Lakitha Tolbert
2 min readJul 21, 2024

--

What I got from this is that your worldbuilding is very solid. You have a good grasp of how you want this world to look and what is going on in it, I think your approach to it is too technical though.

What I understood that intrigued me the most and immediately captured my interest were two things:

1. Organic humanity is extinct, and what's left are these recycled consciousnesses, (I really liked this. It's deeply dystopia and feels like the SciFi world of the Takeshi Kovacs series.)


2. These characters believe that the last ( organic) brain of a human woman is gone, and all that's left are the recycled minds of these men, and they are seriously missing having (real organic) women around. All they have are simulacra, and that's good, but it's not what they remember or want!

That's the messy organic part I got out of what you wrote, and I think that should be the core of your story. The last humans left, out in this universe, trying to reconnect with some other (possible) humans. Play up all the messy and very human emotions of characters who used to be human a long time ago, and now only have the memories of it, and this is what any fighting (or mystery, or suspense) should be about, too. They're not human any more but they remember it and they're still reacting and interacting as if they were still people!

What you wrote feels like I was dropped into the middle of the story, and these two characters are reminiscing about the past and what they liked about it. It feels like there was definitely something big that happened before this conversation, (and there should, of course, be something big that happens in its aftermath.) This doesn't work as the beginning of a story. I would expect to see it somewhere in the much calmer middle (there to remind the reader of what the stakes are in whatever conflict is occurring).

I hope this helps, but really it's just me telling you what type of stories capture my attention, and what about this pushed me away (throwing me in the deep end, with technical terms that had no real meaning for me). This is of course if you want this to appeal to a female audience. Talk to some of the women in your life and get their feedback, and play up the messy emotional side of the story. (In other words, make it more "human"!)

--

--

Lakitha Tolbert
Lakitha Tolbert

Written by Lakitha Tolbert

(She/Her) Busybody librarian from Ohio.

Responses (1)