I'm attempting to write a novel, this is the very beginning, what are your thoughts?

Thanks allow me to continue. The fact that there is no joke gets conveyed in the first line. Because you have shown the reader something, you do not need to tell them the same thing. If you really want to stress the relationship between the action and the apocalypse being real, then a simple 'but' will suffice. 'Visual parameters: is unnecessarily verbose. I think the comedy of 'oh shit' can be adequately salvaged with a colon.

>But everything you see fades away, and as you bear witness to an unravelling reality, you can only think one thing: "Shit."

drop the curse words and it's ok

"Clouds disintegrating, stars imploding. The end of the universe seemed unreal, yet it happened. Everything as far as eyes could see vanished into nothingness, leaving you struck with a sense of utter dispair and confusion"

Not gonna lie, this is some pretty cheesy and straight up bad writing, sorry. I did what I could (while on work and on phone), OP.

>The End of the Universe almost seemed like a goddamn joke
Wtf. I don't like this. :(

It's the best thing I've read all day, op. I read three whole books today.

these are all worse than the original

i laughed OP, keep doing your thing. tourettes guy at the end of time. "visual parameters" is a bit clunky though, maybe change to "visual field"

"parameters" is more syllables than you need

>Clouds disintegrating, Stars Imploding.

This is a strange opening line OP. Why are imploding stars secondary to disintegrating clouds? One is a violent image of great celestial objects ceasing to be, one is a passive action of quiet negation on clouds, transient transparent objects not nearly as fixed or weighty as stars. Surely then it should be
>Stars imploding, clouds disintegrating
at least.
But I also wonder if attention would be drawn to the clouds in such an event at all, and this is partially from my confusion as to how these clouds are disintegrating. The way you have it written it seems simultaneous with the explosion, as if independent events caused by a similar force. What I can imagine is clouds dispersing in some kind of shock wave from a self destructing star, clouds shot from the sky.
But there is also the manner of their disappearance. Disintegrating is not very interesting, to my mind it conjures a kind of filmic dissolve cut. Should the clouds not be blown apart, or dispersed? Or at least disintegrate all at once? Clouds disintegrating suggests an ongoing action. I look out my own window right now and there are clouds disintegrating. But if all at once all the clouds disintegratED, there would be room for concern.
>The End of the Universe almost seemed like a goddamn joke. It wasn’t.
I actually don't understand this either, what kind of joke does it seem like? Is the end of the universe so over the top and cliched you can't believe it's happening? I don't get any kind of cliche or joke from "Clouds disintegrating, Stars Imploding."
>Everything within your visual parameters was fading away, and you thought “Well….Shit.”
This is also ambiguous. If everything in sight is "fading away" it sounds like you, from the narrator's perspective, are experiencing a personal subjective death, the lights are going out on your dwindling consciousness. But if you are trying to describe the destruction of everything in sight, again, the slow, soft, fading language is not nearly violent or sudden enough.

Again some of this may be explained in further passages, but you generally want your opening lines to be self sustaining. Keep writing at any rate user. That you only get better with practice is not a meme.

More autistic than OP good job dude

Just reading back over what you have, I thought maybe you were trying for such a quiet and unassuming apocalypse, and therein being the irony of the "joke", that the end of the world could be so underwhelming.
If so you should play this up more, because it's actually pretty unique, but not easy for someone to infer from what you have written.

You nailed it, thanks for the legitimate critique. I've never written any type of story before so I'm still working out some writing ideas/techniques.

I'm just glad someone understood what I was going for.

Now I understand the order of your opening line too, the clouds GIVE WAY to the image of the starry sky.
Well good luck user, you've got your work cut out for you.

Haha, thank you. Do you have any suggestions for writing guides or how to use more detail in writing? Just wondering.

My first thought was that writing in second person makes it sound like a creepypasta. My second thought was that you should wait til the whole thing is written before deciding which part is going to be the beginning. Not to say that some people don't write chapter one first, just don't hold rigidly to the idea that what you initially wrote as chapter one has to stay chapter one.

My only advice regarding writing guides is not to use them. Any "guide" to writing is for MFA or genreplebs who want to know the right cliches to cobble together. Writing is the mediating between the thoughts in your head and the words on the page. Reread, consider the function of individual words and phrases, how they create meaning for the reader, and whether or not this meaning aligns with what you had in mind. (it invariably won't) Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite

While you're correct, writing guides can actually be useful for people who are not even at the level of genreplebs and soon to be stagnated MFA grads. Say what you want about the man, but Stephen Kings writing guide has some good tips for beginners.

>swearing
no

holy... I want more

I just did this one on the fly, I like it. I'll probably incorporate it into the book.

And with the speed of conchord, Xolar slams Joliet's head into his wagina and flexes. Decapitating her instantly. "I'm so coo!l" Xolar incessantly tells himself to avoid the crushing reality of what he's done.