Chapters 1 and 2 of my novel

[RKaplan]

Hi Everyone,
Attached is the beginning of my novel. It’s been rewritten a couple of times and gone through a writing critique once before, but still needs some help.
Just a heads up, there is a lot of cursing. I think it mostly works as my protagonist starts in a pretty dark place (a Tuesday morning before work when he hates his job), but just wanted you all to be aware.
I hope you enjoy it and can’t wait to hear your thoughts.
Unfortunately, I won’t be at the meeting; however, I will be sending in my notes for all submitted work.

All the best,
Rafe

[DazWizzle]

Hey Rafe,

I'll get to yours over the next day or so as you're not going to be at the meeting.

Hope your flights go well.

[KaneW]

Hey Rafe,

The character work on your protagonist is amazing! Nice one.

Please find my comments attached.

Safe travels. And, since I won't see you today, have a great X-mas and New Years.

Cheers, Kane

[BeeMore]

Hi Rafe,

Apologies for the delay in sending comments - I've attached some in your doc.

Overall, an intriguing start and a new take on addiction grit-lit. You have some really nice descriptions and conversations in there and have set the scene in some detail. I like the idea of glass-men on Smile - it's all about the fragility. You've also built up a great internal dialogue to introduce your protagonist (I'm assuming that's what the conversation is until proven otherwise).

I'm in two minds (unintended pun) about the way the protagonist talks to himself. Could you use plain text without quotes for one internal voice and italics for the other perhaps? Or, if you don't mean to distinguish between the two voices, it could all be italics or plain text without quotes and still serve your purpose.

Please give us something to like about Charlie's character in the first chapter, otherwise it's quite hard to care enough to read on. (Once upon a time he liked himself more - I hope - until something happened?)

'Fuck' and similar in narrative fiction - a light peppering can build a character, but use it purposefully. I've attached links to a couple of articles online about this in Comments. It would be interesting to talk about this as a group because I'm sure everyone has their own POV. Also, if your world is not this present day world, or a parallel world in the metaverse, are they fitting? Inventing your own profanities in a fictive world can be fun and add novelty.

Looking forward to reading more, and hope you had a good trip,
Bron