>Chester wasn't late because he just woke up from stasis, but because he's perennially late, which is why his uncle's needs to emphasize how important it is to be on time to the stasis pods. This is nowhere in the text, but I thought it was clear enough. Your comments, and those of the other commenter, make it clear that I should work on clarifying the temporal separation of those two events. 

Oh, I see. Yeah, I didn't catch this. I didn't know whether my confusion was more due to me or to the text, but I felt it helpful to point, as it gives you an indication of my reader experience. I'm just a single data point, hopefully to be collated with others. 

> I was intrigued by the remark that Herman had left the least impression on you, especially as Mereena's introduction is as subtle as a name tag, reading "Grumpy Authority Figure" - far too blatant, as you say. 

My noting of Mereena may be more related to my personality and the sort of people who tend to fascinate me most, who manife

Thank you very much for taking the time to do such a thorough breakdown and offer so much helpful input.

I'll only respond to a couple of items:

**Plot points:**

Chester wasn't late because he just woke up from stasis, but because he's perennially late, which is why his uncle's needs to emphasize how important it is to be on time to the stasis pods. This is nowhere in the text, but I thought it was clear enough. Your comments, and those of the other commenter, make it clear that I should work on clarifying the temporal separation of those two events. This also links with your statement that you didn't connect the wobble knee with the imperfections of stasis. I don't want to over-explain, but I'm definitely leaving too much to interpretation right now.

**Characters:**

You nailed the characters and their relationships exactly. Since this is the opening of a larger story, I intend to fill in detail like Herman's status and the whereabouts of Chester's parents in later scenes/chapters

Also, you're over-using the word 'I.' Because we're in the character's head, he shouldn't be narrating to himself, strictly speaking. The same way, in your waking life, you don't go around doing things with "I + \[verb\]" sentences. More often than not, the thoughts are more unstructured and impressionistic. They *intrude,* and not with the intention of explaining things to an outside audience. Using "I" distances the narrator from his actions when you want them as close as possible. But again, this doesn't mean you completely avoid the word 'I' as this seems impossible, but I think you can definitely not rely on it so much. It's being used as a crutch. And you'll see how interesting your sentence structures get once you actively try to lessen the use of 'I.'

For example, this:

>My wobbly right knee refuses to let me run, so I hug the aluminum wall as I try to find a happy medium between sprinting and hobbling. I’m lucky though; several other people had limbs that were altogether lim

Overall, I thought this was okay, but there is room for improvement. It didn't crackle with life. The main facet that I think needs to be improved is voice. You're writing in first-person present tense, so voice becomes extremely important as the world is being intimately filtered through our narrator's perspective in real-time.   


**The opening**  


>It turns out that biostasis research still had a way to go by the time we left earth.   


I like this opening. It sets the scene well enough, and smoothly executes some exposition about the type of story that we are in. 'Left earth' indicates to the reader immediately that we are in an era of planetary travel. I didn't connect this line to the next one until my second read. The implication being that, by saying biostasis research had a way to go, it indicated that Chester's rest in his pod was uncomfortable? Hence his wobbly right knee.  


**Characters:**  


So we have three main characters introduced so far. We have Chester, Mereen

Hi, and thank you for taking the time to respond. I like the comments you made about spreading out the exposition more, and I'll give it a go.

From both your comments and those of others, I think it's clear now that Herman needs work.

Thanks again.

I definitely think this is a pretty decent first chapter. It's a bit wordy and expositive towards the latter half, but I personally like first chapters that only really explain things and introduce the MCs, but can still manage to allude to what's to come. 

I really enjoyed the main character's sense of confusion, as it acts as a great unseeing eye into the complexities of the plot. I feel his movements and reactions to things give off a good sense of naive nervousness, while at the same time trying to establish a desperate desire to learn and adapt to the professional personalities around him. He has a bad knee but immediately tries to hide it when entering the room. It's simple things like that and sliding down in his seat that evokes an embarrassed but mature side to his person, and I really enjoyed that.

As for Mareena, I think she has real potential. She is strong and mysterious, and you write her like that really well. We don't hear her speech and that kind of bummed me out at 

I get that it is upsetting to get a rebuttal like that, but I agree with a lot of what u/MontyHologram was saying about your critique. I may not fully agree with either of your presentations and I think there is a certain validity to both as coming from two different readers. Your comments on teenagers in particular read really off given my background and limited experience, but more importantly given writing/publishing it seemed like your advice was actually in direct contrast to YA SF teens from Darrow to Ender to Katniss to Paul Atreides. They can totally talk technobabble shenanigans and do not need to swear. It one can be detrimental to publication possibilities and that finicky thing as well as over-generalization. Teens may do X, but this Teen does Y. You were talking in a voice expressing yourself very well with a strong presentation of certainty that others do not necessarily agree with. 

How are you going to handle it if you present a piece and someone disagrees with you? We

I enjoy a good destruction, but most of this is pedantic bullshit, no offense. You're clearly tearing it down just to tear it down. Or maybe going for a writingcirclejerk type of thing. So, I'll mitigate.

Half of it is you complaining about how the voice doesn't sound like a teen. But your solution is a lazy trope-laden caricature of a teen. Come on... It's like you read a wiki on how to write a teen for your first Netflix screenplay and now you're peddling it off as a writing secret. How about we write teens like they're multi-dimensional characters, instead of tropes?

>First pointer I have for you is: Teens swear. Teens swear because they're still of an age where swearing is acceptable in their peer groups.

This really reveals the low-caliber of your writing knowledge. There are so many teens in literature that never swear. Relying on obscenities to show a teen voice is just lazy. And telling OP he **has to** is just outright bad advice.

The other half of your take-down is really

That's awesome. Thank you for spending your working hours conducting this research. You gave me a giggle, and now i know about Pogo the Hedgehog ;)

So, I am stuck at work on this lovely day before Christmas and I got really curious about the whole Uncle Herman. It did not make me think of Pee Wee Herman or Herman Munster or Herman Hesse. Herman is just a name that sounds kind of funny Her Min in English, but sounds totally whatever in other languages Ermann. But honestly, it is just a name that makes me think German/Austrian. So, being me and bored, I asked every single person who passed my area what was the first thing that came to their mind for the name Herman. Now this population is mostly Hispanic, Black and Filipino, but all American and Midwest. Trust me panzit, kare kare, tamales, and pulled pork for pot luck is killing my gut right now. Also, wtf spam? Anyway, Herman. Out of 22 people age ranging from 20s-73...no one said Pee Wee. Most shrugged and said I don’t know. There was one person who said a hedgehog, but it turns out they were thinking of some critter called Pogo.

> I'm about to shit on you pretty hard 

That's okay. The point of submitting something is to get honest feedback. If you didn't like it and you are honest about it, that's fine by me. I also found a lot of what you said valuable.

Having said that, I have some comments a few questions. I hope you will indulge me.

&#x200B;

> First pointer I have for you is: Teens swear. 

That's true. Hell, many adults swear just as much. But I've read enough YA books that feature little or no profanity that I don't think it's as much of a requirement as you suggest. It will, however, help to make the internal monologue sound less "like a book," which is a fair comment. Apart from this aspect, do you have other suggestions for making the narration a better fit for the age group?

&#x200B;

>the higher the intensity of the situation- the shorter and simpler sentences and thoughts become...

I love this. I think the entire paragraph is brilliant advice.

&#x200B;

>The name Uncle Herman is evocative of

Sorry but I'm about to shit on you pretty hard. I hope you like shit.

My first impression is that the protagonists internal dialog isn't the internal dialog of a late teen. 

"It turns out that biostasis research still had a way to go by the time we left earth." 

This first line is not how a teen would formulate that thought. A teen would just think: "Fuck those scientists, I am in pain, my legs don't work, and my uncle is an asshole. Fuck fuckity fuck." 

First pointer I have for you is: Teens swear. Teens swear because they're still of an age where swearing is acceptable in their peer groups.

"It turns out that biostasis research still had a way to go by the time we left earth." 

This sentence just doesn't feel right. You have words in both the past and present tense in this sentence and that makes it awkward to read. Pick past or present and stick to it. I know it technically works but its just so awkward. I instantly wanted to stop reading when I read this first sentence.

"My 

This is only the second time I'm posting some of my writing here, and I hope I've improved a bit.

I had a planet settlement story rolling around in my head during lockdown and penned this as the first chapter. It's my first time writing in the first person, present tense POV, and I'd love any feedback you can give me.

Specifically, I would love to hear about the following (but don't limit yourselves):

* I tried to keep the tone a bit lighter (some of my stuff is too dour for my taste).
* The main character is a late teen and a bit of an outsider, and I wanted to write with his voice. Is it effective? Believable for someone of that age group?
* Finally, I feel like I'm leaving the setting too bare, but I'm unsure how to improve on that.

Here is your [target for destruction](https://docs.google.com/document/d/13g3arYqqKNcuYZk650maZuE4XJE64mTGD4oYdxL72Rg/edit?usp=sharing).

Here is [my critique of The Monsters are Due on Carnaby Street](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/jtb1l6/1047_the_monsters_are_due_on_carnaby_street/gc5hmm4/?utm_source=reddit&amp;utm_medium=web2x&amp;context=3) \[1047\].

[992] First Glimpse