Feedback for AoE

Here's the first page of AoE. This is the latest draft, not necessarily the final draft. I ran it through this. The asterisk is where the feedback stopped.

      Keelia sat down on a park bench beside a man in a dark suit. “The fox runs swiftly.”

      “Except in deep snow.”

    “Unless it's Christmas in July,” she objected, following the script that appeared as a transparent overlay in her vision.

      “Do you have the package?”

      “Do you have the money?”

      The man removed a thick envelope from his suit coat and opened it, thumbing a stack of old-fashioned Benjamins. Keelia pulled out a sealed, matching envelope. Warily, they traded. The man stood and moved to leave.

       “Aren't you going to check it?” She put the cash in a pocket of her maroon blazer where it would vanish and be credited to her game account.*

He paused and turned his face toward her, never directly looking, merely showing profile. “You know the penalty for a double-cross. You'd be tracked down like a dog.”

      Keelia grinned as he walked away. They had written that line because of her. In Avatars of Espionage beta, she thought it weird that the non-player character, a computer-controlled person, didn't verify the delivery and had questioned him. The system flagged it. The developers added the extra response. Every once in a while she ran the A Timely Delivery mission just to hear him say the words.

     “Are you done with that quest yet, Alice?” Noemi asked in group chat, which functioned at any distance in the game world regardless of geography. For tonight's missions the group were all in Reality City.

The feedback was this:

"The concept of a code phrase has been pushed almost entirely into humor at this point so it’s likely going to be tough to set a serious scene that opens with an exchange of code phrases. I’m being a bit nitpicky, but the script is not transparent (presumably) or it would be extremely difficult to read. The description of the exchange seems like stage directions because there’s no emotional context to what’s happening. This tense exchange turning out to just be some sort of exchange of game credits is a bit anticlimactic. I think you’re trying to rely too much on mystery when you would probably do better with a straightforward opening."

I haven't had time to absorb this yet and think of a way to change it. Nevertheless, it's YA for teenagers. They don't know all the clichés and tropes yet. To them, a code phrase would probably be cool, but hmm. Most of this page is a disguised prologue. Shh. The exchange isn't the story. Its purpose is to set a certain tone for the rest of the book and establish expertise of the main character. Does that mean the story starts in the wrong place? Maybe so. Starting it somewhere else would mean major changes or a complete re-think of the first chapters. The transparency thing is technically correct, but in computers a window that can be seen through but still read is always referred to as being transparent. However, to accommodate normal people, I'll change it to nearly transparent. Anticlimactic. Probably because it's a disguised prologue. That may be another indication the story starts in the wrong place. That or I shouldn't worry, because teenagers haven't seen it all before, and won't notice a thing. It depends on the market, I guess. No emotional context/stage directions. Hmm. The character is following a script she has followed multiple times. The emotional payoff is after that in the grin. Nevertheless.

I suppose the prologue could be dumped altogether and the story start with final paragraph of page 1, but that would require some rethinking. Could I work that tone into the rest of the chapter instead? Hmm. It wouldn't be the same, but...

So, anyway. These are my first rough thoughts on the feedback. I haven't had time to ponder them deeply yet. The problem is that changing things is changing them to fit what publishers like not what readers like. Today's standards were not true yesterday and will not be true tomorrow. Readers like what they like. They don't care what publishers like. I suppose it's going to come down to whether I try to sell this book to a publisher or to readers.

Overall, I was hoping for better, but it's helpful stuff. It gives me things to think about and direction for improvement. What I really need is to be able to afford an editor so I can fine tune my skills. Or a mentor.

Have a great weekend.