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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/5766
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/5766
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

You have the guy walk into what appears to be a deserted bar on a deserted street in a deserted city. Then he realizes there's a live woman lying on the stage, not sleeping but lying there sprawled and possibly injured, and she starts talking to him.

And all he does is "stare vacantly for a while," walk "hesitantly" to the back of the bar, and pour himself a drink?!

What's going through my head is:

- What happened to all the other people?
- Who is this woman?
- why is she lying on the stage of this deserted club? Is she real? a robot? a hallucination? attached to the stage?
- How can they be having this conversation comfortably if her back is to him?
- Why isn't HE worried about her sprawled there? What is wrong with him?
- Is his bizarre detachment part of what made everyone else leave? That they were so bored they all just eventually died in place? Then where are the bodies?

So part of your problem is that you've set up this situation where there is clearly Something Wrong, but your characters behave as though Nothing Is Wrong.

Now, that can in fact be a plot point, but you have to give the reader a clue about that. The _reader_ has to realize that they are not behaving "normally" for us but are behaving "normally" for _them._ I can't advise you on how to do that until you say whether you're doing this on purpose.

If you're not, then your character needs to act like a human being and rush over to the possibly injured woman and find _why she's lying half-naked on the stage in an empty room._

Original score: 3