DAMN!
That is the best comment I ever received on my work. This is the first "Novel" I write and I do it because I enjoy writing. I have a journalism background but only in study I hardly worked in the field (just FYI).

And you are spot on, but you already knew that. I know I can be comma heavy, but noted and will definitely work on it as I prefer shorter sentences, but I also like a pretty flow. But I definitely will try to improve the balance.

And indeed I am taking the reader by the hand through the history as the protagonist is the village teacher/historian and we move to his POV in a bit. Will leave that as is for now, but I certainly got your point about those first 5 pages.

As you can imagine I worked a lot on getting those first 1000 words in a certain shape, which does not mean it´s the right shape. I am a bit stubborn and not always agree with what is the so-called correct or popular way of doing things, but again your point is very true and I will think about doing it differently.

The repetitiveness just slipped in there, and I am not the best editor, hence it got overlooked but fixed it.

Very happy you bring this up while I only published the first chapter and not when I am halfway or worse!

Now there are probably a million other trapdoors I will step onto but the takeaway is:
Commas
Immediacy, I love to use too many words and they do not always add value
But my biggest trap is that the author speaks too much instead of the characters. We will get to the protagonist soon and it will change the pov. But I will really need to work on that.

Again DAMN,

Huge thanks for taking the time to point these things out, its extremely helpful! Although it does mean that I will be up all night to improve chapter 2 which is due tomorrow 😂