I’d love to get some critiques or thoughts to help me solidify the direction of the story.
Not good, dude. I only read it once, positioning myself as a causal reader to gauge immersion. Here are my honest impressions:
(1)
The chapter is too heavy-telling. You give an intro recap of the hero's journey seeking recognition... I thought it would be a hero chronicle with thrilling and absurd action.
However, what I found was just boring telling, exposition through long dialogues... instead of showing an absurd hero protagonist.
If, you want to show how aburd the hero is... showing the hero in action in a life-and-death battle would have a stronger impact than long, boring dialogues.
(2)
Flat dialogue, many characters are introduced in 1 scene without unique voices, prominent personalities, and adequate identities. If I close the dialogue tags, I will have a hard time distinguishing who is talking to whom, doing what and because of what conflict?
Don't introduce many characters in a dense scene. This is bad practice. You should focus on building the characters one by one first.
For example, introduce the absurd hero through a fight against the demon king with thrilling action, sharp dialogues and ridiculous plot twists. That way, your characters will feel alive rather than just a list of names in the reader's perception.
(3)
Blurry scene visualization. I have a hard time visualizing the fight scene in the demon king's throne room. The problem? There's no proper spatial cues. I have no idea where the hero, his allies, and the demon king are. This is made worse by the flat dialogue. I only perceive flat sounds in empty space. Try to narrate a clear spatial space. Don't make the reader guess the spatial space in which the characters are moving.
(4)
Choreography, are you sure it's a fight? I don't even remember how the fight happened. I didn't see the protagonist perform the finishing blow to defeat the demon king.
And most crucially... I don't feel any tension here, I don't see any concrete stakes. Instead of fighting tooth and nail, the hero protagonist just rambles on about looking for treasure throughout the chapter.
Please narrate a more realistic fight, give concrete stakes: what is at stake for the MC in this fight? What are the consequences of failure? And narrate how the MC feels throughout the fight so the reader can feel the tension.
(5)
Flat characters, back to the dialogue point. Too many characters are introduced at once. These aren't characters, they're just a list of names present in the chapter rather than living characters.
(6)
Hook? How do you expect me to open the next page if your narrative is unable to provide immersion for me as a reader? If you improve points 1 to 5, the hook will be built organically.
Well, that's enough feedback from me. I hope it helps (or maybe not).
Regards.
Critical Note:
As I said at the beginning of the feedback, I am here in the position of a causal reader. I am only providing a perspective from the reader's side.
My assessment may be biased. You can consider this feedback or not, that's your decision. I only provide honest feedback based on my reading experience.
