By YashBhatt123

Overall:

I liked the concept of using a loose POV structure and letting the prose meander through different characters and scenes like little vignettes; it was a cool choice for this sort of story. However, at times I felt that the multiple characters and different ideas came at the expense of plot and establishing the world. 

I feel like this is because it is an early draft, but this will definitely need to be something that needs to be addressed when you go back to edit. 

Specifics:

Plot/Characters

Since this is a pretty big one, I want to devolve a lot into this. In the vignettes, a lot of things are introduced (i.e., chapter one's first vignette introduces Trevan and a paragraph establishing shot before switching to a flashback, then a lot of characters are introduced before giving us a few sentences back in the present), but there's not time given to really digest what happens in them. 

I think part of this issue stems from how the information is presented to the readers. Still using the first chapter's first vignette as an example, the paragraph "He smiled, a genuine smile...sipped it with deliberate slowness," introduces a lot of ideas that would be best broken up into their own paragraphs, as they do not flow well into each other, such as the description suddenly switching to Margh. We're given little information as to how this scene is laid out beyond "Hapen walked a tiny, flattened strip of land" and no descriptions to build the atmosphere. The narrative then switches to what Robert is doing, which means that nothing about this flashback has been established and makes it hard to care about what's happening. 

It's like a movie scene with only close-ups; close-up cuts work and are effective, but only when there is other cuts that contrast them. If a certain technique is used too often, the reader becomes numb to it and begins to check out, especially if there is nothing to ground them into the world they are reading about. We don't know if Trevan is standing or sitting, what he's thinking about as he witnesses this, or where this takes place in. 

This last point is somewhat of an issue I noticed throughout the story. Things are introduced, but there's no reaction to them. There's no moment for the readers to feel what the characters are going through because more information is given about what is happening instead. An example of this is Arthur's POV in Chapter 4: There isn't a moment where we can feel the emotional weight of what has happened, even though what has is fertile grounds for letting the readers get inside his head and understanding why he feels the way he does. The side effect of not allowing characters to react and have emotional beats is it's hard to get a feel of who these characters are. I knew what their names were and roughly what their roles were, but I didn't know who they were. What makes them tick? What do they want out of life? Why should I care what happens to them? 

Improvements:

Hook the Readers

So I want to make it clear that I do think a vignette style of storytelling can work for this sort of story, I am concerned that it seems to have come at the expense of the story itself. While I see in your author's note that a lot of this is intentional, the problem I found was the hints were not enough to hook me onto the story and care what happened next. 

For this, I'd encourage you to outline what the plot is. There is a lot going on in this story, and there was a general sense of a lack of cohesion with what was happening. 

Generally, it'll look something like this written out:

Act One:

Sequence 1: Point of Attack/Inciting Incident:

Sequence 2:

Act Two:

Sequence 3:

Sequence 4:

Midpoint

Sequence 5:

Sequence 6:

Act Three:

Sequence 7: climax

Sequence 8:

It's fine to mix around the perspectives and characters for this, as long as there is a rising sense of tension and needed release when a sequence has been completed. Each scene has to have multiple reasons for existing, as well as being engaging to read. So if the main plot is slower at the beginning, there still needs to be a narrative hook in Chapter one that raises the reader's eyebrows and makes them go, "wait, tell me more."

Closing Thoughts:

Overall, I think there is a lot of story you have to work with here and a lot of potential a really interesting story. However, it sort of feels like the beginning stages of a marble carving; I can kind of tell what it will be come, but the details and structure isn't quite there yet. Definitely don't give up on it!