(This is for the first chapter)
The first chapter is okay, yet, when reading this there are two general things I think you can do to make this better.
1. Ground your explanations. I.E. you can say that he sees a scary dog, and explain why it is so, but if add a growling sound effect before it is introduced it will sell that the dog is scary.
2. The time skips were a bit disorientating.
2 is easy to fix, either remove some of the time skips, or, for some of them, tell how much time has passed.
1 is a bit harder to explain, and I tend to overcomplicate explanations.
Here is an in text explanation for #1. (Red text will be for what is happening, orange will be for why it matters, yellow will be for how it effects, purple will be for how and making it real, and green will be suggested changes.)
Grounding a scene will allow you to put the reader in the scene. You want to do this when something new is happening, when explaining a setting/character/item/ability, and for important moments.
To ground a scene you need to know what is happening, how that effects the character(s)/setting, why what is happening matters, and to some extent how it is happening. Then you need to make it real. To do that you need to connect the scene to the reader. You can do that by establishing consequences, having a solemn momen, or anything that can make the scene matter after it is over. Here is an example:
Suzy is a small dog, her shoulders are not even a foot off the ground. She is taking a walk with her owner, Bruce. She has been limping recently, and Bruce has been worried. ‘Is she hurt?’ He wondered. It was then when Suzy tripped. She yelped in a mix of pain and surprise, as Bruce picked her up and stroked her head. “Don’t worry Suz, my little pup, I will take you to the vet, and hopefully you will no longer have that limp.
First read the original passage in its entirety.
(spoiler=“Original“) Piercing eldrich screams echoed in the boundless dark from all directions in synchronous with unending sensations that washed over like waves of the monsoon, rapid and heavy. Meandering through contemplation, lost, so dazed that he was unaware of the manifestations in his surroundings.
Suddenly a pulsating prismatic glow replaced the present all-encompassing dark field. Despite the jarring nature of the sudden disturbance, stilled and glaze-eyed was Remus. All of it was maddening, but so lost in trance he was that he noticed not. With each burst of radiance, Remus faded ever-so-slightly until Remus was no more.
____
All there was a strong pine-like smell. Then came erratic bursts of colour, surreal blends of images contained within. Blinding flashes of light projected from innumerous angles. Multitudes of sounds came and went with no rhyme nor reason, all dissimilar to each other.
Images of bugs, birds, and rodents superposed all perception, co-occurring with ant-like ministration felt all around. Occasionally such imagery was melded with blurry shapes of vaguely miniature humanoids speaking gnomic utterances passing by subtlety in the background. All the while the body experienced impressions of being pushed, pulled, crushed, stretched, flipped, twisted, turned, bounced, and spiralled, bound to any and all possible directions in rapid sequence. Then all came to an abrupt halt, calm finally.
With a mind stuck between profundity and banality from the experience endured, it coped by scrubbing all traces of what had happened. What had happened vanished from the mind completely. What had happened was simply nothing. Remus experienced nothing but calm, for nothing happened.
"Ughh... ouch..."
Now awake, with the courtesy of a piercing headache, Remus just laid there for a while even with uneven earth under, hand pressing on his forehead. A few moments later, the headache subsided for the most part, thus prompting Remus to finally move
(/spoiler)
Now let’s add the color analysis:
(spoiler=‘color-analysis’) Piercing eldrich screams echoed in the boundless dark from all directions in synchronous with unending sensations that washed over like waves of the monsoon, rapid and heavy. Meandering through contemplation, lost, so dazed that he was unaware of the manifestations in his surroundings.
Suddenly a pulsating prismatic glow replaced the present all-encompassing dark field. Despite the jarring nature of the sudden disturbance, stilled and glaze-eyed was Remus. All of it was maddening, but so lost in trance he was that he noticed not. With each burst of radiance, Remus faded ever-so-slightly until Remus was no more.
____
All there was a strong pine-like smell. Then came erratic bursts of colour, surreal blends of images contained within. Blinding flashes of light projected from innumerous angles. Multitudes of sounds came and went with no rhyme nor reason, all dissimilar to each other.
Images of bugs, birds, and rodents superposed all perception, co-occurring with ant-like ministration felt all around. Occasionally such imagery was melded with blurry shapes of vaguely miniature humanoids speaking gnomic utterances passing by subtlety in the background. All the while the body experienced impressions of being pushed, pulled, crushed, stretched, flipped, twisted, turned, bounced, and spiralled, bound to any and all possible directions in rapid sequence. Then all came to an abrupt halt, calm finally.
With a mind stuck between profundity and banality from the experience endured, it coped by scrubbing all traces of what had happened. What had happened vanished from the mind completely. What had happened was simply nothing. Remus experienced nothing but calm, for nothing happened.
"Ughh... ouch..."
Now awake, with the courtesy of a piercing headache, Remus just laid there for a while even with uneven earth under, hand pressing on his forehead. A few moments later, the headache subsided for the most part, thus prompting Remus to finally move
(/spoiler)
When looking at the color version you can see that while you explained what is happening, why it is happening, and how it is happening. Yet, you have yet to connect it back to the reader. You could remove the passage and nothing much would change. The goal is to fix that. How, for this specific passage, I don’t really know how, but you could start with the “Ugh.. ouch…” part.
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