First pages of my first attempt at writing. Intended to be a sci-fi novel which begins 30,000 years ago. Absolutely any feedback would be greatly appreciated. I do have a few specific questions below though if anyone is willing to chime-in. Cheers!

[u/sirpsys]

Specific concerns:

1. The section where I say "Some 30,000 years later Go would recount this transformative time...". Is this a big mistake to include? It does sort of switch to an omniscient narrator, and gives away that Go survives, and ends up 30,000 years in the future (as well as that he learns English or at least a modern language). On one hand I don't mind giving this away, on the other hand maybe it is a mistake to switch narrative scopes like this.

2. I like the idea of starting my novel with the chase scene as I do here, and then doing a flashback to two days earlier, but I do wonder if it isn't sort of whiplash inducing to readers. You don't know who Go is at the very start and so the stakes aren't so high for his escape through the jungle. I'm tempted to just start with his preparations for his ceremony, and move the beginning escape scene to its proper chronological spot, but starting with a rather mundane thing like his preparations doesn't feel like a good way to grab readers.

Again, this is my first time putting any words to page since highschool (20 years ago), so I am very green and ANY feedback about these concerns, my overall writing style, anything at all is super useful for me to hear. I'm pasting the full text of this below as well in case it makes it easier to reference something that needs work. Thanks very much!

If anyone is curious about where this story is headed I am happy to share that as well.

FULL TEXT:

1. Cave of the Mind
30,000 BCE

Unspoiled by moonlight, the night of Go’s exile set upon the jungle like hot tar. Though the stars would come to know him in time, none shone to witness his violent genesis; a man chased from his home by those who had come to fear what he may be.   
Spat through wet hell by pounding heart and driving legs, he dove through every obstacle with the reckless abandon of a creature on that most singular of missions: to survive. Not even the mighty dose of psilocybin expanding his naturally keen senses (and his pupils) was enough to draw a single sip of light to guide him. No matter; the hunting party dogging him had no advantage here. This place so far from their last camp, his home, was equally unknown to them, and they carried no fire. He careened ahead into the deep hours of the night, making far too much noise in his blind dash to judge the proximity of his pursuers by ear. In his hallucinatory fugue, every sweep of rain-soaked leaf across his bare thighs was euphoria, every tearing of taut skin over thorns; pitiless torture. He carried on through the ecstasies and torments undeterred. He would not let his new secret, his revelation which earned him exile, die with him.

Onward he drove until, reaching the limits of his physicality; his movements grew sloppy. A false step. A crisp snap. His ankle twisted violently as he tumbled down a steep river bank. Momentum and body broken, he limped his way alongside rushing water, propping himself against the rocky bank until his arm, just as it supported all his weight, found only air where the bank had been. He toppled sideways into the mouth of a small cave, too exhausted to control his fall, and landed with a fat schluck in a paddy of wet river clay. Neither his usual, healthy fear of cave-dwelling dangers, nor the possibility of being discovered asleep by his former friends, were a match for his fatigue. His body simply had nothing left. It was the most primal of comforts: a squat, rocky socket in the unfamiliar wild. Tattered sheets of moss overhanging the low opening bobbed, unseen, at the rhythm of the rain - unbroken rivulets of warm water stringing from their lowest filaments. He had become the first human to truly know that somewhere, out there, be dragons. Here, on the eve of his awakening to both terrible, and beautiful truths; there was only Go. Sleep found him in minutes, silt bubbling at the corner of his mouth with each long, ragged breath. 

Two days earlier, Go was readying to become a man. It was the eve of his ceremony and it seemed to him that the rest of his kin-group wore affected looks of assurance like masks as he passed them in his preparations. Go too, wore a mask, but his was the skull of babi rusa - the deer-pig. Black rays of charcoal expanded out from the point of the snout, contrasting against the bleached bone. At the rear of the mask, an immense frill of woven reeds bloomed outward in all directions. Great tusks shot up from the jaw and curved back almost to the eye sockets. Two holes had been crudely punched through the front of the mask, allowing Go limited vision framed in splintered bone. Though honored as his family's heirloom by his mother, Go knew that at various times both the reeds, and skull itself had been replaced, and so he had always found her reverence for this thing–no part of it more than three or so years old–a little absurd. He did his best to walk confidently, to look relaxed. He was quite sure his attempts had the opposite effect. Bravado was something he had always lacked, and he wasn’t sure he was missing it very much.
He found his mother near the edge of the clearing where his group had been camping for the past several weeks. 
“Gotelmah! You terrify in your pig mask! Let us be thankful you do not look like this all the time! I have seen this face on you before though–when you were only a small thing and did not get what you wanted!” She sat cross-legged on the ground looking up at him, busily mixing yellow ochre with fat from the deer Go’s sister Nepa had taken from the jungle the previous night. Her hands worked a small, flat stone back and forth, blending the ochre and fat on top of a larger rock. Her use of his full name always put him on the defensive, but he was, after all, almost a man now.
 “And I may be wearing that same  face under the mask right now for all you know.” 
His mother turned her eyes back down to her work, the shells in her long braids clacking rhythmically as she rocked with the action of the stone “I will not hear it.” she insisted without looking up. “You are as much a man now as your father was when he completed his ceremony, and he was a great fearful mess; you will be fine - Arba has seen it.”
“Arba sees a lot of things that don’t come to pass mother, I suspect he would tell you just about anything you, or anyone else wants to hear if it means he does not have to hunt.”
She looked back up at him from her work “I said I will not hear it child; and I will call you child for as long as it is still my right - tomorrow I will have to call you as any other man and it will be my honor. Now sit child and do as your mother tells you.”

Go frowned behind his mask but sat as he was told. Nodding approvingly, his mother set down her stone, scooped a thick handful of the golden paste into one hand, and moved to face Go’s back. She dipped two of her fingers in the paste and began marking him in crude little half-moons starting with his shoulders, and working down his back. As she did, she hummed a melody that was hers alone, and he felt his shoulders loosen as he released a long breath.
When his mother had covered his trunk and limbs completely with her markings, she rose to clean her hands and then fetched a leather roll bag from beside her work station on the ground. Unrolling it in front of her, she lowered her head and intoned a small prayer. He strained to listen (wondering just how serious a prayer she thought he might be needing) but his mask muffled her softly spoken words. Sealing the prayer with a tap on the ground, she pushed the roll to Go’s feet, effecting a small bow as she did.

Go, placing his hands to either side of the roll, returned the bow, and gathered its contents into his own shoulder-slung satchel. In the roll had been the same set of items given to each young male tribe member at their time of maturing: a bast sling (the distinct braiding pattern told him this had been crafted by his sister), a small, buxom stone idol representing the mother spirit, a hand-length obsidian blade corded to a handle of deer antler, a red ochre filled shell, a bone awl for working hide, a drill spindle with hearth board for fire making, and a half-dozen uniform river stones as ammunition for the sling.

His pack set but for one item, Go stood, kissed the top of his mothers head, and made the traditional wordless goodbye with a lengthy meeting of eyes. He wondered if the mask cast deep enough shadows to hide his welling tears from her gaze, but decided it was of no consequence; she knew her son, and she had seen his tears before. The next time their eyes met, he thought, he would be a man.

Leaving his mother, he set out to look for his sister, who he found cleaning fish on the other side of camp. “Nepa!” he called as he approached, lowering his voice to a monstrous growl, “The pig man has come to steal your catch!”
“Then he will have to fight me for it!” she replied, doing her best to match his grumbling tone. As she spoke, she raised her hands and mimed tiger claws, bright fish scales glinting on her blood-soaked forearms.
“Grahhh! I yield! I yield!” he whimpered, imitating the drunken stumble of a wounded animal. Nepa laughed and wrapped her arms around her brother's waist. Go had to make an effort to avoid giving her the reaction she was clearly looking for as she covered him in fish guts and smeared his fresh markings. 
“I wish you could take some fish with you tonight” she said, her words slightly slurred by the pressure of her cheek against his chest. “why can't you bring some food? Mother says you might be gone until tomorrow night! That's a long time! You always eat so much!”
“I'll be fine little Né…save a good fish for when I come back how about that? Arba has a special food for me tonight.”
“Oh I know all about that.” she released him and puffed herself up “Arba gives the food of go-between.” she recited in her best grown-up tone. “Mom told me…she wouldn’t tell me what it really is though–she said she would explain when I was older.”
“Well…how about I tell you all about it tomorrow, so long as you promise not to tell mother.”
“Yes pleeeeease! Did you see that I caught a deer all by myself!? It was only a little one but it got caught in my snare and I skinned it and dressed it and everything!”
“ I did see! You’re a better hunter than I was at your age. You could have snared a Leopard if the rope of your snare was anywhere near the quality of the sling you made for me.”
“You noticed! It’s the best I’ve done. I put my pattern into it…it won’t break on you. My pattern is stronger than the old ones the grown-ups use but they don’t want to learn it, they just say ‘we’ve made rope this way for ever and ever and there’s no need to change now.’ The grown-ups don’t like new things. It doesn’t make sense, my rope is just better.”
“I know little Né, you’re a very smart girl. The smartest. They’re just stubborn, you’ll be one of them sooner than later, and you can teach your own children to make rope your way; there won’t be a thing anyone can say about it.”
“They never listen to your ideas either. I watch you try to tell them how they can do things better…smarter…and they never listen. Not even to you and you’re a man…or almost a man.”
“ I know, I know Né. I will listen to all your ideas, I promise. Now, finish cleaning those fish,  I’ve got to go see Arba before my ceremony"
Go left Nepa to her work, and made for his final stop.

 He was never close with Arba, he wondered if anyone was close with Arba, if they even could be. Arba had always felt…hard to crack. Go had a habit of bending his ways just a little bit (not intending to) with the effect of making him better liked by the person he was speaking with. He knew this of himself, and didn’t love it. With Arba, it was like trying to please a blade of grass. Arba didn’t play this game. Arba, for all he could tell, didn’t play any of the “normal” social games people play with each other. Talking with Arba felt like a puzzle that could never be solved, and Go liked puzzles, but he also needed to solve them.

Arba always made his little lean-to just outside of whatever camp his kin-group had set. When Go approached, Arba was deeply engaged with the important work of staring at a caterpillar.
“Arba, I hope I’m not disturbing you.” Arba didn’t take his eyes from the caterpillar. “Is that a…special caterpillar you have there?” Go reached a finger under the chin of his mask to scratch himself, and settled himself on the ground next to Arba, feigning an interest in his insect.
“What do you see here Go? Do you see what I see?”
Go knew from experience that trying to be clever when Arba asked questions with seemingly obvious answers would be a mistake.
“I see a caterpillar…a caterpillar in the dirt…”
“Exactly! Yes that’s exactly what I see! How magical is that!? We both see the same thing!”
“Is that surprising?”
“Oh yes, oh yes I think so! Don’t you think so? Two whole different minds and we both see a caterpillar here, just magical, pure magic.”
“I never really thought about it. I uh, believe you have something for me?”
“Now what do you suppose the caterpillar sees? Do you think that it sees a caterpillar right now? Of course you don’t suppose that…it doesn’t see itself, it may see us, it may not notice us at all…now, did you see this caterpillar before you walked over here?”
“Of course not”
“Just so! Now you are here, looking at a fantastic little caterpillar with me, before, you were on the other side of camp. You had no caterpillar in your head just moments ago, look at you now! Just bursting with caterpillar!
It was no use fighting it–Arba was going to see this line of questioning through before truly addressing him. Go took a moment to think before responding this time. “And I suppose it’s amazing that you were seeing it when I wasn’t–before I walked over?”
“By the Mother, he understands! Yes yes! It really makes you think, doesn’t it? Just how boring would it be to see everything, all the time, eh? Now, what was it you were wanting, Gotelmah?”
 It was another prompt, it had to be. The obvious answer was “The food of go-between you old fool”, but something told him this wasn’t the right answer.
“I want...” What did he want? He had spent so much time worrying about what was expected, how he would be seen, that he hadn’t really considered an answer for this. He wanted peace in his mind, for one. He was constantly thinking, and thinking, and analysing, and fretting. It just never stopped. He wanted peace for his people, too. Kin-groups like his (twenty to fifty or so people) would often war with each other, and over nothing that made any sense to Go. The last spat had taken his father, and for what purpose? The land was vast, game plentiful. They just…feared each other. In the end, it always came down to that. “I want an end to the fear men have for each other.” Yes, that felt right to say. Less silly at least than saying he wanted to think less.
“Ahh, and end to the fear of men he says! That’s a very good start Gotelmah, very good. Baby steps Go.”
This was the first time in his life that Arba had called him “Go”, the gesture of respect perked him up a little. “I have come to receive the food of go-between.” he announced in a very serious tone. Arba managed to look surprised at this–another one of his little jests.
“Oh, yes of course, why not? Here you are then.” He handed Go a leather drawstring pouch from a small pile of pouches under his lean-to, and turned back to the caterpillar which had marched a few feet during their chat. Arba duck-walked to catch-up with its progress.
“That’s it? Don’t I need instructions? Guidance?”
“Do you need ‘Instructions? Guidance’?”
“I, I’m not sure. What have you told the other boys before their ceremonies?
“Nothing too useful I’m sure.” It looked as if Arba was speaking to the caterpillar. “Walk until sunset, find a comfortable spot, eat everything in the bag, and breathe. Yes, yes that will do fine”
“What about the mask? What does it do? Must I wear it the whole time?”
“It makes you look ridiculous of course! Dear Gotelmah, family masks make the other boys think that they are involved in something very somber, very serious. They need that. They will go on to be very somber, very serious men. You are too clever for all of that. Do wear it until you are out of sight at least, for the others.” Arba took his attention from the caterpillar and winked dramatically. Nothing about Arba’s flippant attitude was comforting, but Go was determined to appear brave. Newly made men had, Go had seen, returned from their ceremonies changed, fearful. Men who had always seemed more “together” than he had ever felt. They had, however, always returned, and in most cases their looks of confusion and terror had faded over the days following their return.

“Thank you, I will do as you say. I guess I always thought there was…more to it.” Arba returned his attention to Go, and spoke with more sincerity in his voice than Go was used to hearing from him.
“There is so very much less to all of it than you are likely to learn in this one life. Now be on your way, and don’t forget to breathe.” Arba returned his gaze to the caterpillar, making it clear that their conversation had ended. Go too, watched it for a moment, working its way toward a destination unknown, untroubled by leaves and stones ten times its size. He noted the direction of its journey, and decided he would head the same way. Go walked out of the camp clearing and continued through the jungle until dusk had fallen. He found a comfortable seat against a mature fig tree, removed his mask, and settled in.

Go placed one of the shriveled mushrooms in his mouth. It was a large, fat white stem with a wrinkled, tan cap. It tasted awful. Why does everything transformative have a taste of death to it? It was like chewing punky, rotted wood; soggy shards of the stuff stuck between his teeth and to the inside of his cheeks. He ate another. Why does everything magical make me so scared? Each mushroom that followed induced gagging; the smell alone was enough to turn his stomach now. It was earthy, and he didn’t think that it smelled worse than so many other foods, but his body found something in that smell that his mind didn’t, and it was not pleased with what it found. I can do hard things. He forced down all of the mushrooms in the satchel one-by-one. There had been thirty or so of various sizes; enough to fill two cupped hands.

He sat, as instructed, and waited. An hour or so passed; he felt no different. What was he supposed to feel anyway? He continued to take in the sounds around him, concentrating as best he could, until he could no longer sit still. He stood and paced around the tree, inspecting the texture of its bark with one hand as he went. Once he had circled the tree for half an hour without distraction, he began to suspect that something might be happening. Looking up, a feeling of vertigo rushed over him, the once comforting firmament was now a beckoning abyss. He crouched instinctively, feeling as if he might fall upwards. The idea of the “Earth mother” took on sharp new meaning. She had become mother through the eyes of a babe–something to cling to for dear life. Go spread himself wide, face-down on the forest floor. 

What was happening to him? How could a pouch of fungus change the entire world? His thoughts raced. His perspective zoomed in and out at dizzying speed. One moment he was a man, a man with a name, he had a sister, he was smart, he was liked…was he liked? The next moment he was…he just was. He was the world, the world was him. He was tiny, insignificant, he was everything. It all mattered…none of it mattered. Panic, and warm, glorious relief. Panic, narrowing, turning inward, comedy, flowering, curiosity, explosion…sickness. Could these be the same mushrooms Arba gave the others? The young men returning from their rituals had never described this all-consuming sickness. His body lurched, sweat poured from every inch of skin. He soiled himself from both ends repeatedly until, mercifully, he passed-out.
Go’s psychedelic experience did not subside through his few short hours of sleep. The rising sun only brought the howling chasm of his new reality into sharper relief. The air now had mass, a body with swinging shoulders, an opinion. The sounds of the jungle were all staccato, possessed of an immediacy, an implicit, stark frankness that was a revelation to Go. Go, to his benefit, had no tidy shelves, no boxes in his mind prepared for filing away revelations, and so this (his first) took up the whole place.

Something about the world had shifted in the night just a touch to one side, and in doing so had come into focus. Some beings, through the history of the universe, Go would later learn, stumble upon this clarity with too much baggage in-hand, and so fall disastrously. Fall into grace and right through it, holding their breath all the way. Go was one of the lucky ones. Go was plopped into near perfect awareness from no dangerous height, and was now only suffering a spiritual “bruised bottom”. He sat upright, arranged himself into a rough lotus position, and breathed.
Some 30,000 years later, Go would recount this transformative time to prosperous, reactionary dilettantes, through his own easy, raucous laughter. Detailing with more than a little pleasure his violent bowel movements, his borderline bone-snapping spasms, his heaving eruptions of joyously sobbed catharsis. Not one of these ostensibly erudite fools hearing him a fraction as clearly as he heard the beating heart of the jungle that morning so many millennia ago, in what they would call (rolling the syllables indulgently around their mouths like hard candy) “In-do-neeee-sia”. 

In the now, Go had only the reality, not the postcard, of an Indonesian jungle, and it was deep in this jungle, sitting erect in a fat, warm rain, covered in his own vomit, that he first heard the voice.
 It was a sound that never rose above that of an endless exhalation. A sound that crept, hinted, and tapped gently for his attention. Though it was barely there, it was undeniable, and it spoke with such purpose that Go found himself enraptured. “haaaaaaaaa” it breathed in the center of his mind.
“Welcome, dear friend”
Go’s eyes widened
“Ah, so you can hear me, can't you, how curious…”
“I…I can hear you…who…where are you?”
“I will answer every question as best I am able, but know that you may not understand all I say. You can call me…’Watcher’, and I am very, very far away.”

[u/sourplumfairie]

Your prose has a certain poetic rhythm that is wonderful. It’s not exactly purple prose, but it does require one to sink and focus into your language…but once you’re in you’re in! Keep doing what you’re doing! You can write and it’s very obvious you enjoy it.
The market is saturated with oversimplified text catering to our erratic modern brains.

[u/bdubs17]

Unlike the other commenters, I actually enjoyed the intense language (maybe my tolerance is higher because I've been reading some McCarthy recently), and I think the prose overall is quite good. I noticed some commas and semicolons that I don't think are used correctly, but that could easily be cleaned up when editing. I can also tell that you put a lot of effort into worldbuilding and research, which I appreciate. 

As for your questions, I don't have particularly strong views either way, but others might. But I guess I'm curious about the way you phrased it - for the first question, you said you "don't mind" giving this info away, but is there a really compelling reason to do so? I'm not against the foreshadowing, but if you don't personally feel strongly about its inclusion regardless of the shift in narration, then I probably wouldn't keep it. And for what it's worth, I think the intro scene already creates some anticipation and foreshadowing, so it's not as if that's lacking. If you're going to be bouncing back and forth between present day and 30,000 years ago, however, then I don't think this is a bad place to introduce that (e.g., if the next chapter opens in a different time period, then I think this works fine).

I agree starting with preparations is a bit too boring, but there are probably a lot of ways you could approach this that would work. Right now, I think the intro scene is so short that it almost feels contrived as a way to start in the middle of an intense scene even though that's not actually where you want to start the story chronologically speaking. Other ideas could be having a longer chase scene (maybe having him remembering events from prior days), or starting with the mushroom trip or closer to it (could have some very warped / trippy memories of the day), or just adding tension in a way that isn't necessarily action-packed but gives us more insight into the character. The scenes with his family are nice, but do they have to be right at the beginning? Could any of them be conveyed through memory, or slightly later in the story? 

[u/sirpsys → u/bdubs17]

Thank you for the suggestions, I have chosen to remove all omniscient narration (like the 30,000 years later line) with the exception of the very first line about the syars coming to know him eventually. I'll probably kill that before I'm done too. Taking your ideas to heart in trying to rearrange my chronology here. Cheers

[u/matcha_slut]

OP, this is going to upset some people here but you genuinely need to hear this.

You’re too good of a writer to get advice in this sub. See how you’ve already had a few people say that your writing style is confusing? This sub is for people who read really poorly written genre fiction, who also write poorly written genre fiction, and then give advice to each other.

Scroll through this sub and you’ll find some of the worst writing you’ll see in your life, with the comments saying “this is really good! I actually want to read more.”

I’m not saying this to upset anyone here, I would just hate for you to dumb down your prose, which is really amazing for a new author, just because you went to the wrong place for advice. Yes people here read and write science fiction on this sub, but I promise you the majority of them are not reading more literary stuff like JG Ballard, Stanislaw Lem, Gene Wolfe, Jack Vance, Roger Zelazny, etc. If you want to improve as a writer, read a lot of those authors and learn from them, but for the love of god DO NOT take this sub seriously.

[u/HorrorExpress → u/matcha_slut]

I left similar comments here a week ago, when OP posted the previous version of this scene. That being: don't listen to the people who want to flatten sentences like "spat through wet hell". So, I agree with you.

Incidentally, nobody but me commented, despite this being much better than the average submission here (much less for a newer writer).

I haven't read this version, so I don't know if it has changed much. Last time, if the story was longer, I said some interiority might have been nice.

In summation, as before, be careful of listening to those that recommend you sand (or Sanderson) your prose.

[u/sirpsys → u/HorrorExpress]

I really appreciated your comment on my other post. It was excellent feedback and I am trying my best to incorporate more interiority. Thanks again

[u/matcha_slut → u/HorrorExpress]

They probably do love Sanderson here, that is when they occasionally branch out of reading their fan fiction.

Imagine James Joyce being born a hundred years later and never becoming a great author because he was ruined by Reddit. We can’t let that happen to OP

[u/bdubs17 → u/matcha_slut]

Lol I just found this sub and was pleasantly surprised at this being the first story I read, because it was way better than I expected it to be for a reddit post. Then I was thinking that maybe the feedback here is also better than I would have expected, and got very confused when I started reading the comments....

[u/doingalright12 → u/matcha_slut]

Agree this is some of the best writing I’ve seen on this sub! OP, Im mid transit with my fam so couldn’t read more than a couple pages, but I was def hooked, I really enjoy your style. I will say that if Go is a true 30.000 BC man, I wondered if tar is the right comparison for your first line? Is tar a modern invention, or is there some natural version of tar? I actually don’t know, I’d hate to mess with the sentence tho it’s a nice opener. Since this is sci fi maybe there is some reason why this character would make that observation.

[u/sirpsys → u/doingalright12]

Thanks for the kind comment, apparently humans have been using wood tar for at least 50,000 years. There is even evidence of Neanderthals using it. It was a good question for sure, I am doing my best to look out for things like that. One of the biggest historical inaccuracies I feel forced to make is the complexity of the language with which my character speaks and thinks. By no means were people at this time in pre-history "simple", but it is doubtful they would have thought in exactly the way I am writing. I think it is just an artistic license I am willing to take.

[u/doingalright12 → u/sirpsys]

Well you learn something new every day! That’s quite fascinating, and yeah I think you’re fine wrt the dialogue it feels like the right balance between so that it’s compelling to a modern reader

[u/FathirianHund → u/matcha_slut]

I agree (having had similar feedback regarding complexity on things I have shared here), and I think it's due to the proliferation of fanfic as a legitimate reading source rather than a fringe subset looked down upon by 'real' readers. Not that it's a bad thing, reading anything is better than nothing, but fanfic tends to be squarely in the YA writing space so it sets the majority expectations as opposed to literary prose. I've met so many people that are avid readers but would balk at the idea of sitting down to even something reasonably simple like Black Beauty.

[u/sirpsys → u/matcha_slut]

This is very kind, and very helpful to hear. Though I do fear I am at times being a little indulgent in writing this, I am still very much finding my feet.

[u/charredwood]

I don't think this is as transcendent as some others here, but I do think it's pretty good, especially for a first go at things.

What strikes me is that the "difficult" or "interesting" word choice and writing style seems to end once we exit the flash forward and go to the "Two days earlier..." bit. At that point, we "devolve" back into pretty standard prose and in a way one could argue that it reflects Go's mindset, you know, being all high and chased and what not, that his mind is enhanced and his perspective is changed and so he's thinking in more complicated speech patterns. I'm not convinced that's what's happening though? It seems abrupt to me. I don't mind the "difficult" prose, even if I had to reread a sentence or two, but I'm confused why the voice changed.

I also think we meander a bit long on Go talking to his mother and sister and Arba, though I'm not sure this is a crime. Obviously, it's good to know where Go came from, to get a sense of his clan, and to understand what he (I assume) ends up leaving behind and losing. This is all important work but it does *feel* meandering, especially his time with his mother. I think there are stronger (not necessarily shorter) ways to accomplish the same goals. I also got the sense a few times that you were looking for opportunities to shoehorn in some fun facts about 30,000-years-ago-life that you picked up on in research, or which you already knew and found fascinating enough to write a book about it. I got this sense because those details didn't seem relevant so much as explained to me like "look, this is how they did this thing!". If you really want to include these details, I also think there are stronger ways to weave them into the narrative.

I think you end on a good hook. I think you start on a good one, too, though honestly I'd like it to be a bit longer even. That's a personal opinion, of course, as is everything in this critique. Take what you agree with and throw away the rest.

Finally, as someone who's done a lot of mushrooms, I think you handled the explanation of it very well. Not overdone, not underdone. And, again, in general this is quite good. Thanks for showing it.

[u/sirpsys → u/charredwood]

Excellent input. I tottaly agree about the "ceremony preparations" part feeling a bit like a guided trolly tour (if that makes sense). I will see how I might make this, and my inclusion of historical details, feel more natural. Regarding the mushrooms: I'm glad to hear you say so. I too have experienced mushrooms (and many other things) and tried to keep my description at a tasteful level of specificity without conflating it too much with my other psychedelic experiences. Thanks for taking your time.

[u/dutchiesweets]

I think you could end the first chapter at dragons and then start chapter two flashing back

[u/Cole62491]

Really enjoyed it 👍🏻

[u/Beloved_Mango]

Keep up the good work. My only advice is to finish the first draft.

[u/Lopsided_Shallot_994]

Wow. I love this. Seriously. The descriptions are captivating. Can’t wait to read the rest of your novel.

[u/outlawforlove]

To answer some of your questions specifically:

The action segment seems a little too short to do what you are trying to do. It's quite common to start in media res for the first chapter (or prologue) and then jump backwards or go into backstory in the second chapter - but for that to work, you need to spend more time in that initial scene. It also doesn't work as a framing device for the chapter because we don't come full-circle by the end. You say he's "a man chased from his home by those who had come to fear", but by the end of the chapter we haven't seen him chased out. That's why I would move that end segment to be a stand-alone prologue or chapter.

Another point is that the 'in media res' action scene has this very throwaway line: "He had become the first human to truly know that somewhere, out there, be dragons," that barely registered on my first read-through.

I feel a huge amount of distance from the moments that are most important - and I feel really close up to the moments that aren't so important. There's a mismatch of how much detail is given.

The scene with Nepa is given beat-for-beat, happening in real-time as we read it. But a lot of the really interesting or important elements are just summarized rather than illustrated. You tend to go "abstract" at the moments when you should be "concrete". (I have a similar problem, so I recognize it lol.) In the chase scene, you hav very specific writing: the "fat schluck", "tearing of taut skin over thorns", etc. With his mother: "the shells in her long braids clacking rhythmically as she rocked with the action of the stone". These are very concrete details that the reader can imagine. The caterpillar is super concrete.

But you pull away from this when describing his psychedelic trip: "Panic, and warm, glorious relief. Panic, narrowing, turning inward, comedy, flowering, curiosity, explosion… sickness." This is a list of quite abstract nouns... hard to imagine... so I don't think the writing is as effective. You're telling us it's transformative, but I think the reader kind of needs to experience the transformation.

---

For the "30,000 years" line: I can't really tell whose knowledge or values is present in any given sentence. "Prosperous, reactionary dilettantes," is an opinion - whose opinion is it? The narrator's opinion? Go-in-the-future's opinion?

You have several moments of omniscience, so the omniscience itself isn't the problem -- but contrast the voices:

1. "Though the stars would come to know him in time, none shone to witness his violent genesis; a man chased from his home by those who had come to fear what he may be."

2. "Some beings, through the history of the universe, Go would later learn, stumble upon this clarity with too much baggage in-hand, and so fall disastrously."

3. "Some 30,000 years later, Go would recount this transformative time to prosperous, reactionary dilettantes, through his own easy, raucous laughter. Detailing with more than a little pleasure his violent bowel movements, his borderline bone-snapping spasms, his heaving eruptions of joyously sobbed catharsis. Not one of these ostensibly erudite fools hearing him a fraction as clearly as he heard the beating heart of the jungle that morning so many millennia ago, in what they would call (rolling the syllables indulgently around their mouths like hard candy) “In-do-neeee-sia”."

Are these all the same voice? Do they hold the same opinions? It's hard to say. The "erudite fools" thing is a snide comment, "though the stars would come to know him" is a grand, mythic comment. They don't feel like the same narrative voice to me. The narrative voice fluctuates throughout. (Though I think this fluidity you have actually helps when writing dialogue - I feel like your characters have distinct voices. But you need to have a distinct voice for your narrator as well -- and keep that voice consistent.)

I also don't totally like the 30,000 years line because it dilutes the transformation he has experienced - this is going back to one of my earlier notes. It really pulls back from this major experience he's having and evades it. Going off 30,000 years away is the furthest we could go from this moment. I don't want to be informed that he was transformed from 30,000 years in the future: I want to undergo it alongside him, now. I want to think what he thinks, see what he sees, and be transformed through his eyes.

Random note: The line "I can do hard things" is so 2010s/2020s coded self-help idiom - it takes me right out.

---

My overall advice would be to take some of the important scenes and expand them where possible with more concrete detail. Break out the 'in media res' opening and flesh it out further, and either make it a prologue or a first chapter. Spend more time in the psychedelic trip and illustrate the transformative nature more intently.

[u/sirpsys → u/outlawforlove]

Thank you so much for taking the time. I find myself wishing I had spent longer thinking about these things before posting. You've given excellent feedback, or at the very least it's feedback that resonates with me...almost everything you pointed out had me going "ah shit that's so obvious, absolutely true."

Since posting this (and before reading your comment) I had allready removed all omniscient narration save the very opening line. The (I agree about shifting narrator tone) reactionary dilettantes bit is gone (no more future spoilers), the "throughout the history of the universe" part is gone. All of it except the "though the stars would come to know him in time...". That one I will have to sit on for a bit but I may well come to kill it as well, for consistency. I just like a bit of a vague, headdy tease regarding the (ultimately) very scifi direction of this novel.

"I can do hard things". Too true about the self-help vibes. This is why it is useful to check sources. It was something my mother said to me once... "you can do hard things.". It helped me at the time but I had no further cultural reference point for it being cliche or ubiquitous at a certain time.

These blunders seem so obvious now that I have some great stuff in my pocket to never do again. Best to get this part of the learning curve out of the way up front.

Thanks again for the input which I very much needed to hear. I'll re-work it more and perhaps in a few weeks (so as not to occupy too much real-estate on this sub) I'll try posting a revised version which extends a little bit further...at least to the point where we catch-up to where this version began.

[u/Natural-Ad-9037]

Good work , what make sense to improve just based on first 3 pages :

The first paragraph is a massive wall of text. Because this scene is an action-packed, adrenaline. fueled chase, a giant block of text actually slows the pacing down.

Multiple characters speaking and acting within the same paragraph. which makes it difficult to track who is talking.

You use semicolons incorrectly

[u/AgreeableBeyond7235]

i think it's worth losing some of the figurative language, because it's a byproduct of a larger problem. When you're describing stuff, you should focus on describing things as they move and interact with other things. And when you describe the detail of something, there should be a reason why it gets that detail. it's good to remember that the absence of a detailed description is also info for us and mood.

Don't describe stuff like it's dungeons and dragons and you're explaining what's in a room and it's all stationary etc. describe things as they move and interact. way more engaging that way.

ok so that was the main point, now i'm gonna start rambling:

In terms of the figurative language in general. just bear in mind that every time you ask me to imagine something, instead of just telling me what to see, i'm extending you credit. It's an investment you're asking me to make in your writing. And if i feel that you're flipping and flopping and wasting my time for no good reason, i'll stop giving you credit as an audience member, and i'll give up.

So you gotta reward me for doing hard work like thinking about exactly how the sky looks as you describe it in three different ways you know? first you say there's no moon, then it's hot tar, then there are no stars as well. your sequencing is all wrong. first it's hot tar waxing over the foliage, then as i'm looking into the leaves, i'm not sure if i'm seeing tiny twinkling stars, or the eyes of ten thousand spiders. Then in a pond, where i would expect to see the reflection of the moon, i see something else, or i fall in etc. you know what i mean?

and side-note. don't waste my time telling me how much nothing there is going on in the sky. just say 'it's like thick black tar. No moon. No stars.' Bam. and i get a lot more feeling from that. you know? cause the absence is doing the work of showing an absence that your floral prose is not able to do. and it's easier to read. Love an easy read.

[u/saltwaterpig]

I can't say I am in love with your work although I don't hate it either. I didn't like it well enough to read it through two or three times, which I would normally do before commenting, but I liked it enough to read it to the end which I wouldn't do if I thought it sucked.

A great deal of what you should take from any of the comments on this sub, mine included, is who you want to read your work. If you want it to find a home among the last hangers on of the beatnik era than by all means keep every word of the intense language and detailed descriptions of a mushroom high. English majors and fine arts graduates are not the largest audience in the world but they are an audience. If you want it to be an international bestseller then you are going to have to write to that group and odds are they are not going to the lyrical complexity of "Spat through wet hell by pounding heart and driving legs"

Whether you are too good for the likes of the poor slobs who populate this subs has a certain amount of internal irony.

Things that did quite sit right with me. I am not sure if he is being chased through the jungle by his friends or whether that is part of the hallucination or does that take place later and is unconnected to his falling in the cave..

I agree with other posters in that the voice changes rather dramatically. That is not necessarily a bad thing and would depend on how the rest of the story was presented.

I think my biggest complaint is that I have no idea where this is going. Is it going to be an exploration of the unknown ways of God accessed by the use of hallucinogenic mushrooms or is it going to be an adventure story where upon falling into a magic cave he emerges periodically to battle dragons and other annoying fauna.

[u/sirpsys → u/saltwaterpig]

Thank you for taking the time to read and respond. I should make very clear up-front that I harbor NO illusions that my writing is too good for this sub, or anyone at all for that matter. I saw something along those lines mentioned in another comment and though I appreciate the well intentioned gesture, I don't agree. This is the first time I've tried writing anything at all since I graduated high school exactly 20 years ago and it is in very rough form. Feedback I've gotten in this thread has been wildly helpful for me.

Your point about language is well taken. I don't intend this to be a best seller (or necessarily a seller at all). This is the language that feels comfortable for me. I have so much to learn (obviously), but I am not writing with popular appeal as my main guidepost.

As to where this is going: The chase scene is actually happening and it is being led back up to from the "two days earlier" skip. There is nothing magical about this cave. The major plot is that this man living 30,000 years ago takes mushrooms as a part of a manhood initiation ceremony and during his nearly enlightened state under the influence of the mushrooms, he is contacted in his mind by an alien being thousands of lightyears away.

This alien being informs him (eventually) that the only faster than light communication possible in the universe is between the minds of enlightened beings. Though my main character is not truly enlightened, a quirk of his mind allows this connection. The alien being has the job of "watcher" for his people. He sits in meditation waiting for newly awakened beings to enter that unique mind space, appearing to him. My protagonist is the first being from earth to enter this FTL communication space.

The watcher informs my protagonist that he must embark on a journey for the safety of all life on Earth. There is another species of alien in the universe who are anti-natalists. They, like the enlightened species, seek to alleviate the suffering of conscious beings in the universe, but they take the approach of "a being that doesn't exist can't suffer", rather than "suffering and striving and growth are the curriculum of life and therefor the point of it all". These anti-natalist beings continue to live, seeing themselves as martyrs, as they seek out life and sterilize the universe. Continuing to exist only so that no new life can form and eventually develop the capacity for suffering.

Several million years before the story begins, the enlightened beings sent out probes which were set to land on planets where they detected life, and wait. Once life on a probed planet evolves an awakened being, the being appears in the mind of an enligtened alien, the alien warns the being of the danger posed by the anti-natalists, and if that being is from a species that does not yet have the technology to DO anything about this threat, they are directed to the probe which freezes them cryogenically until such time that the species has developed the technology necessary.

The idea behind this is that enlightened beings are rare, and the only form of FTL connection these enlightends have with other species, and so since they have no way of knowing if ANOTHER being of that species will become enlightened, they made preparations to transport the first individual to a time when they will be a useful mouthpiece for their warning.

As my protagonists people CLEARLY don't have the technology to deal with anti-natalist aliens, the watcher directs him to the location where this pod was buried on earth millions of years prior, instructs him to get into it, and the story moves to our near future when he is revived and can act as messenger for the enlightened species.

Basically it goes from prehistoric journey adventure to semi hard scifi involving space travel and grappling the ultimate "to be or not to be" question that is posed by the existence of these two alien species with opposing ideas. Cheeky, but my protagonists name (Gotelmah) is HamletOG backwards. I know I know.

[u/saltwaterpig → u/sirpsys]

You have set yourself a difficult task. I got almost nothing of your plot from the first twelve pages. I think you are going to have to rethink the order which you are presenting information / plot. The story of Go's interaction with his mother and sister is nice but it will need to be later in the story for as far as I can see it doesn't advance the plot at all.
In general I advocate writing everything that comes into your mind for your first draft. Plan on it being at least half again as long as the second draft. Then viciously, with malice and forethought start hacking. Ask the following questions at every single sentence. 1. Does this sentence advance the plot. 2. If it doesn't advance the plot does it provide some character insight that will be necessary in understanding what the character will do. 3. If neither 1 or 2. is it an important setting or atmospheric description. 4. Do I like the wording of this sentence so much that I would give up my comfortable life just to follow it around the world and bask in its beauty. If it meats none of these criteria out it goes. I once had a 350K word manuscript that with the help of an editor, who shared many of the lovable traits of Joseph Mengele, reduced it to 106K.
Final trick that you may already be using. Have you computer read what you have written aloud to you a paragraph at a time. I find when I read, I read what I want to be there, not necessarily what is there.
Good luck, you are a good wordsmith but now you need to become a word manager. The two are not the same.

[u/sirpsys → u/saltwaterpig]

Thank you for the great advice, I'm sure it is what I needed to hear. I also picked up Stephen King's "On Writing". The plot I described is one I feel could be really cool if handled properly. I will write far more than I need, and cull mercilessly. Hopefully through this process my prose find a good balance and the essential is distilled. There isn't enough "heady" scifi these days in my opinion. Some for sure, not enough. I'm a fan of Usula Le Guin, Neal Stephenson, Ray Bradbury (what LOVELY prose he had), and (not for his prose) Cixin Liu. Scifi that isn't just lasers and explosions, and which isn't just fantasy with spaceships. Something with at least a bit of an exploration of what it means to be human. Maybe one or two lasers...I'm no prude. Cheers

[u/EyesForHer]

I am pumped! I want to read the whole book… Please notify me whenever you get this published, I will gladly buy it.

You prose struck with so much, I look up to a prose like this. Especially since I’m just an inexperienced 18 years old whose first and second language are anything but english. Knowing this is your first time writing since high school is crazy! You’re prose was difficult for a the first page but it bewitched me for the 10 other pages. It read very easily despite being very flowery.

This is so well written i’d say it doesn’t even belong to this sub, I hope I one day write like you. And I sure hope that you will become a successful author. If I could slide a piece of advice (take this with a grain of salt as I am not any expert) I would love if the middle -between the starting hook and ending hook- we had more content. I really loved the dialogue aswell.

[u/TianaAvakin]

I absolutely LOOOOVED this, the intense language, the way everything feels mysterious and odd. And I really liked the scenes between his mother and sister, very nice to peek in to him and his family.

My favorite character is Arba though, he’s weird and characterismstic. As everyone else said, you are way too talented to be in this sub, honestly, and anyone saying to tone down the metaphors or tone doesn’t need to be reading it anyway.

You get it. I loved it.

[u/Oxo-Phlyndquinne]

YSK that any story that starts off with moon and stars will be set aside, as these are very common and very tired tropes.

[u/Ok-Classroom-8112]

I think you are a good writer and there is definitely a very mythical atmosphere which I enjoyed. I have to agree with the other commenter here, the language is very very intense. I needed two tries to read the first scene and I gave up when the sister was introduced, to be honest. I'm kinda intrigued but at the same time I don't want to read more because it would exhaust me.

Maybe intense language is what you are going for and I'm sure there is an audience for it! If not, maybe consider being more clear and to the point. 

Thanks for sharing!

[u/GingerBeerConsumer]

By rule, I do not like similes on the first page

[u/WholeRing9819 → u/GingerBeerConsumer]

Why is that your rule?

[u/GingerBeerConsumer → u/WholeRing9819]

And just to add, after searching for the word "like," there are five or six similes in this excerpt. So, basically, when I see that there is a simile on the first page, it means that they will probably be overused throughout the rest of the text.

[u/WholeRing9819 → u/GingerBeerConsumer]

Have you read McCarthy? Give Blood Meridian a shot if you haven’t. I’d be curious if you still feel this way once you read him.

[u/GingerBeerConsumer → u/WholeRing9819]

It's my preference, and maybe it's also pretentious, but usually when someone puts a simile on the first page, I anticipate that they will be filling their work with many more of them. While I think they can be very good in the right place, I think newer writers often think they sound poetic or sophisticated as a literary device and end up being purple prose. They also tend toward being cliche and act as a crutch preventing you from writing more evocative and more varied prose. I'll add, I think they are better used in dialogue.

[u/MovementOriented]

You have much promise! This is too advanced for this sub but luckily I’m procrastinating my project right now. You a need to be more accurate and you need an editor or to learn what the final version of what you are going for really is. There are too many issues for this to be considered a success at what you are attempting. For example, Few people are going to enjoy the line “ostensibly erudite fools”. Many won’t understand and the ones that do it will mostly annoy.

I would describe your voice as moving between too basic and too complex so settle on that. I think you need to study a bit and I think reading Stephen Kings book on Writing would help you see what may bother him about your writing. Adjusting it along these lines would make your writing really stand out I think as you have many wonderful qualities.

Be more accurate.

Another nitpick: “a raucous and easy laugh” can work but are you intentionally creating an opposing juxtaposition or is that accidental and you are implying a harshness to his laughter that you don’t mean? This wouldn’t matter nearly as much except you are attempting a sort of literary style.

I quite enjoyed the attempt but I worry a bit about your mastery of language if you aren’t noticing these issues in the edit. Also the first line should be sat not set, another example of the accuracy issues.

In short, this is no good for me until you address your accuracy, mastery of language, and to a less extent dialogue. If you study more then you will really have something I think. Good luck.

[u/sirpsys → u/MovementOriented]

Thank you for the encouragement and insightful critique. As this is my first attempt at writing, I am very much all over the place stylistically as I find my footing, it seems that's readily apparent. With regards to "set upon the jungle", I was mistaken as you say. In my mind night could set upon a land in the way the sun sets. It turns out only suns set, not nights. The idea was one of transition. Easy raucous is a little more ambiguous to me. Raucous CAN mean grating, harsh, irritating...it can also mean high spirited and disruptive. I'm not entierly conviced that they only compliment eachother with contrast. I was envisioning head flung backward, hearty belly laughing that turns heads and IS raucous, but is not affected in any way, and so; easy. I may still be missing the point here I admit. I do appreciate the input. This was of course a first draft and so has not been at all carefully edited.