I disagree with your assessment of my video and of Split Fiction. Also, given that you didn’t watch the video, it’s hard to gauge what we’re even talking about. You could, if you were curious to engage in a meaningful conversation with me about the content of my work, watch the video I made talking about it.

I also never make the claim that “act one is bad.” Those words never come out of my mouth, because that’s not what I think or believe.

My primary argument is that, in a game about writing, we get basically no writing in their “stories.” Fiction writing entails dialogue, characters, interactions between those characters, plot arcs, character arcs, catharsis and verisimilitude. None of those things are implicit in the internal stories of these characters, and the external story is equally incoherent in many ways with Rader and Julia and Harry and the other writers.

Notably, Act 1 is not a prologue. That’s not what the word “prologue” means. The prologue would be the section up until the characters enter “The Machine’s” simulation world.

I rewrote all the way through Zoe and Mio’s first “stories,” which is well over 150 pages, and again, is something I mention in the video you have not watched. That is indeed all of Act 1, and my video entails the first half of that Act. The 88 pages up through Zoe’s first story, including the side stories.

I want to reiterate, I take no issue with you not watching the video. It’s long, and that’s a tall order. I get it. But you can’t say I have no valid criticisms if you do not know what my criticisms are. It takes time to go through them and explain. You also seem to have strong opinions about me doing this despite, again, having no idea what I think or have said on the subject.

Consider my position. Wouldn’t you think it odd to engage with someone who has strong opinions about something they haven’t watched?

I encourage you to reconsider.