[2691] A potential magazine article about the experience of trying to live in a mountain town, and how inherently weird these places are

(I'm hoping to submit this piece to climbing websites and magazines, so please assume that climbing jargon is included knowingly. I'm mainly wondering about whether my choice of language overall suits the piece, whether the tone is consistent overall, and whether the piece is actually interesting. Thanks in advance.)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1L_odgtpvbj4Dr2u4hJToubhfTi6TOOub-rmYE-4nu2M/edit?usp=sharing

Critiques: 1581, 1126

EDIT

Thanks to the commenters for the detailed feedback I've received so far.

First, I'd just like to illustrate exactly who I believe my target audience to be. I'd hope to send the finished piece to these websites, for example:

https://www.ukclimbing.com/ https://www.rockandice.com/stories/

If you have a look at those sites, you'll see that even in the article headlines and blurbs, there are words and names that are highly specific to the scene/culture - names of brands (like Arc'Teryx), names of places and mountains, and specific terms like 'choss' and 'multipitch'. Chamonix is probably the most famous climbing town in the world, alongside maybe Boulder and Yosemite. I hope this serves to explain somewhat my inclusion of such language without explanation.

Beyond that, I've clearly failed to write a cohesive piece with an explicit and consistent thesis. My reason for writing this was to give my take on the various contrasts and contradictions one encounters in Chamonix, and to give a readers an idea of what the place is actually like. Cham is sort of a mythical, Mecca-esque place in the minds of many climbers who have never been, and I wanted to offer the perspective of someone who has now spent time trying to live there. Clearly, I need to do some serious thinking about how exactly I can get the point in my article across from the start, and maintain that as the focus throughout.

The main points of criticism that I've taken away and have in mind when making my revision are:

• I need to keep a tight leash on my sentence structure. Watch my commas, em-dashes, run-ons, fragments. Do my sentences have a logical progression? Is the subject clear?

• Give thought to establishing a bit more context - at least give Chamonix a small introduction before diving in: where is it, why it's significant, why people go there

• Make the purpose of the article clear in the first paragraph and maintain the focus throughout

• Rework the section where I'm talking about the villages by name - make it clear why I think it's relevant to discuss this, and possibly reduce the amount of name-dropping

• Overall, make the tone as a whole more personal, less general/vague/zoomed-out

• The transitions between my paragraphs and sections are abrupt and the piece overall is inconsistent. I need to look carefully at the style, perspective, and tone of each, make them more uniform and make the purpose of each new, different section clear from the start. Make sure each section serves the stated purpose of the piece.

I'll set about my re-write now. How does submitting revisions work on here? Should I make a new post?