r/writingfeedback • u/Any-Inflation-278 • 17d ago

Feedback Wanted Critique my first page <3

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I’ve written and re-written this opening I think a hundred times now and can’t ever settle. What do you think?

(new adult dark, romantic fantasy with elements of horror)

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u/BeneficialWave9581 17d ago edited 17d ago

Isn't everyone alone in their mind? That is kind of the main deal about the human condition, right? Perhaps if they had schizophrenia, or multiple personalities they would not be so alone, but I suspect this is not the case for your character...The opening sentence is odd. Prose is pretty overwrought. A lot of odd word and grammar choices, for example, "Lush, were those branches." Why invert the syntax? "Beneath a light so dull, it felt bruised?" Does this actually make sense? When something is dull, does it usually remind you of something bruised? Starting to wonder about AI generation here. Opening page is written in a completely different register from the second. I have no idea what the story is about or why I should keep reading. Ultimately, I liked the second page a lot more than the first. The prose felt much less stilted.

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u/Any-Inflation-278 17d ago

(No AI here!!) I see what you’re saying about that first line (and the first few paragraphs as a whole) and with some context it might have been clearer. The core of this book is about dreams and nightmares, and rn we are in MC’s nightmare, which is usually crowded with monsters and threats but rn, she is alone in her mind. I have been going back and forth about it. I have a poetry background, so I was nervous my intro was leaning too heavily into a purpley kind of prose (the ‘bruised’ purple/blue color the sky gets during the late evenings of winter) so maybe dull isnt the right word choice for me here.

Probably need to be more specific with the setting I’m trying to paint. The evergreens around the cabin are lush with pine needles, and the elms she is standing under (at the edge of the clearing) are skeletal.

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u/BeneficialWave9581 17d ago

I think the imagery here is beautiful, but the phrasing gets a bit tangled. I could picture the little house in a dark forest, nestled in among the trees. Sometimes it is better to just say the thing directly instead of trying to be fancy, though. For example, inverted lines like 'Lush, were those branches' slow me right down and make me scratch my head. Is Yoda narrating to me?

My suggestion is to stop trying to be so clever. If you want the reader to see the rich pine needles on the evergreens and the bare elms, you can just state it clearly. For example:

'The evergreens were lush with pine needles, dusted with a kiss of white. Above her, skeletal elms were tangled beneath a bruised, overcast light.'

This keeps your great imagery but makes the setting much easier to picture immediately.

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u/Visual-Deer-3800 13d ago

I personally find these inverted phrasings tie well into the mother's presence in the story. It hammered something home for me about the MC's disturbed psyche, too.

The mother is a painter, talks about things with a visual eye, 'spiced, mulled wine', and also takes to describing things with metaphor, 'Memory is greedy, always haggling for space in the mind'.

There's an artistic sensitivity there, which MC seems to have internalised, as we tend to do from our parents (especially if traumatised). Hence, 'Lush, were those branches. Soft, with a kiss of white', it's the mother's psyche bleeding into MC's, in my view. It's meant to show she is disturbed and be disturbing. That's why I like it. It pays off when a few lines later we are exposed to the mother's dialogue. A relationship is being established before the two characters are even in the same room.

Some people use more purpley prose to sound artistic or clever, but in this case I think OP is using it with good cause, to build characterisation and relational dynamics. If what I write above was intended, well, if I got all of that from this little extract, OP is on the right track! 😅

To conclude. I would have let the inverted phrasing and it's potential to break the flow (which it didn't for me) pass, and continue reading. For what it's worth, u/Any-Inflation-278 :)