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Mayapuri - The City of Dreams... - Detailed Feedback

I also liked the familial issues. Well, I feel like that makes me sound like a psycho lmao no I didn't like them in the sense that I like seeing families fight, but I liked them. Does that make sense? Okay okay, I mean I liked that you covered this topic and I think it was done well. Hopefully that makes me sound less weird, haha.

But in all seriousness, the relationship between all the families and also the romantic relationships were very thought-provoking and meshed well with the characters you chose for this plot. The inclusion of all these back and forth dynamics between parents and children made for an emotional journey.

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What Didn't Work:

There is a lot of exposition, especially in the first two chapters but it happens throughout the rest of the story too. A lot of times there will be several paragraphs in a row explaining the family history and all that kind of stuff, and while I don't think that's inherently a bad thing, I'd recommend being careful about how often you do it. It happens in chapters 1, 2, and 3, so reading three chapters where the story stops to suddenly explain the family tree/character backgrounds can get distracting and hard to follow at times.

For example, whenever a new character is introduced, they typically get one to two long paragraphs explaining their backstory. Sometimes they get even more than two. It's okay if this happens every once in a while, but it happens almost every time a new character is introduced, and oftentimes it happens after there was already a lot of exposition. So I would recommend having more scene rather than summary. Maybe present that exposition in a different way, like breaking it up and only giving the audience what they absolutely need for the chapter they're reading, then saving the rest of the exposition for another time.

You can also give exposition through dialogue, which you do already sometimes. That way instead of getting walls of text, we get to see the exposition through dialogue.

My last recommendation would be to put the exposition in more bite-sized chunks. By that I mean, maybe go back and forth between scene and summary. Maybe give 1-4 sentences of exposition, cut back to what's happening in the present, then go back to giving 1-4 sentences of exposition. By using that method you could move the story along while also giving exposition.

So those are three ways you can break up the exposition and present it in more unique ways. I'm not saying you have to use all three of those ways or anything, but I would suggest considering it and choosing what you think works best for your writing style!

The sentence structure is very similar where it goes from start to finish with no interruptions. By that I mean, your sentences are mostly like this, "It had been three years. Akash was married to another school teacher and had two children." It goes from start to full stop, normally short sentences too. I would recommend playing around with your sentence structure more. Try using sentences that need dashes, semicolons, colons, commas, etc. You use sentences that have commas, but not very frequently.

There are some grammar errors, like with spacing and punctuation. For example, you normally don't include a space between standard text and dialogue. From chapter 3: The young man said to Ajay's father,"We need to stay here for a month." It should be: The young man said to Ajay's father, "We need to stay here for a month."

There are some issues with commas, like here: That is one of the reasons why, he wanted a separate house (chap 3). The comma isn't needed, making it a comma splice. 

There are ellipse (...) issues where you will use far more than three dots. Ellipses are supposed to be three dots and in rare cases four, but normally three. So, in chapter 4, there's this: "The reason is...... there are just two rooms in our house." So the six dots should be three. Similarly, there are times you use excess punctuation, like with exclamation marks where you'll include more than one. I would recommend not using excess punctuation simply because it can be hard to read and is telling over showing. So, from chapter 3, there's this: "Enough!!!!!" Only one exclamation mark is needed to get the point across. I hope that makes sense!

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Summary:

- Awesome worldbuilding

- Cool concept

- Interesting commentary on the middle class life

- Ajay and Renuka are engaging characters

- Consider experimenting with different sentence structures

- Grammar errors (punctuation, spacing errors)

- Consider cutting down on exposition and using more scene instead of summary

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Overall:

Mayapuri - The City of Dreams... is an engaging, heartwarming story with a lot of emotion put into it. There's love, drama, a close look at family relationships, and more. If you're someone who enjoys emotional stories, then Mayapuri - The City of Dreams... is the perfect book for you!

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