Jul 18, 2023
Okayyy, since there's several reads but no comments and no info on the author at all, I feel like I'm doing a shot in the dark here, but I'll try.
I noticed right away that the writing is quite dense, so to say, and it paints several nice pictures. The issue is that, as the chapters went on it felt more like a monkey on a typewriter kind of thing. It happens occasionally, but more often than not, it's a sequence of words that vaguely attempt to say something with varying degrees of eloquence.
I think a lot of this stems from how sentence fragments are so, so common. Plenty of writers use them as a stylistic choice (if not most), but there's the saying 'less is more' for a reason. At some point, I wasn't sure if this was intentional anymore. It doesn't help that actual sentences tend to be run-on and at several points could've and should've ended with a period. Instead, they used a comma, and thus two sparsely connected ideas ended up as one, giving it an inconsistent, distant feeling.
The strange punctuation doesn't end there. Dialogue often ends up having no periods. Definitely doesn't seem like a stylistic choice. You switch a lot between present and past tense in the same sentence. There are several typos.
I'm assuming you swap the sentence structure so often from subject + object to object + subject for variation, which is cool and I 100% agree with, but because you do it so often, it ends up killing said variation. There is no rhythm to the prose if it all reads the same. It's legit the first time in my life I ever see this happen in anything, really.
You also use way too many words for simple actions sometimes, I'm assuming, to paint a pretty picture or try to add an oomph to your prose. Think of what happens when you add too much to a watercolor painting while the paper is soaked, though. In this case, less is definitely more.
I think the actual sequence of events and characters are fine, but it's genuinely hard to get through for me due to everything I mention. In a (presumed) attempt to prettify the writing, it ends up being almost nonsensical.
The actual character dialogue is pretty good, in my opinion. It feels natural. It gives more personality to the characters than anything else. If the monkeys on the typewriter get it right, some sentences are downright beautiful. It's just that those sentences have a) an actual structure b) no typos c) cohesion. If you work on that, work on clearing your thoughts on the page, on focusing on your strong points like atmosphere and characterization, you really can polish this, and your writing overall. After all, carbon might look unappealing at base state, but guess what happens when you put it under enough pressure?
