First I want to say thanks for this massive and very useful critique. In a short time you have become one of the best on this sub, and I'm always stoked to read your thoughts on my writing.

Glad to see you've seen an improvement over the past while. I'm working on strengthening my weak points, and its gratifying that you see a change for the better.

You gave me a dense collection of examples and suggestions on how to deepen the characterization of Richard and Louis. I'm definitely going to add some of what you are suggesting. Your ideas on how to bring their personal lives and aspirations into the story are excellent. Those are the kinds of things pro writers do that amateurs struggle with (or fail to even consider). Hopefully I'll be able to incorporate that sort of thing into future stories or revisions of my current work.

>When you do this exercise, you learn more about Richard and the close POV prose can glimpse down past the surface of “Richard In This Moment” to see the whole 

**STRAY THOUGHTS SECTION**

Just so I don’t look like I’m completely ignoring the questions you asked, here are some brief answers and some other stray thoughts I corralled from reading through your story:

- The prose is fine. I’d rate it around a 90%. It could use some tightening and punching up some verbs, but I’m okay with its current state and enjoyed the fictive dream through the piece without being yanked out by obvious errors or omissions. It appears polished and doted over.

- I didn’t feel a very strong mood or atmosphere. I felt like you were trying to nudge the tone into horror for a moment when Louis admitted that his work was starting to terrify him, and I liked the description of Richard feeling his world views were crumbling, but the prose didn’t quite deliver an emotional punch here. The excerpt still felt overall kind of clinical and sterile.

- I don’t believe we were given any description for Richard’s appearance, so he was a floating headache for most of the fictiv

I'm going to write a proper response later, but again this is an awesome critique. Really enjoying reading your thoughts and suggestions.

So here’s my exercise for you (and you can do this with Louis too, or any character you feel like fleshing out to benefit the narrative): what does Richard want in this moment? What’s he looking forward to? How long has he been looking forward to it? Are there underlying frustrations, conflicts in his life that his mind might wander to when describing something or thinking? Can you compare and contrast any descriptions to other people he knows or locations he’s been to that are important to him? People tend to be very preoccupied with their own personal wants and needs, in fact i would say it’s the most human thing about us, so we need a very clear picture of what Richard wants. When you do this exercise, you learn more about Richard and the close POV prose can glimpse down past the surface of “Richard In This Moment” to see the whole iceberg when you know a bunch of facts about him and what he wants. 

With the exercises, these are all things you keep to yourself, either in your head 

Hello,

I like this. It raises fun existential questions, and though it didn’t go where I was expecting it to go, I still enjoyed the tension infused into the scene. I like that your work has dramatically improved in the POV area since the first one I critiqued for you. I think the suggestions I have this time are going to focus on premise unpacking, characterization, and a deeper dive into the life of the POV character, since I think that might be the weakest part of this excerpt and could use a little massaging to really elevate this good start into a great one.

**RICHARD’S MOTIVATIONS**

Richard’s POV felt solid. You’ve definitely been practicing on the emotion and blank POV issues pointed out prior, and I like that I can feel Richard’s exasperation with his job and with Louis. In this sense you have succeeded because I do feel that I’m viewing this sterile scientific environment through Richard’s eyes. I think what I’d like to see you work on next is bringing the reader in to view

>Many times I'll stop reading a book just to think about the concepts the author is playing with, the implications of what they are saying. At times this is more interesting/engaging to me that the characters themselves or their actions, etc. For me at least, characters aren't everything. 

I'm very much like this, too. There are exceptions - I walked away from Leckie's _Ancillary Justice_ and Willis's _Blackout/All Clear_ even though they both had some cool ideas - but I'll forgive an awful lot if a book has interesting ideas behind it. I'd prefer to have both good MCs and good ideas, of course, but every writer has to prioritize.

> In my own defense, if you'd read some of my prose from even a few years ago you would agree it's now much better. But yeah, there's still a lot of work for me to do in that area.

I'm 100% with you on this. I'm autistic and have significant difficulties communicating, which are mostly verbal but also extend into writing. I almost failed several important 

Thanks for giving this a read and doing a fantastic critique. I'll try to address some of your points.

>Of course, it's also a big-idea story and I'm a big-idea reader, so I'm at least close to your ideal audience.

Me too. Many times I'll stop reading a book just to think about the concepts the author is playing with, the implications of what they are saying. At times this is more interesting/engaging to me that the characters themselves or their actions, etc. For me at least, characters aren't everything. This is why I've never understood people who won't read a book unless they identify with or like the MC. So long as the story is interesting and I'm into the "big ideas" as you put it, I can forgive stock characters or unlikeable characters.

>your prose could be more elegant in places, but it isn't bad by any means, and I appreciate your attempts to keep it fresh. Even the sections that I've pointed out don't get in the way too much. I do think you should look at each sentence to 

__SETTING__

First of all, I like the idea you're working with here quite a bit. Most consciousness-focused scifi is stuck on life after death; it's interesting to see that reversed. The characters are part of ScienceX (I feel like you could do better for a name btw), a large group focused on life extension because not-Elon Musk (or not-Jeff Bezos?) doesn't want to die.

There's definitely an advanced tech level here, at least in certain ways. McKenzie was able to remotely search 'anywhere on the electromagnetic spectrum', even in 'higher dimensions' and backwards in time with no sort of implied limitation, which are some insanely powerful sensors. They'd have immense ramifications for society (goodbye, privacy!) and scientific knowledge - but I get the feeling they're mostly a device to give us the idea of the Before Place and won't be explored. If so, I guess that's understandable; but I would really like to see some of the profound effects this technology must've had on your world. 

__OVERALL__

I liked this story and I'm interested to see where you take it from here. Of course, it's also a big-idea story and I'm a big-idea reader, so I'm at least close to your ideal audience. I appreciate the twists you put on what could have easily been a tired story; they helped it feel fresh and keep moving.

__MECHANICS__

Your prose is overall competent and clear - I always knew what was going on, which is not always easy to do, especially when describing such abstract concepts. And I generally liked your efforts at describing things a bit more colorfully, like the bit about McKenzie's lab only producing red ink on the ledger sheet.

That said, there are a number of places where the story could lose some words or sentences, but nothing gratuitious. I think your opportunities for cuts generally involve information that seems redundant or unnecessary. The following paragraph is a good example. 

>In his opinion most of what they were doing here was a complete waste of time and

*A powerful near-trillionaire has funded the creation of a secret complex housing some of the world's foremost scientists. But what are they studying in there, and why is this wealthy man footing the bill for their strange experiments?*

Let me know what you think of this, how the prose holds up, and whether or not I was able to create a mood or atmosphere during the segment.

Thanks in advance for any feedback, critiques, or Gdoc comments.

Critique: https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/saxc2j/1890_opening_chapter_of_novel/hudehlc/

Story: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zNF5dAVt4Hcmuz0xtPG6f_cu3YXxm-78qsjBu8TzukE/edit?usp=sharing

[1708] The Before Place