>>58468763NTA but I'm gonna be honest with you Anon, I've tried to get into Holojourneys multiple times and each time I ended up dropping it. I respect you as a person and your drive to write so much, so I hate to do this since you're so nice but I just don't find HJ that entertaining to read. I've been trying to pinpoint what it is about your story that makes it so hard to get through, and I think I've finally got it. I don't think it has anything to do with the story based on the snippets I've spoiled myself with throughout the chapters you've been dropping, it looks like a grand adventure.
What I've found is that Holojourneys reads a bit like a children's novel. Sure, it has some adult themes but that's about as far as it goes. Starting with the prose, your writing style is incredibly simple. It doesn't try to reach outside of a basic vocabulary or make use of many literary techniques, and often tells the reader what's happening instead of showing them. It feels a bit like plain bread that's been cut so cleanly that even the most ESL of ESLs would be able to understand it.
The dialogue might be the biggest contributing factor to this opinion. Like the prose your dialogue is quite simple, and sometimes feels like the lines I would hear from a cartoon aimed at children. The interactions between characters feel chilidish, or generic and bland. I'm not sure which word is the most fitting. Not in the actual topics/materials behind their interactions, but rather the way the dialogue in their interactions is written out. The characters sometimes don't feel like real people talking, but rather actors on a camera that have to spell out everything for their audience of simple-minded kids.
It's difficult to put into words what I mean and I wish I could use some magicky bullshit to transfer exactly what I want to express to you, but I guess the main take-away is that your writing is too simple, and not very engaging. If you want my advice, pump the brakes and take some more time to look over your descriptions and actions to make them more flowery. Try to read some novels or even just other prominent stories from the archive to add to your dialogue toolkit, because at the moment your dialogue feels too short or too long in the wrong parts (and as I've mentioned multiple times already, reads like a children's cartoon). Keep in mind this is all from reading at least half of chapters 1, 16, 19, 23 and 30 so it seems like an ongoing problem.
I hope you don't get discouraged by this and continue writing, because you seem like a genuine guy, but this my honest opinion; I cannot for the life of me get into reading your story because of the length and the basic writing style.
