As it goes, I do agree that the "interesting -> mundane -> reminder of interesting thing" beginning is a decent way of maintaining interest; it's just that the reminder should (to my mind) come just as the audience is lulled into a sense of security in the mundane, not thousands of words after that point. The problem is that the mundane is... well, mundane, and thus not especially interesting. ;-)Voight-Kampff wrote: Well, as I mentioned earlier, the whole point of the ADV sequence after the hook was to provide a clear illustration to the reader of what Lira's unguarded state is like - so as to provide a contrast once she arrives in the big city. It seems I'll have to rethink the format and length of that demonstration.
I don't know whether it's been an influence on your writing, but it's a bad habit that a lot of writers fall into to presume that "longer" automatically equals "better" or "more interesting". One common practice when editing is to go through your script and - a scene at a time - work out what that scene adds to the story that no other scene already does, that's important to the reader's understanding of the story. If you can't find anything - if it's just a fluff scene - then cut it. After that, you can go through the writing in the scenes you have remaining and use the unique thing that scene portrays as a razor to decide whether particular sections of the scene are necessary or just padding. Not to suggest you absolutely need to strip the writing down to the very bare bones - throwaway dialogue can also be revealing of character - but it's worth trimming the fat to keep the reader engaged.
(As to keeping the reader cognizant of the surrounds - remember that you have audio and visual to do that for you, as well. There's not so much point narrating stuff that the reader can already see or hear for themselves.)
Unfortunately, I believe that is exactly what has happened here. As I had eluded to earlier, Type-Moon titles are a particular influence on my writing style - at least in regards to VNs. And one thing that Nasu does is write endless amounts of detail. In fact, I consider one of his characters from FSN (Kirei) to be one of the most evil villains I've ever come across, due primarily to his desire to inflict pain via long-winded speeches. I had sworn not to fall into that trap. But it seems while keeping my eye on one trap, I fell into another...Cursed single-mindedness!
