u/East-Echo-7267

Hey, looking for feedback on this cyberpunk story I've started writing, I don't have a lot of experience so would like to get an idea of the kind of level I'm currently at.

Specifically I would appreciate feedback primarily in these areas:

Dialogue- does my dialogue flow well, does it feel natural (in a cyberpunk world)

Characters- Specifically Angelo, and to some extent Kiara, do you get a strong sense of who they are?

Action- Lower priority, but it would be good to know if the action sequence was at least easy enough to follow, or if there are areas I could improve.

Finally, there may be one or two areas where I've wrote notes to myself in brackets, please ignore those.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRUlFKa8096v0eDWtmp6Psfbsfw6Ihyo44bfvdipqDiTS0WciDEdFKufZiq_mu6qBjSkbnd84U01fe_/pub

Critiques:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/1ukn961/comment/ovc2wxy/?context=3

https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/1ukr2im/comment/ovb403g/?context=3

I'd love to get some feedback on the first 600 or so words of this first chapter. I'm still pretty new to writing, (I wrote around 30k words for another story before dropping it).

Specifically, would you be interested to keep reading further?

How does the dialogue read?

Do the characters stand out?

Any areas to improve?

Ignore some of the cliché Cyberpunk terms, I will create better ones at a late date.

You can often tell someone's intentions by looking in their eyes, which is why Angelo hid his behind sunglasses, especially when his intentions were less than genuine, also he thought they made him look más chévere. He glanced over the balcony to the street below, the odd car passing by here and there, about as quiet as you can get in the middle of the industrial district, it had just passed 10pm, the sun had set half an hour ago, the last little remnants of light blue fading to blackness on the horizon, the PharmaNova billboard had just sprung to life. Perfect conditions for an ambush. He could see one of Kiara’s crew waiting on the other side, set with a stinger ready for when the truck passed through.

“How much longer?”

“Patience mamacita patience, I have it all planned out.” Angelo said, puffing on a chunky synth Cuban cigar, creating little smoke circles as he exhaled. “I’ve done this a million times.” Realistically he’d done a job like this twice before and both times it had gone to absolute shit… for everyone else.

“I swear if you try to fuck us.” Kiara said.

Angelo peered over his sunglasses and looked her up and down, “I’m tempted… ah, but not in the way you think.” She stared at him deadpan, “relax! I joke, I joke. They’ll be here any minute, trust me.”

“I trust you about as much as I trust my lying, cheating, shitstain of an ex.”

“Oh!” Angelo said, clutching his chest, “Kiara you break my heart.”

“Fuck you, people I knew died in that last job you pulled.”

“An unfortunate turn of events, one I regret dearly,” he lied.

Kiara scoffed, “Funny, how you conveniently crawled out of that mess a much richer man.”

He took his sunglasses off, “There was nothing convenient about it.” He put on his best upset face, he thought he even managed to produce a tear. Kiara had crossed her arms and wore a scowl that demonstrated her disdain for him clearly. “You don’t believe me?” He said.

“What gave it away?” She asked sarcastically. "We’re the ones putting our lives on the line here, you’re just sitting on your fat ass writing up the plan.”

“That’s what I’m good at! That and I’m about as nimble as a slightly overweight boar”, he said, patting his slightly overweight belly. “Don't forget, I scoped out the ambush spot, did the surveillance, found the buyer, arranged the drop point…need I go on?” He smiled at her. “That’s why you do the shooting and I do the planning.”

Kiara scoffed, Angelo spread his arms, accepting his defeat, not that it mattered what she or her crew thought, as long as they did the job. “You can rest easy, the payment for this one is the cargo. If we don’t pull this off, we both don’t get paid.” 

“You mean if we don’t pull this off?” Kiara bit back.

“That’s what I said.”

“We, meaning me and my crew,” she said, pointing to herself and her crew set up on the street. “Not you. You’re lucky I don’t just kill you here and now.”

“Don’t be so cruel Kiara, you need me.”

“I needed your information and the buyer, not your physical fucking presence.” 

“Ahhhhh, but I couldn’t miss all the fun, this right here, this is the best part. Tires squealing, windows smashing, bullets flying, heads popping, all the sounds of a well laid plan coming together.”

Kiara sighed, stood and turned to lean over the balcony, she checked with her crew over holocall. After a moment she said, “We’re all set.” 

“Good, now we wait.” He leaned back in his chair, rested his legs on the one Kiara had vacated, put his sunglasses back on and started picking at a couple of grey stray hairs he could see sticking out of his beard from the corner of his eye and twisting his gold chain around his mechanical fingers, listening to the satisfying clink as the links passed over his knuckles.