First, omg, thank you for reading the whole thing. And also for your honest critique.

From worst writing I have ever read to better than some published novels I had unpleastness of reading. Keep going as you will go places. Your skill has improved so much that it actually is a shame how bad the chapter 0 is.

Yes! Thank you. I feel like a lot of people are just "this is good" because they don't want to be offensive. Honestly, your harsh criticism of the earlier chapters is just what I was looking for. It makes the later praise seem earned instead of just platitudes.

Plus, it gets my head out of my ass a bit and gives me a different perspective. If you feel the later chapters are better then they certainly are better. And if the early chapters are that bad, ouch but yes.

In your place I would probably start over, and take a look how to structure a plot with twists and turns. Come up with a hook and first sentence of a book. As they say, that is most important sentence.

This is actually great advice. And I think I see what I'm doing wrong. I have twists IN MY HEAD. But I think I'm too focused on setting up a big reveal later that I'm falling flat early on. Like, I have pages and pages of worldbuilding notes now and you really only start see that stuff in the latest chapter.

So yeah, thank you so much. I'll give this a hard look, go back, and figure out how to set up the story better.

As they say, that is most important sentence.

And mine is "The universe is a prankster." which even I admit is a bit cringe.

I have not. I just started writing and now I'm here. I do eventually want to put it out there but haven't thought that far ahead yet.

Maybe it's the wrong approach but I thought I'd get more written before I posted anywhere. Plus so far I've been going back and making changes to earlier chapters so I'm not sure how that works with sites like you mentioned.