Here is some honest feedback. You created a lot of expectations that Chiara was different. But when the dialogue started, there wasn't really anything special. That put me off.
First of all, thanks for reading and commenting. Attention is the scarcest resource in the universe 🙏.
On your comment, this is mainly narrated from Luca's mind and his subjectivity colors the narration. He's estranged, cynical, closed. She's open, curious, emotionally engaged, but they are both normal, very normal people.
While there is no true peculiarity in her, her specialness lies in her honest, earnest, unprompted interest in him. This shocks him, for the first time at the center of the attention without even wanting to. By disclosing himself to her he does not find any judgement or rejection but pure, unadulterated interest. Isn't this special nowadays?
At a deeper level, I’m using a Jungian lens: he is a still-immature “hero” and she is his anima: welcoming, unthreatening, the safe harbor he never expected. On the surface she’s an ordinary girl, but to him her undivided, non-judgmental interest feels almost miraculous. That subjective shock is what I hoped would read as “special.”
That said, I take the feedback, I see where you may come from. I will reflect on how to make the contrast more powerful!
Your explanation makes sense, but it is not very evident. As a writer dialogue is a tool, where we can make the thinking of the character show to the reader instead of telling them directly why it is surprising.
Here is some honest feedback. You created a lot of expectations that Chiara was different. But when the dialogue started, there wasn't really anything special. That put me off.
First of all, thanks for reading and commenting. Attention is the scarcest resource in the universe 🙏.
On your comment, this is mainly narrated from Luca's mind and his subjectivity colors the narration. He's estranged, cynical, closed. She's open, curious, emotionally engaged, but they are both normal, very normal people.
While there is no true peculiarity in her, her specialness lies in her honest, earnest, unprompted interest in him. This shocks him, for the first time at the center of the attention without even wanting to. By disclosing himself to her he does not find any judgement or rejection but pure, unadulterated interest. Isn't this special nowadays?
At a deeper level, I’m using a Jungian lens: he is a still-immature “hero” and she is his anima: welcoming, unthreatening, the safe harbor he never expected. On the surface she’s an ordinary girl, but to him her undivided, non-judgmental interest feels almost miraculous. That subjective shock is what I hoped would read as “special.”
That said, I take the feedback, I see where you may come from. I will reflect on how to make the contrast more powerful!
Your explanation makes sense, but it is not very evident. As a writer dialogue is a tool, where we can make the thinking of the character show to the reader instead of telling them directly why it is surprising.