[VRMMORPG] Le Monde Online

[tabyk]

Something I've been poking at for a while now.  Kind of wrote myself into a corner last year and am still trying to figure out how to get out of it (and how much I may need to re-write).  Mostly just fishing for some basic feedback and likes / dislikes.

Also, hi all!  It's been a while.

Chapter List (in reverse)

[Anastasia]

I'll give it a read tomorrow, when it's not 3 AM my time. What's the story about, by the way?

[Anastasia]

I read the first three chapters and a bit of the fourth. I'm wondering if it's meant to be a slice of life story or if a greater plot is waiting in the wings? My opinion depends on that.

[Jason_Miao]

I've read through chapter 4, and here's my quick takeaway: You're switching between present tense and past tense narration throughout.

A faint hum, and then... nothing.  I try to lift my arm and I don't think it's moving, but I can see my VR avatar lift its arm.  It feels weird, but I've experienced it before at a center, so it isn't totally unexpected.  Usually, the odd feeling kind of fades away after a few minutes, assuming the virtual environment is designed well.

I walk around the cabin a bit, pick a few things up and bang my arms and legs against a couple of things.  Yep, I can feel the haptic feedback giving me that 'enough' sensation that my brain is mostly convinced it is real.  I stretch, squat, and run in place for a moment.  Yep, good enough.

I picked Manosque Village to start in mostly for the snow.  I love snow, and it was the Southernmost starting town in the Southern continent.  Basically, the closest to a pole that someone could start at within the game.

I'm being attacked?!!

Looking around I didn't see any hostile creatures. No arrows sticking out of me...

I don't know why you're stuck, so I don't know if rewriting your chapters with a consistent narrative tense will help you or not. I do know that sticking to a consistent narrative style means that some scenes are easier to write well than others. Just switching the tense of words isn't enough; you have to think about how to present the setting and actions in a way that fits the style.  For example, if you want to stick with first person present tense narration, you ought to present information in mostly chronological order as the character is perceiving the situation.  So you could start chapter 2 like so:

I'm logged in, and...OW!  Am I being attacked?!! I can't see any monsters. I don't have any wounds. There's no blood. What was the -OW- command to pull up the combat log?

-1 LIFE [COLD]

Oh, that makes sense. I picked Manosque Village to start in for the snow. I love snow, and Manosque closest to a pole that someone could start at within the game. There's snow and wind and cold all over.

And I love it. The environmental effects are as realistic as they are amazing. The visuals of the snow reflecting the sunlight were [describe in a way that the reader can feel how the character feels. Probably an analogy.]. The sound of the wind [describe: Whispered? Roared? Murmured? Something else?]. The haptic feedback was doing something - I'm not sure what - that gave me goosebumps and a sensation of cold.

Given the realism, I should have guessed that the damage effects on someone wearing the starter kit of a Japanese schoolgirl uniform would be equally realistic.

I made up half those details on the fly because if you're writing as the character who is actively living the situation right now, the point is to relay the character's current perception. The "Japanese schoolgirl uniform" was just a moment of inspiration in spite of chapter 1 ("The fiber connection looks good, sir.") because it very much explains why the character is feeling cold. Of course, if you wanted to adopt this example, you could just change the starter kit to something more realistic.

Or you could explain it with an offhand comment by having the character grip about starting the same the same week that the game was promoting a Magical Girl Battle Royale anime...and hey, maybe that's the basis of a new plot hook 50 chapters later. Or the character is instead wearing a kilt because he picked a Scots-inspired race during character selection, and now you've got a different angle. That's two different foundations for a potential future plot twist (blatant commercialization raising hell with gameplay, or culture-setting mismatches), just based on an offhand joke about the starting kit that flows from having to narrate in a consistent tense. 

But again, maybe having a foundation for future plot twists isn't why you're stuck. I just haven't read that far, so I can't say for sure whether this helps with your issue. It's just a possibility.