Nov 06, 2023
Okay, this is as good a time as any to address the writing style in this piece. I would've collated some quotes to strengthen my arguments, but I'm sick and nursing a bulbous headache, so I beg your pardon.
I think the main gripe I have is how explicative everything is. A lot of the narration is very direct with little subtext to go on, which makes the whole writing appear simple and, for lack of a better word, dull. You focus a lot on making sure that we always know what the characters are feeling, how they're interpreting things, and whilst that is okay in moderation, it tends to always be the case. There are very few things implied and that really takes the fun out of reading. Believe it or not, it also makes it hard to imagine.
I'll take the descriptions as an example. Mami's room is just a grocery list of elements that don't really weave together to create an image. They're disparate objects tied by nothing. Sure, one can try gleaning *something* from it, but because there's no discernible technique to the description, they'd fail to come up with anything. It's important to understand that writing can and is primarily meant to be *evocative*. It's meant to create atmosphere and vibe and from said atmosphere and vibe derive other processes like scenography and characterisation. It's easier for me to imagine a dilapidated room inside a run-down house; it's easier for me to imagine sickness when I smell the sterile scent of disinfectant; it's easier for me to imagine someone's happy when they're licking at their smile. It's hard to want to see these things and come up short.
There's also the issue with the vocabulary. Sometimes it works, but most of the time the way you architecture sentences is very jarring. It almost feels like you're trying to go for maximum accuracy, which isn't bad, but it often sounds unnatural, robotic. It works well enough for Mami's dialogue, but not so much for the narration as a whole.
Lastly, I think the grammar in and of itself is a little shaky. This reads a lot like a first draft, one that hasn't yet gone through the sieve of proofreading. There's typos and missing words and phrasing errors and paronyms and all the like. All in all I can appreciate English may not be your first language, but I think these errors could be caught. They're fine when they're few; they're a bit hard to ignore when they pile up.
Anyway, that's all.
