> There are times where he’s just thinking things that don’t make sense for him to be thinking in that moment- such as the Juri explanation.

I found the exposition to be tedious; I understand that "some" is typical. The reader is constantly told what is happening, and my overall impression is that the reader is not placed inside the story.

Of course! Pleasure to read! Also; sorry for clogging the gdoc, this was my first critque on the sub; didn't see the "highlight only one word rule" until way too late!

Hi there, thank you for the feedback! You made some great points about the prose and pacing. Concerns with clarity of what things mean have been an area of feedback I consistently received in the past. My exposition has always been really subtle, either in the dialouge or a single line. As a previous commenter said on one of my submissions, my writing reads like a puzzle they have to put together (and they find it makes more sense after a second read, as you said). This was my first attempt at putting exposition in the text in a more obvious way, but I definitely see the choppiness of those sections and how it disrupts the flow. 

The POV is also a fair point. I was going for a sort of 'out of it,' numbness from all of the sedative use, but paired with the already bleak/off tone I can see why it didn't always read as third-person limited. 

I appreciate all the in-line comments! I'll make sure to take a closer look at them over the weekend. Thanks again!

PACING  
Pacing was off at a lot of points- it seems like changes between major scenes happened in the middle of the paragraph, and I would get lost knowing exactly “where” the character’s motivations and goals supposed to be. After the second read- it was much easier to see the structure of:  
  
James trying for real > James being nice just to give Aeron the Floval > James going to Room > Both going back out  
  
But that was hard to see at first- take the time to establish when major motivations are changed- what’s going on, so the reader can follow along. In between those times is where breaks/reflections/backstory, can go, to split up the action. There’s times where info is dropped in the middle of a conversation, and it makes it hard to know what to pay attention to.  
  
In general, on the first read through- I missed quite a bit of explanation that got stuffed in the middle of a paragraph or action scene because i wanted to keep reading and mpt get weighed down by it.  

GENERAL REMARKS  
In two sentences-   
Great worldbuilding, good characters, decent plot/twists, decent descriptions, but hard to follow and seems unfinished. Thoroughly curious in where it’s going/what you have planned- feel free to ask any more opinions, thoughts, questions, etc.  
  
  
Back to my very, very first read through and impression-  
Overall- a decent, tense horror scene. Cool world- not bad- I’m assuming this is introducing the monster for the book?  
  
On the Second read-  
If I had to guess it really seems like you’re a planner/outliner- the plot and flow of how things lined up through the story made much more sense on the second read through- But the issues with prose  became much more apparent- how much it seems to be holding back the writing from really living. I think if this gets cleaned up, there’s some focus on prose and how it really feels to be read, you really have something here.  
  
The Good:  
I had a lot of questions- almost entirely the goo

Hello ! I would describe the houses as low, with hay roofs and stone walls. For the clothes maybe use the feel of the fabric againt the skin of James to explain what i would imagine as a rough material like coton or itchy wools. He is probably wearing leather boots too.

Hi there, thank you for the feedback! The confusion regarding where it takes place is understandable. I would probably describe it as being more of a traditional medieval setting. Is there anything specific about the clothing/house description that would help clarify that? 

Your point about the contradiction is a good point, and I think speaks to larger issue in my writing. There's an excessive amount of 'maybe's' and 'could mean this,' rather than spelling it out for the reader. I'll work on that going forward. Thanks again!

General remarks :

In overall I am intrigued, I would actualy like to read what comes next. I would say that i realy like the part before James gets inside the house, then i find the story lacks pace up until the box is brought up. 

I am a bit confused about the world your story is set up in. I can't picture if it's a medieval or futuristic or contemporary type world for example. Maybe that could be fixed by describing the houses and the clothes. 

I think the description of the village would be a good opportunity to explain the rules and the politics of your story a bit more.

I like the characters , i think they are well introduced and you get a good sense of who they are in the short pages that you shared. The moon is very well introduced and a very interesting part og the story, i wish we could know a little more about it but it is probably more explained later. 

The POV is a little confusing sometimes especially towards the end.  

&#x200B;

Some specific remarks :

"It's not Mo

Thank you for the feedback and the helpful in-line comments! I agree it was quite muddled. I think I tried to fit too much extra information into a scene instead of focusing on what was really important in the moment. Hopefully the next revision is an improvement!

(continued)

As it is right now, I didn't feel like I had enough to go on and there was too much burden on me as a reader to fill in the blanks about the larger world that kept creeping into the narrative, through briefly mentioned character and place names and other random elements that weren't immediately relevant to what was going on in front of me, so that it felt unreasonable. I think this is likely because you're so deep into this world, and you know all the ins-and-outs already, that you forget other people don't. I had a very similar critique of one of my stories recently where a reader said I couldn't see the forest for the trees anymore, and I think you're in the same place. It's hard to break out of this (believe me, I know, I'm stuck there now), but I would recommend that you give yourself a little distance from the story so that you can come back to it and look at it through the eyes of a reader for whom everything is new and unfamiliar. 

**Characters**

As with your worl

Hi,

Thanks for sharing! Please see my in-line comments as well (there are a lot of them).

Let me start by saying that there's a lot that's great here, other people have already commented on your world-building and character development, and I agree fully with them. 

**Language**

But, these great elements get overshadowed by a lot of problems right now. Starting off with something basic, there's a lot of over-phrasing, over-stylizing, and excessive language here. You're a solid writer, that's not the problem--but you don't want readers to be so distracted by your writing that they get distracted from the narrative. Much of this could be fixed by going through the draft and just cleaning up the language. In particular, get rid of of 90% of your past participle verbs ("had"). I do this too, but I find almost always I can rephrase it to simple past and reads way--- better. Also get rid of passive voice wherever you can--not that I'm against passive voice (although many people are), but

The sentences in the opening paragraphs don't connect to each other - there's no flow. As another comment said, it's choppy. 

And individual sentences are often weak or distracting. "For the first time" - since when? "Beginning by his front door.." Why is this important? It distracts from the scene in the present, which is what you're describing. If you want to do otherwise, you need to commit thoroughly and say what the triggering event was and work from it. And wheatgrass "underfoot" instead of just grass? You haven't introduced any feet to be under yet.

You also make the mistake of describing the ordinary after unusual: the contrast would be much stronger the other way around. E.g. 

*The street was one of fifteen carefully cherished homes - and one exception, a single rotting tooth in an otherwise perfect mouth.*

...Then the details one at a time, using contrast for each.

Hi folks,

This is the opening Chapter for my novel. I've spent way too much time staring at this revision, so I could really use some other eyes on it. I tried to fill in clarity issues that were mentioned from previous feedback. All feedback is welcomed!

This novel takes a lot of inspiration from Silent Hill, and while it was originally meant to be Horror Fantasy, I'm finding it's becoming more of a Horror story that just so happens to take place in a Fantasy setting.

My Critiques (Total = 12,584): [\[4,228 Something's Growing in Rosanna\]](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/w5eo2n/comment/iosjuj1/?context=3), [\[2,276 My Teddy Hammer\]](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/xg2iut/comment/iot79xa/?context=3), [\[1,800 Mostly Dead\]](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/xatezm/comment/ip0rco4/?context=3), [\[3,020 The Dancers (V1)\]](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/x3puxz/comment/ip7csgc/?context=3), [\[1,260 Temple of Redemption, Chapter 5 Part 1\]](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/xe8jz1/comment/ip3200f/?context=3)

My Story: [\[Let the Shattered Rot\]](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PcIjb0YHJKPJNHgx6wk6P3Hgd1OZGm5u6ifC9Gr_ScA/edit)

Edited: Critique Links

[4,337] Let the Shattered Rot