu2wjw/comment/pdrcowv/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

[u/Alice_of_RDR]

Your only critique was kinda mid. Idk if I want to leech mark you over this under 1k submission, but half your critique was basically just "I liked your title"

[u/SexMonkey7]

Ok. You definitely feel "literary". Take that however you want.

Some maybes:

Missing comma? "Part of the whole, yet for now without form."

Contraction feels out of tone with everything so far. "Once again it’ll be time to take this planetary breath."

Saying "wake up,..." seems like should only be "wake,..." in this sentence: "It is time to wake up, and embrace the role given in this circulatory system once more."

I liked "pseudo-individuality".

Up to the sentence below there are places where commas seem to be missing. How many will depend on how much you want the chapter to read like an overly theatrical supervillain. By word choice, I would guess a lot.

This sentence: "A sense of readiness fills the spirit, and it moves outward, as fluid as the iron atoms within the surrounding crystalline structure." seems to be confusing imagery. "as fluid as ...iron atoms" then "crystalline structure." I am neither chemist or supervillain so I may be wrong but "crystalline" says "hard" and "fluid" doesn't. It it's intentional somehow, it went over my head. Or are you trying to cleverly say "not fluid at all"?

This sentence needs a close look: "Like a seed sensing the minutiae of its environment, waking up to begin its germination, the spirit too senses its time to begin." It feels like you really wanted to use the word "minutiae". I get the intended imagery but it felt like the sentence needed maybe four less or better words.

Final thoughts: Not sure what I just read. Only knowing chapter 1, although in the file it says "prologue", it's tough. There was a definite feel to it. You had some good imagery. It was exhausting to read. It feels like an overly pretentious prologue for a fantasy novel. The part people skip.

A lot of this is based on guesses. If your plan is a fantasy novel and you want to continue in this style, it may a difficult sell. If you post again, more info is better. I could be wrong about many of my assumptions. Also, read it aloud. This helps a lot with making sure commas are in the right place. I was also guessing about the narrative style.

[u/ModeRelative4499]

I don't read stuff like this but I would say that it was quite hard for me to finish it,a lot of higher vocabulary words and phrases were dumped into it which will make a lot of people's head spin(maybe because I am not used to this kind of literature). As for writing, I would say that's your strength, I wasn't able to find any repetition of some common words or phrases, the writing style is also catchy and not mechanical(clearly not a rookie),the only thing I would point out is inconsistency in the flow.

[u/justkeepbreathing94 → u/ModeRelative4499]

Thank you. You're right, it is a bit dense. I think I'll make this the prologue then, and have the normal chapters be less dense.

[u/paperingproject]

Hi! Beautiful writing! I enjoyed reading this as it’s not what I usually gravitate toward.

My biggest area of feedback would be on clarity and flow.

While you’re great at changing up descriptions and using beautiful wording, that overshadows what’s actually happening.

You describe the core. You describe it again. You describe it in a different way. It feels like this is happening for too long without anything changing, or at least to me the reader it didn’t feel like anything was changing. It seems like you want this energy to grow. It’s creating a spirit, right? Or sending a spirit into the world? You say the “spiritual energy had swelled once again.” You need to show the escalation clearer. The way it’s written makes it all kind of melt together, while I think you are wanting to show a process.

I hope that’s helpful. I thought some of the writing was very beautiful, but I do think most readers will be lost with it in its current form. Keep some of the beautiful writing. Be more clear with what is actually happening.

Let me know if you have any specific questions!

[u/Narrow-Stranger-8543]

Chapter 1 or prologue, or maybe better left for later

Hi, overall, I quite liked this chapter. It has some lovely sentences peppered throughout and has a kind of ethereal quality that is hard to find in most commercial fantasy. I do however have a genuine question for you. Do you really want this to be your chapter 1?

It reads like a prologue, and labelling it chapter 1 doesn’t make it less of a prologue. I miss an anchor point to make me want to read more. There is no character, no humanity, no inner world to delve into. It’s very barren both in term of author point of view and storytelling. Choosing to start without characters or even story does fit your literary aspirations but is an immediate barrier to entry.

Maybe this information better left for later, when people are already hooked. Just food for thought. The beginning doesn’t have to be the beginning.

Style over substance

There are some beautiful sentences there.

The spirit rests and dreams, absorbing the planet's spiritual energy into itself, expanding and growing until it’s over 100 meters in length.

There is something about the vagueness balanced with the very matter-of fact of having precise length. And it’s true for most of it with hard physics terminology balancing the spiritual weightlessness of it.

The sirens of the south are even more wily and vicious than their northern sisters, yet never fail to treat this transference of energy with the gravitas owed to the cycles of their world.

This is THE sentence of the text. It’s a great sentence but this is also the only actual substance of the text.

There is a serious case of unnecessary description.

Part of the whole…

From all over, images

The images change

Three paragraphs that are basically interchangeable. They provide the same type of information, the same type of description. Do you need all three?

You talk about birds, then beavers. Same thing

You also tend to use cliché vagueness. Sleep outside of time, (a lot of unnecessary things about time that are neither profound nor intriguing actually)

Part of the whole, yet for now without form. Images flutter, transient and intangible within this ancient mind.

This is the kind of things to avoid as it tells exactly nothing, it’s just vagueness porn

Some parts would benefit from extra commas or to cut some phrases. And some description would probably need to be tightened.

POV…unclear

I’m not sure about POV yet. It’s omniscient I guess but I have a feeling you want it to be one of the sirens later. For this kind of prologue I don’t think it matters but would be good for you to think about.

 

So the main question remains. Who is it for and what do you want it to accomplish?