Just came across this thread. I'd like to throw in mine as well, if you have the time :)
Madness, with a pinch of salt
Rating: Middle of the road so would not keep reading.
THE GOOD
The prose on a technical level was good.
In terms of framing the elements of your story, I appreciated the attempt. Telling the story through the help. And I got what was going on (I think) with the larger story despite not beeing in Joanna.
WHY IT DIDN'T WORK
The individual sentences read nicely, but the prose was a mess. You really waste a lot of the reader's time- not only repeating information but straight up contradiciting yourself. For example:
In paragraph 8, you end by saying that the maids don't care what happens to Joanna because the lord of the hosue didn't care. But in Paragraph 9 you tell us that 'nevermind, the maids did care because xyz."
A few paragraphs later, all the maids look at the one maid who ansers in admiration. . . just because she answered like a normal human being? Why? What?
OVERALL
It's a potentially good worked that's bogged down by completely innefficient prose. You need to communicate information faster, more efficiently, and more logically. A professional novel is like 90% efficient. Let's say that a popular and good webnovel is 80-85. This is sitting around 60%. For every ten words you write, we could get rid of / need to change four of them.
I just started my new novel and I'm already insecure about its first chapter. My beta readers keep telling me that it's fine, but I think that they're lying to make me feel good. I hope that you can help. Thanks in advance
(P//S: I know that it doesn't sound like it but I'd like you to be as brutally honest as possible.)
Reincarnation of the greatest Swordsmaster | Scribble Hub
RATING: Middle of the Road so would not keep reading.
THE GOOD
I actually like most of the writing. The character voice, the personality you infuence, even the humor. In terms of pure content, it checked a lot of the boxes.
You won me over early. At the point where the baby was crying from the story, I said "that's not right." But then the mother came in and commented on it not being right and said "good, the writer is self aware. And that's actually funny and cute."
THE OTHER SHOE
The weird form was disruptive. You used quotations and italics and all sorts of stuff seemingly at random. Don't get me wrong, there was an internal logic to it, but it was disruptive. Take the start for example, Quotations around apostrophes, broken up by voiced silence. The goal was to let us know that someone was reading a book, and you wayyyy over corrected to the point where I didn't realize the intent initially. Coneptually it's a cool idea, maybe like a rug pull where we find out this grand story is just that, a story. But it doesn't serve as build up and pay off when you scream it as us.
The second issue I had is that for all the personality, a lot of what you're throwing at us is kind of stupid and not well thought out. Places where I thought it was set up for a joke, but then you play it straight.
Off the top of my head:
The opening line to the story, which doesn't really read like a story.
Despite being a story book, it's apparently a news story. . . and the mother was a reporter for it? It's like three disperate elements there and none of them go together.
Despite being put into a baby's body. . . they are still in a baby's body. Wouldn't them being out in the cold be a problem like the mother said? I don't get that.
OVERALL
Some energetic writing offset by moments where I have to stop writing and my brain is forced to process the intent/ logic. If the intent is just this off the wall comedy where nothing is treated seriously, then maybe it needs to be more overt?