MAL x Honeyfeed Entry: Simular Beings (need some help)

Yudina said:
A couple things:

1. I don't like your prologue. I actually think the first chapter opening is superior in more ways than one. It (the prologue) is not particularly engaging to read, there's already way too many novels that open with perfunctory advertisements, and your first chapter is a better mood setter.

2. You essentially give up the intrigue of the narrative four chapters in during Nectar of the Gods. I think zooming out to essentially telegraph to the reader the simulated reality and who the child actually is removes a lot of the elements that made the story interesting up till this point. Maybe had you done it halfway through the story I would've kept up with the existing narrative, but I actually think you fumble your reader's interest in your story by letting on too much too early. For reference, I read one more chapter and stopped there.

3. Your prose is okay. I wouldn't be too worried about your prose in a web serial like this because nobody is really asking you to be the next prose stylist. Are there things to improve? Of course (always). For instance, you rely on the Rule of Three way too often. Read the line in Chapter Year 2112 again that starts with "His mind started to race." You essentially in the next two sentences use a pair of sentences that have a simple sentence followed by a list of three distinct images.

You also follow the rest of the chapter with a lot of punctuated short sentences that I'm pretty sure is an attempt to emulate the short circuited thoughts of a newly formed human mind, but I think it lacks any real resonance or compelling thoughts. You could ostensibly drop some of the simulated reality language concerning Simular but write the same scene from the perspective of an orphan or street urchin. I think that lack of uniqueness hurts you in a story that's trying to spin something new.

4. To respond to your methods on how to get better, I think reading more without feeling the compulsive need to compare the writing to yourself is probably a good next step. Something like Permutation City (or any novel by Greg Egan) would probably be good perspective on the treatment of simulated digital beings and the philosophical, scientific, and moral questions concerning them.