Hi! Thanks for checking out my work. I really appreciate the advice of adding more characters into this first scene. I plan to rework this chapter and include the MC's siblings so she has someone to talk to and something to focus on. The goal is to make this first chapter a snapshot into MC's life and to include that feeling of "something isn't right"

I'll also be cutting down all the backstory and focus more on sprinkling it in when it's more relevant to the MC. Thanks again for your great advice!

This chapter needs heavy revision, as it is uninteresting.

I get that your world and characters have a lot of history and information you want to catch us up on, but readers won’t toil through pages of preparation and setup before the story really begins. They need to engage with action and become intimate with characters soon--ideally during the first page. When you open up with bucketloads of backstory, some of which isn't even relevant at the moment, or when the POV bums around alone, thinking about past events and accomplishing menial tasks, you lose me. Another big issue with explaining everything at the beginning is that you run out of things for the reader to discover. Once everything's explained and the characters' situation outlined, they quickly run out of things to talk about.

How to fix this? There are a number of ways to make an opening chapter more engaging, the simplest of which is giving your POV someone to talk to. When you have a solitary character, then to advance 

Thanks for the compliments. I really appreciate your advice on pulling back on some of that backstory and focusing on portraying the goal and what's at stake through more relevant means. Also, I was trying to portray how the past few months of MC's life was completely defined by the cold winter, but I can see how so much description could be distracting. 

Thanks again for your time!

Wow. This is a pretty mixed bag for me.

On one hand, im hella intrigued and kinda invested in the protagonist and her woes. On the other, 90% of this chapter feels like setup, which isn't bad, but it also never feels like im in the moment. It's like a rapid text crawl, telling me all sorts of things. I'd have preferred a slower, more methodical introduction into the story where a lot of unnecessary things are cut in place of actual character interactions and stuff.

Onto specifics:

I really like the way you set up scenes (something I struggle with). It's a cold and cruel winter and you make that pretty clear. A little TOO clear. We spend way too much time talking about how cold the winter is and less about the immediate. What the characters are going through. It almost feels as though the cold itself is a character in the story and if that is a relevant part of the narrative, then good. If not... then it probably should be trimmed down somewhat.

I also like the way you handle charac

Thanks so much for your critique! I think you're spot on about being description heavy with too much backstory. I've been learning about the basics of storytelling and I can see the need for improvement with the pacing and info dump. I will be putting your advice to work on sprinkling in backstory when it's relevant to the MC. Thanks again for your time!

What I like: a potentially interesting (dark fantasy?) world that reminds me of the early European settlers in America. I'm definitely interested in finding out more about these redemptioners and Vicar Abaddon.

My main critiques: overall the story is description-heavy, moves slow, and relies heavily on talking about past events.

There's basically no forward progression or plot advancement in the first page (500 words). 

There's also some basic tense and grammar issues that at least one document editor pointed out.

>an agonizing promise of better days when at least the plants, herbs, and roots would fill our bellies.

Is the promise of future food to a starving person "agonizing"? It felt like an odd word choice at first but I get it. Maybe there's something more to tease out there, an agonizing hope.

When you say "plants, herbs, and roots" that's fine, much better than saying "food", but saying specifically what plants, herbs, and roots—watery lettuce, soapy cilantro, and beets th

You’re welcome! Let me know when you post the rewrite. I’d love to read it. I think you really do have a good premise on your hands and I can’t wait to see what you do with it. I’m glad you weren’t discouraged by any of the comments here as I know sometimes this sub can be (I know from experience haha). Keep it up!

I really appreciate your advice and the compliment. You're totally correct in that this first scene is bogged down with too much backstory that takes you out of the experience. I'll be rewriting with everyone's advice in mind and posting again. Thanks for taking the time to read my work!

I had to continue the rest here because it wouldn’t let me post the whole thing. 

Description:

I can’t say I could really imagine the character but then again, a physical description isn’t really necessary at this point of the story so that’s not a problem. I do feel like I could imagine the forest and the cottage just fine as well. I don’t think you needed to bog down the story any more with a lot of heavy description. 

>When the sun is a forgotten dream among the sea of dusky white

I like this description. It gives me a good visual of what an Easterian winter looks like. 

Characters:

I feel like the characters who we most got to know in this chapter were the MC & her parents. Her sisters were mentioned but nothing more than their hunger and her need to care for them. But beyond her disdain for her father and this Abaddon and the Redemptioners, I didn’t get much of an idea of who Avyanna is. She hunts and cares for her sisters but that doesn’t tell me a lot about her. The chapte

This is my first time giving a review/critique so bare with me! With that being said, thank you for submitting your story! Overall, I did enjoy reading it but there could be some improvements. The main things I noticed were the pacing, tense issues, & heavy description. I’ll touch more on those later. 

Grammar and Punctuation:

I think most of your grammar and punctuation were fine. There were just some spelling mistakes and typos that I noticed which I will note below.

>The nights stretched on, and I watched as my younger siblings waisted away.

That should be ‘wasted.’

>The first time our father left to run his\merchant business

I assume the \ was a mistype. Might wanna remove that!

>I wondered how the redemptioners had faired this winter

This should be ‘fared’ and I feel like ‘redemptioners’ should be capitalized since it seems like it’s a title for a group of people.

>but he gave an air of strength with his confident gate and dark

‘Gate’ should be ‘gait.’

>under the protec

Hi there! Thanks for taking the time to read my work. I think you listed some good points, especially about breaking the tension with too much backstory and adding more than necessary to get my point across. 

Also, you've given me a good idea about not revealing that her father is coming home. I like it better as a surprise. I will be rewriting with your advice in mind!

The first sentences have me hooked instantly. The danger you describe - starvation - is immediate and requires your MC to act quickly.

This tension is broken up by the insertion of lenghty backstory at several places in this chapter, so PACE is what I'd first like to focus on in this critique.
 

*"It wasn’t until our father sailed off on an extended voyage to distant shores that I realized I was the only thing standing between them and death."*

This characterisation tells me everything I need to know about the father at this point. If you must, keep the following paragraph up to "I stopped counting". You don't even need to tell me that your MC hates him - I know she does.  I feel it, too. Anything more is just over-explaining at this point. If this hatred becomes directly relevant to the story later, I'd suggest you bring it up then.


*"[...] there was a time when winter signified rest and reflection. Not famine."* - You spoke of dwindling resources before, so I know there must hav

Funny enough, that was the original first sentence, but I changed it last minute because I second guessed myself. I definitely agree they there is too much back story and that it takes away from the main goal. I'll be rewriting this part, including more characters and less history so that it feels more relevant. Thanks again!

**A FEW MORE THOUGHTS**

**CHARACTERS**

Avyanna falls a bit flat to me, mostly because her thoughts are all over the place and her actions aren't consistent, don't always seem to make sense to me. Talked about this in the read-along but basically I'm not seeing evidence to support her feelings about the forest on the page, so I have a hard time getting in her head. 

The siblings, I've forgotten their names, I know almost nothing about besides they're younger than her and hungry. I think it would be a strong scene to include her actually watching them sleep before she leaves for the forest instead of having that "flash before my eyes" line. We'd get a description of them, laced with emotion, and a description of their living situation, which right now is all lacking. Because so little time was spent on them, especially when compared to the time spent on the "men from the west", I'm not connected to them emotionally. And I should be, given that they're starving kids. I want to feel for

**HOOK**

> This winter, my family starved.

Someone commented in the doc that this was a better first sentence than the first paragraph, and I agree. I think the prose in the first paragraph was too coy to be truly gripping. 

**READ-ALONG**

> The resources my village has depended on for generations have dwindled.

Some tense switches from past to present, which made it a bit confusing where exactly in time the narrator is telling this story from. Before this sentence, I assumed the narrator told this story from the end of the winter season, but this sentence makes it seem like she's still living the events.

> Deep within the darkness, we had forgotten. Forgotten what it was like to be warm and full.

I think one "forgotten" here would be stronger because the early period doesn't do anything for me but make me feel like the rest of the sentence was cut off; just combine these two sentences and get straight to the punch.

> I wasn't the same girl the summer months left behind.

So we

Hey! Thanks for checking out my writing! Thanks for the complimenta and the advice. I'll definitely be rewriting this section with less back story to bog everything down. Thanks for checking out my work!

This is my first ever critique so do bear with me. 

Pros: First off, I want to say how great of a start you had. You not only introduced the name of the world, but you also expressed how the main character sees the world she has to survive in for her siblings. I enjoyed the worldbuilding it really illustrated how hard it is to survive on your own and so it better emphasized how the main character is by choosing to provide for her family in such terrible conditions. Seeing how the main character resents her father for how he left her and her siblings also makes me interested in their relationship and how he'll act towards them if he returns.

*I picked several handfulls, making sure to leave some for the birds.* I like this line that shows how considerate she is of her environment, and is still following the lifestyle of her native land despite a foreign invasion.

Cons: I would have to say that a lot of the content in this chapter feels more worthy of being in a prologue rather than a

I think im reading a poem...

Not much to say for now except nitpicking this

The truth that I tried to deny, tried to keep from my siblings, is that he abandoned us to live off scraps and charity in a village I don’t even recognize anymore

Just very messy, had to reread 3 times to get a gist.


Ignoring the rumbling in my gut, I pushed aside a patch of snow searching for the cold, damp earth beneath. I kicked off my shoes, peeled away my warm socks, and planted my toes on the hard, frozen ground. The cold sent a shiver up my body, but I relished it. It felt like years had passed since I felt the earth beneath my feet.


Logically she would get a cold and die. Even cold winds can hit you with a severe cold and a person who went hungry for days would probably catch cold right here.


or maybe that was the disillusioned hunger.

Beautiful line. 


Father was holding me on his shoulders

Bullshit. Abandoning them even though he cared about her enough to let her sit on his shoulders. 


K

I'm a first-time poster, but a long-time writer. This is the first chapter of my fantasy novel, Temple of Redemption. This is my first novel, and I'm excited to submit the beginning of it here. I'm not looking for any specific feedback with his submission, but I'm looking forward to hearing your ideas about improving this first chapter! 

[\[2622\]](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/ulbwnx/comment/i8368vf/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web2x&amp;context=3)

&amp;#x200B;

[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tkAIk3K7CLv1ssPEj7MXDOCI7DTj4PmPDN\_\_SCvu3po/edit?usp=sharing](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tkAIk3K7CLv1ssPEj7MXDOCI7DTj4PmPDN__SCvu3po/edit?usp=sharing)

[2463] Temple of Redemption