Sep 22, 2023
Y'know, with 3 chapters in I think it might be time to address the direction where this story is headed. In essence, I find it hard to see any. Don't get me wrong, Issei has his brother's death and Murasaki has her overbearing parents. But those things are never at the forefront of the narration, never drive anything but just passing afterthoughts of episodes that get drowned in band manager fantasies. There is an acute lack of conflict throughout this story, be it internal or external, so it becomes hard for me to identify what this story truly is about. Because ultimately, if I look back at the 48 thousand words I've read, well... nothing really happened. It was all good fortune after good fortune and the only hurdles we've encountered were superficial and left no indents, let alone scars. Issei learnt nothing, neither did Murasaki, they haven't had any development, nor arcs and so it becomes hard to identify them as protagonists within a story that has none.
I think that in the vehement pursuit of wholesomeness, of which I'll concende this story has in abundance, you have really overlooked what made a story *a story*. And whilst we don't really need a plot, characters, evolution, messaging, ideology, conflict or anything remotely epic to have a novel, you have definitely chosen to have all of those. You didn't write Bambi, a literal frame about nature's fecundity, nor Fantasia, a piece which exists to convey the music it houses. You wrote a story as it had to be and, unfortunately, the elements that your approach required are really, really squeaky. And I'm kinda sorry it had to be this way because bonding over music is a pretty fun thing (albeit overused in our contest.)
Bubbles, out.
