I'd like to preface this by saying this is my first critique so take what I say with a grain of salt. I'd also like to say, overall what you've written so far has the potential to be a great piece of fiction; you just need to cultivate it some. The writing style is very much well attuned for fantasy with your word choices and prose, and I like the straightforward writing style that doesn't fluff up the pacing with purple prose and long-winded descriptions that most amateur fantasy writers fall into (myself included).

**CONTENT/CHARACTERS** 

Ahh, the meat and potatoes. I put the content and characters under one category because I think these things are heavily tied together. Upon reading through the first couple of pages, I feel that the introduction requires a bit more trimming and pruning to get to the good stuff: *your main character*. You should remember that the first chapter of a novel requires the author to introduce the reader to the characters, worldbuilding, backstory, etc. 

**The good:** This is a functional piece of writing, if not a little dry. There were no glaring errors or any super awkward prose. There was some nice imagery. The dialogue felt natural. It skips all the classic beginner writer mistakes. You’ve written well here.   
The bad: its kinda boring. Not much happens and not much keep me guessing. Giala isn’t that interesting of a character to me. I don’t root for her. I don’t feel anything for her individually besides like, a general dislike of the idea of slavery. Its functional, but not incredible. It kind of just…is? At the end of the story I thought. Okay. I read that. I’ll try and explain why and how I felt that way.   
**The beginning:** I think it definitely starts in the wrong place. I am also guilty of the immediate flashback in the beginning. Trust. It never works. If you want the story to start in the palace, start it in the palace (which actually would work for me especially as a weird illness is making all the servants sick). B

I'd like to leave a big "I'm a newbie" stamp on my critique. Being quite new to creative writing I am still growing to understand how identify good writing and seperate it from average writing. With that in mind, lets dig into it.

**Worldbuilding**

I felt like the world building was adequate but lacked a shine or flare that compelled me or sparked my imagination. We do have some hints at a more fantastical world here. "Stories about the shades and wraiths living in the mountain wilderness," though this felt like it was thrown in for this purpose but without any impact to our introduction here. I would've enjoyed more active voice in this excerpt.

>"She feared walking alone through the dark, for her father was a teller of wild tales. He raised her on stories about the shades and wraiths living in the mountain wilderness beyond the estate. He reminded her that those evil spirits only tormented people who violated caste law, and she had always been obedient to the gods. Still, it was f

The last thing for characters I wanted to mention was that I felt like the upper caste lady who came to yell at the men was a little overtly evil. I understand that someone who basically uses slave labor is by nature a pretty evil person, but I just find it hard to believe that she would scream things like “you lazy gutter rats!” Like why is she yelling and upset now of all times when the cart has been there for like a week? I might suggest making her more “untouchable,” like she’s so high above Giala’s caste that she doesn’t even deign to speak to them. She only comes in, holding a rag over her nose and whispers something in one of her servants ears as she gives Giala a nasty glare and the servant is the one to relay the woman’s message. I just thought it was funny/out of place for this high caste woman to bust into the servant’s quarters guns’ a blazin’ while yelling about trash lol.   
  
Conclusion  
  
I think this piece has very strong bones. The things that need cleaning up 

I’ll start by saying that I enjoyed this piece a lot! I really liked the unique worldbuilding you have going on with the caste system, as well as the subtle fantasy elements. Pretty much right up my alley. The only thing I would say is that even though this is only the first half of the first chapter, it definitely dragged in certain places. I think it would great if you could somehow edit the entire first chapter down to under 3.5k words, even better if under 3k. I might just have a short attention-span, though.   
  
Mechanics  
  
This piece was pretty sound when it came to things like grammar, spelling, and all that stuff. I did notice the use of some redundant adverbs here and there like   
  
“He swore obscenely”  
  
“He rudely yanked”   
  
Both rudely and obscenely in these cases are redundant since I can already tell that swearing and yanking are by nature obscene/rude. I’m definitely not against the use of adverbs, but just against them in these sort of cases where

My work:

[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1B5pxBu3TP4odU1i2jH3dUQWwfqOV7\_VxSRQZn75B19g/edit?usp=sharing](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1B5pxBu3TP4odU1i2jH3dUQWwfqOV7_VxSRQZn75B19g/edit?usp=sharing)

Crits totaling 6764

[https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/t4pooj/comment/hzbj9zh/?utm\_source=share&amp;utm\_medium=web2x&amp;context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/t4pooj/comment/hzbj9zh/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web2x&amp;context=3)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/t4xoht/comment/hz2w3ze/?utm\_source=share&amp;utm\_medium=web2x&amp;context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/t4xoht/comment/hz2w3ze/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web2x&amp;context=3)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/t3au2e/comment/hyz5dtx/?utm\_source=share&amp;utm\_medium=web2x&amp;context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/t3au2e/comment/hyz5dtx/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web2x&amp;context=3)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/t0q2ic/comment/hyxjk3s/?utm\_source=share&amp;utm\_medium=web2x&amp;context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/t0q2ic/comment/hyxjk3s/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web2x&amp;context=3)

[3158] Centuria First Half of First Chapter