Crits (Quick Update)
Received a good crit on my chapter two of The Game. I'm going to experiment with removing chapter two, since it is a depressing mirror to chapter one. Chapter one my main character, Ios, goes from hopefulness to despair. Chapter two goes from despair to hopefulness. And I keep feeling something is wrong with it. Too much downer in the beginning.

The main reasons I am holding back from removing it is the two flashbacks. But I think, as long as I don't make any references to those flashbacks in the other chapters that follow chapter two, then I can get away with "recycling" -- cutting and using those flashbacks later. After all, I plan on a good deal of this novel being flashbacks. Besides, with my new revision to chapter one, I think the info on my character's god is now set up without this chapter.

So, I'll try a fixup of both chapters, so that I can cut one out and see how that works and see if my instincts finally agree.

ETA: I completed the fix up and it works pretty well. He's still not cured of depression, but it's not such a weight anymore dragging him down: he's surviving, which is one half the novel's entire point.