I read the first chapter of Pheromone by Hal, and while it doesn’t bring anything new to the table or reinvent the wheel, it, however, certainly tickled my fancy. As a fan of these tropes, I liked it enough to give it a once-over.
But it’s bogged down by fixable flaws.
First off—holy walls-of-text, Batman!
You’ll know it when you see it, trust me…
Run-on sentences and punctuation hiccups bury the dialogue, which made it hard to read in certain places, and the tone wobbles between science-class and locker-room banter. I must admit, that it was a bit of a slog to read. My eyes begged for mercy. But hey, the bones are solid—a focused edit could turn this from ‘ouch’ to ‘hell yeah’!
I would definitely recommend getting an editor to go over this story; if you can’t find one to your liking, use an AI!
DeepSeek or DeepSeek on Poe will help you edit these stories, find plot holes, fill them with cement, and point out criticism that won’t feel like a punch in the balls by a donkey every time you get a shitty email.
Definitely a lot of potential with this one!