Oct 09, 2023
aight, I'll stop here for now
I was going to keep reading til the end, but there's some things keeping me from immersing myself into the story, and I'm not sure how much of it is stylistic, how much of it differs from my tastes, etc. so I'll just note them down as nitpicks:
- first off, I think you're going for a more 'old school' vibe with the prose, which means, more often than not, using all the words, but at times it gets so wordy for no reason that it's hard to know what's going on (refer to the beginning of this chapter. are so many words necessary to say that she ran away and a dog followed her? I legitimately have no idea what the last sentence of the first paragraph even meant to say), and it's not that it's a purple prose kind of situation, since the writing itself is pretty simple (which I also think is a stylistic choice to be fair).
- not only are actions described multiple times, but there's also lots of extra articles and ESPECIALLY adverbs that contribute to the bloated feeling. I'm neutral on adverb usage, but if you say someone dodged swiftly before describing how fast(ly) they sidestepped, they become impossible to ignore
- like someone said before, the lack of dialogue makes it hard to know who's saying what. I'm also neutral on this and some of my favorite books have several pages of uninterrupted dialogue with 0 tags (aristotle and dante discover the secrets of the universe for example), but the reason why it works there is because I already know the characters, they have distinct voices, and I'm interested in what they have to say, so the experience is a pleasant one, while in your case I don't know any of these people, so I don't know how they'd react in these situations, it's too early for me to really care for their plight, and the random changes between perspectives makes it very hard to know why who what where etc. let alone who's talking
- I think my favorite chapter so far was the first one purely because I wasn't as lost as the more recent ones, honestly x_x if you'd spent a bit more time establishing these people, then it wouldn't feel (to me) as though I watched a bunch of randos grapple in the street as opposed to something I'm supposed to care about (?) beyond an 'oh no D:' reaction if you get it
- I am interested in the conflict between johnny and cal, though I'll admit that john was so cartoony at times that it got hard to take their plight seriously, to the point I wonder if it's supposed to be some kind of dark comedy? I don't know, I couldn't really grasp any intended tone from the prose, either, since, again, there's so many POV changes so often
- again, I think you're going for a more stylistic (?) approach, and a lot of old books do that thing where the narration jumps between characters' thoughts at any given time, BUT AGAIN, they take some time to establish the five W's
- if you slow the beginning down a bit I think a lot of these issues could be resolved + maybe like... use less words
another example: https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/762844180510670891/1160953501267001455/image.png?ex=65368934&is=65241434&hm=d5dd0b02f9874f633bdd96be1f5669bb59dc8808b7cc75c6bde857f956432dd4&=
(it's a screenshot of a paragraph that made me @_@)
I think the phrase "pointing it directly in his face momentarily" best describes that I mean, and if not, "and it would leave him in awe to process what he saw" might help. First off, it's 'at' instead of 'in' (though being a non-native english speaker prepositions are a pain, so I get that). I don't think you need to specify that he pointed it directly at his face, let alone that it's 'momentarily'. Both things are a given. It's kind of like when people say "'thing', [character] thought to themselves". Like, no shit they're thinking to themselves :| or "she spun on her heels, turning around". like yes,,, I know,,,
before I continue, I'd like to know what's a stylistic choice and what isn't, hence me labeling these as "nitpicks". Still, as of now, it's unfortunately hard for me to go on with the story in good faith, as a reader having fun, rather than someone obliged to get to the end because of review reasons, so I'll leave it up to you to see if i continue :P
