: The Prophet: Part 1, Awakening .. Question about being "Too condensed" As per Jeff's answer here on meta, I'm posting a Critique Question. Let me know if I'm not following the process correctly.

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While I'm going to need some more time in order to look at this fully, I think that the answer to your question of "is this too condensed" is "yes".

The main thing I notice from the very start is that you do a lot of "telling" and not a lot of "showing".

For instance, the very first two sentences:

Moses was a writer. A good writer.

Here you are telling us that Moses is a good writer, but you aren't SHOWING us that he is a good writer. There are a number of ways to show this. You might reveal it in a scene where he is talking to his publisher about how well his latest book is selling. You might have another character reacting to what he read. You might have an excerpt of what it is that he is writing.

Secondly, the second sentence is technically a fragment. I do not know if this is a style thing for you, but I found similar fragments to be mildly distracting.

Thirdly, I think some of the concepts are introduced too abruptly, such as the garishka. One just shows up... poof! Moses's reaction felt a bit... subdued. If something kind of like a small dragon suddenly shows up on the top of a building that I'm walking into, and these sorts of things don't actually ever happen... I'm doing to need a change of shorts.

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