Hi guys.
New to the site, and just released my first chapter to my story,
Birthright. Got some reads on it, and one five star, which I am happy about, but no feedback. I'll be releasing chapter 2 soon, so could someone swing by and check it out, then let me know if they'd like to leave some feedback, or wait until I release more chapters. Thanks!
You can find it here:
Birthright
View attachment 18435
Obligatory reminder that English is my second language, and this is subjective feedback from a reader. I stopped reading after I finished all the available chapters. The current last chapter is
Chapter 2
Before I start with the feedback, here is some friendly advice. If you will continue to write, use as many tags and genres as possible. This will help A LOT with getting more views. I know some authors don't want to spoil their stories by putting genres and tags. I don't know if you are one of such authors, but if you are, I must tell you the following. With so few tags and genres, you will barely get any views. And it's not about getting hundreds of views instead of thousands; it's about getting ten or twenty views with zero comments. Moreover, if people find certain things or twists in your story that you didn't tag because you were afraid of spoiling things, they might react with a 1-star in retaliation.
Let me say a couple of words about your synopsis. My subjective opinion, I want you to alter it slightly. Right now, your synopsis is very barebones and has nothing to it. Add a bit more. A somewhat objective opinion, I dislike the following sentence.
But what should have been a simple recovery turns into a bitter fight for survival as Tyger stumbles across a threat worse than the voracious Blair wildlife ... and the stranded Imperial soldier who has been hunting it. First of all, it's way too long; secondly, I can't understand why you used ellipsis here. Use of ellipsis means you omit stuff. Here it looks like it's either a typo or you missed something.
Now let's talk about the actual story. I will begin with the parts which I can't comment on. Characters and plot. I've read way too little to say anything meaningful here. Usually, when I read so little, I can't say a lot unless there are problems. In your case, you didn't have any problems.
Worldbuilding. This is very subjective, but I think you introduce way too many new terms. It's only the second chapter, but it feels like I should already know every term and name. When it comes to me, such things push me away from reading because I feel as if I'd started reading the novel from the middle rather than the beginning.
With this out of the way, I can talk about your writing, prose, and grammar. I don't like how you write. I think it's not bad, but you are held back by a couple of things; paragraphing, overly long sentences, and weird phrases.
Paragraphing.
He finally asked, not recognizing the sound of his own voice. No sooner than he’d posed the question, he felt a cold cylindrical object pressed into his hand.
“Well, it was so long ago,” Galem ruminated,
Above, you can see two examples of bad paragraphing. In the first example, you don't even need to change anything.
“Got some water around here?” He finally asked, not recognizing the sound of his own voice.
No sooner than he’d posed the question,
That's it. It's done and looks much better, in my opinion. You have your dialogue line with the dialogue tag separated, and then you proceed to write the action, description, and whatever. You can even split that paragraph into three, and, in my opinion, it will only add to the clarity. As for the second example, I will talk about it later when I talk about your dialogues.
Overly long sentences.
Galem’s mention of the word brought back a connection from the haze of the fever dream in the swamps where he spoke with his father, or at least what he thought was his father; it was hard to tell. I will use only one example because I understand this part is subjective, and I can't properly explain how to make it better or why. You have a lot more of such long sentences in the text, and it's really hard to read them, especially when they are parts of overly big paragraphs. I think you can and should rephrase the majority of such sentences and split them into two. It's okay to write them occasionally, yet even your synopsis has an overly long sentence, it's too much.
Here are examples of weird sentences and phrases.
He half-whispered through an impossibly dry mouth. I don't like impossibly here, sounds weird. The mouth also sounds kinda weird.
He half-whispered through his cracked lips. I don't like how I wrote it either, but I hope I gave you an explanation of what I want to see.
Tyger winced from the effort of even thinking as a bolt of pain shot through the middle of his head. The effort of thinking, don't like how this sounds and I think you should paraphrase it.
Even thinking was painful enough to make Tyger wince. Again, don't like how I rephrased it, but I wanted to show a direction where you should move.
Though even focusing his vision hurt, Even is a filler word here. Get rid of it or paraphrase the whole sentence.
Galem squinted, but in a somewhat unreadable manner with his obscuring facial features. I don't like how this is written. Same deal as the examples above, rephrase it.
It took about half an hour, but the stampede at last subsided, Same.
It took about half an hour for the stampede to subside. I think the way I paraphrased it reads a bit better here.
And the offer, however unnecessary, had been at least welcome. Simply weird and incomprehensible. What does '
however unnecessary' means?
I think all of the above really drags you down, as parts that didn't have those problems were easy to read and comprehend.
Another thing that I don't like are your dialogues. I can't say they are bad, but you have two problems. Repetitions, and dialogue tags. Repetitions are easy to explain. Open your chapter one, press ctrl+f, and type the word 'well'. It's okay to use the same phrases and words in dialogues. This can help you in building up the personalities of your characters. Yet when all of your characters use the same words and phrases and you repeat them it looks bad.
Dialogue tags. You overuse them and at the same time, don't use them in proper places. Dialogue tags are used to indicate who is talking, so when you've already set up who is who, who is talking, and write dialogue line after line, drop the: 'he said', 'she said'.
“Mom had lots of stories about him,”
Tyger said. “He shared them with her; she shared them with me while I was growing up.”
The hiltbearer seemed to grimace. “That doesn’t sound too pleasant.”
“Well, some of them were pretty gruesome, but that was my dad for you,”
Tyger said. “How did you come to know him? What was he like?”
Above you can see an example. Highlighted parts can be safely removed, and you won't lose anything. Keep the part with 'grimace', it adds to the scene, but get rid of '
Tyger said'.
As for not using dialogue tags, let me return to your paragraphing and that second example.
“Well, it was so long ago,” Galem ruminated,
You can easily split this paragraph with the help of additional dialogue tags. Right now, it feels and reads like an info dump. But once you start adding small little movements, and reactions of Tyger to Galem's words, it can add to the scene. You don't need to write how Tyger interrupts Galem with words. You can keep the monologue, but add how Tyger's tail wags, how his eyes gleam or darken, something like this, and then write the reaction of Galem to this as a dialogue tag.
"He wasn’t like the rich saps from Icona who went on those little training wheel clad safari jaunts they called hunts."
Seeing how Tyger listened to his tale with bated breath, Galem scratched his chin in satisfaction.
"No, he’d go straight into the interior, often without a guide, just like you did. Then he’d bring his kill back to share with the Solace tribes"
This is just an example of what I meant. You should decide what you can add to the scenes yourself.
You have different typos.
In less than five minutes, the nanos would cut through the pain.
“Galem DiCiani?” Typo, didn't split the paragrpah.
recognizing barrel-chested man
who at in the chair beside him. Sat?
and then comes crawling in from the swamps,
delirious with the gas With the gas?
His arms,
folded over his chest shook as he gave a deep, throaty chuckle. Forgot comma?
“You knew my father?”
he ejected. “How? When?” Ejected?
Tyger couldn’t help but grin
as his hand went absently Hand went absently?
I also didn't like how you ended chapter 1. It ended abruptly but in the wrong way.
And that's it. Can't say much more. As I've already mentioned, your writing(prose, or whatever you want to call it) isn't bad, but I think you are held back by the mentioned problems. As usual, I didn't rate your novel, but if I had to, 1.75-2 stars. If you have any questions feel free to ask me. If I can, I will answer them.
), the ass ripper, the one who bashes newbies, the man, the myth, the legend. Based silusgimbel 
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