I read your synopsis, prologue, and first chapter, and I’d rather reread the ye olde amnesiac CN GL webnovels. Why? Because your story lacks persuasion—the soul of storytelling—and reeks of self-indulgence. If it's your rewrite, I'm shuddering by the thought of what was there previously.
Your synopsis, the literary handshake meant to pull me, ordinary bloke reader, and degenerate GL reader in. Because it’s generic, tropey, and painfully forgettable, it doesn't work. “Amnesiac protagonist wakes in Purgatory, faces trials, seeks her past.” And? That’s every other isekai story that wants to be not like isekai but still plays with rules of isekai ever. You establish no stakes, no intrigue, no reason to care to a reader. You don’t sell your world; you shut the door on it. If you can’t entice me with the synopsis, why should I step inside?
But fine, let’s move past the synopsis. Maybe you’re one of those authors who needs a little more time for it to become better. But, you never actually deliver in 4500 words, as I waded through your prologue, and I felt like I was reading the world’s longest weather report, except instead of clouds and temperatures, it’s “inky voids” and “a platform of crumbling asphalt.” Sure, your worldbuilding exists, you have a world, worldmaker, congratulations. But having a world isn’t the same as making me care about it. That’s where you crash and burn. There’s no ethos-pathos balance here—just logos being dragged through the mud while ethos and pathos sit neglected in the corner, wondering if you’ve ever even read Aristotle.
So, let’s talk about your main character, the amnesiac MC, who has the personality of a wet sock. Oh, she doesn’t remember anything? Shocking. Wow, much personality. What’s worse is that she reacts to everything with the emotional range of a turnip. “Oh, there’s a mysterious void? Meh, le poker face. A random voice told me to step through a door? Okay, sure. Now I’m in a field and there’s a cabin? Guess I’ll just wander around.” How am I supposed to care about someone who barely cares about themselves? Your protagonist is a blank slate, reader's self insert doll, whatever else bad description I can add but too tired for it, and instead of using that to create tension, you use it as an excuse to dump worldbuilding on me. The problem is that your worldbuilding, while serviceable, isn’t enough to carry the story. Worldbuilding needs to serve characters and emotions, not stand around like a stage set no one’s acting on.
And the secondary characters, oh, let’s not pretend they’re anything but props with mouths. Guille is a stock “helpful guy” character with no real depth, and Erris’s odd behavior doesn’t feel intriguing—it feels like you’re throwing quirks at the wall to see what sticks. That woman called Sophia? Oh, she’s got the aggression, sure, but without context, her hostility is less compelling and more, “Did this character walk out of the wrong story?” None of these people feel real. They’re just cardboard cutouts you drag onto the stage to keep the protagonist from talking to herself. You want me to care about them, but you haven’t done the work to make them worth my time.
Now, the elephant in this opening chapter: the amnesia trope. You know, amnesia can be a storytelling multi purpose halberd if done well, as countless stories had been written before this story, but here? It’s not “Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl” amnesia, where the mystery means something. No, it’s just a convenient excuse for the protagonist to wander aimlessly while you, the implied author, get to ramble about your world like a tour guide nobody asked for. There’s no tension, no stakes, no reason for me to give a damn about whether this character remembers anything because there’s no emotional hook. I don’t know her, so why should I care about her lost past?
And let’s talk about your narration. You think you’re inviting me into this world, but really, you’re just showing me the door and then slamming it shut. I repeat the "shutting the door" metaphor, as if thinking reader knows everything about the story without reading it. This narrator in the chapter 1 is telling me about the world, not showing me why I should be interested. You’re giving me a rundown of events, like you’re reading a shopping list instead of crafting a story. I don’t want to hear about a mysterious tree or random fantasy creatures if they don’t do anything. I want to feel the weight of the world pressing down on the protagonist, to understand why she’s here and why any of this matters. Sure, I have great standards, but all I get is a flat recitation of facts that might as well be pulled from a Wikipedia entry on “Generic Fantasy Plotlines” by reading this opening chapter.
Your story reads like it was written for you, not for readers. You’re so focused on your world and your ideas that you forgot the most important part: connection. Storytelling is about persuasion—about making me feel something, whether it’s curiosity, fear, hope, or even dread. But here? I feel nothing. Your story doesn’t reach out to me. It doesn’t pull me in. It doesn’t even try. And that’s why I don’t care.
So, what do you do? First, fix your synopsis. Make it specific, intriguing, and emotionally engaging. Use those 20 tags SH gives you with maximum efficiency. Second, give your protagonist a personality—make her feel something. Let her anger, fear, or even humor drive her actions, not bland "amnesia, duh". Third, stop dumping worldbuilding on me without purpose. Tie it to the characters and plot. Fourth, give your secondary characters depth and real stakes in the story. Finally, remember that you’re writing for readers, not just yourself. Craft your story like an invitation, not a lecture.
Until then, your opening chapter is a stack of tropes trying to masquerade as something deeper. And trust me, it’s not fooling anyone.
www.scribblehub.com
