Free feedback thread.

[SailusGebel]

New author writing their first story. Chapter 1 is long, but it's split into 3 parts. Chapters going forward are going to be split into sections.

Missing Hearts

Siblings Chris and Liah Mitchells already rocky relationship is put to the test when they, and their loved ones, get tangled up in a strange series of murders on a drive home one night. The following ordeal that sends one of them into a spiral of madness, drug abuse and...

www.scribblehub.com

Obligatory reminder that English is my second language, and this is subjective feedback from a reader. I stopped reading after I read around two-thirds of Chapter one.

Before I start with the feedback, here is a friendly advice. If you will continue to write and post on SH, use as many fitting tags and genres as possible. The more tags and genres you use, the better the visibility of your novel.

I really tried to finish the first chapter, but I couldn't force myself to do so. It's not that your novel is atrociously bad, but it's simply not my cup of tea at all. It was extremely boring for me. With all of this out of the way, I can start with feedback. And I feel like it will be pretty short.

First, good parts. Overall, prose, the way you write, call it however you want, is good. I like the descriptions, I like inner thoughts, and most of the time, I like dialogues. Dialogues can be hit or miss, but I feel like they are realistic.

Another good part is characters. Though I can't say much because I read so little, kids act like kids. I like it. I even was irritated at Chris's behavior, but then I understood he is a kid, and his behavior made sense to me and, in my opinion, added to his personality.

Parts that I can't comment on. Plot and worldbuilding. The plot part is self-explanatory. I've only read part of the first chapter, so I can't form an opinion on this. Worldbuilding is the same. Though, I have a question about worldbuilding. Hockey rink in Late October? Moreover, it's an outdoor hockey rink? How?

Okay, not bad parts. The bad parts are grammar and weird phrases. Let me start with the grammar. I will use a few examples for each mistake.

“Well then why didn’t she call us? I mean isn’t that why she got you a phone in the first place”
“Oh, that’s an easy one, because you’d put us out of house and home”
No period\full stop at the end of a sentence.

"it's always mistake with you,
"isn't it normal for siblings to fight though?" asked Liah.
You don't capitalize the start of a sentence.

"Not to this degree it isn't" Evelyn calmly replied. Punctuation mistake.

And finally a couple of typos.
“Good, glad we got that settled,”.
At about 5 feet away, Chris finally started to get a good look at the women in a gray dress. Should be woman, no?

Now, it's time for examples of weird sentences.
Clouds were overtaking the setting sun, rapidly, at a pace most couldn’t think observable outside of time lapse footage. Simply a weirdly phrased sentence. I understand what it means, but it looks like broken English.

He hadn’t a clue as to why the clouds entranced him. Should be, "he had no clue". Though I can be wrong here.

The sounds came directly from behind, from a young energetic girl, with blond braided hair and wearing faded skinny With something AND wearing?

A sharp metal pain shot into the back of his head, Sharp metal pain?

And this is the end of my feedback. I've got nothing else to say. Your story was a bit harder to read than I prefer, but I feel like it's because of your grammar, typos, and weird phrases. As usual, I didn't rate your novel, but if I had to, 3-3.25 stars. If you have any questions feel free to ask me. If I can, I will answer them.

 

[Horrible-Void]

No questions, you got across your points clearly.
Glad to hear you thought the characters were good, as it's probably the thing I care about most.

As for grammar, I already know it's not my strong suite. Though so far, you have given the clearest examples of where I can improve and greatly appreciate it. Also the advice about tagging is helpful to.

Thanks for giving it a chance and for the feedback.

 

[A-Thousand-ideas]

Can you review mine? I need a honest opinion on everything as this is my first novel so i trying to tune out mistakes and bad habits. https://www.scribblehub.com/series/801419/a-new-era-marches/

Edit: The first chapter was made to quickly so many details are left out.

 

[SailusGebel]

Hello~ I'd like to hear your feedback for my novel https://www.scribblehub.com/series/802668/the-girl-from-the-afterlife/
Genre: isekai, action, kinda sci-fi, psychological

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 1: One Rule And An Exception

Okay, this is going to be hard. The reason for that is the following. I have one point that is hard to properly explain or illustrate with examples.
Let me start with a few things that I can explain. First of all, grammar. I've seen a few cases of you using the wrong tenses. Some light editing will fix it. Another kinda mistake is weird phrases.

Here are a couple of examples.

The silencer on the rifle did its work. Did its job?
That stopped them from their track. Stopped IN their tracks?
But there's something about the girl that drew me into her orbit. What? I can understand what it means, but it is weird.

Though I'm not sure about these examples, there were a couple more weird sentences. It's not something major, but it would be cool if you fixed some of them. Other than that, personally, I didn't notice a lot of mistakes.

Okay, the last thing that is easy to explain is your synopsis. It's not good. It's way too big, convoluted, and simply not interesting enough. It doesn't provide a hook for me to read it. Like, should I be excited after reading this, "Together, we embarked on a journey to the Tower That Reaches The Sky." The fact that you repeat parts of your synopsis in the first chapter is also a downside.

I will simply post this link here.

Jay's Synopsis Formula will work on your novel.

This is actually an answer to an earlier thread, but it's best to share as a full thread. Why? Because it works. It does not matter if your story is slice of life about a GENDER-BENT BLOB OF ENERGY. My synopsis formula works. All you have to do is answer these FOUR QUESTIONS and you can create...

forum.scribblehub.com

Now that I've talked about everything I could've explained: let me get to the main point of my feedback. There is no storytelling; the pieces of your story are not connected properly. The story is very choppy.

How should I explain this properly? At least chapter one is in a first-person POV. However, despite it being first-person, it feels like the narrator is omniscient and simply provides comments from above. It doesn't look like coherent storytelling.

I will try to further explain this point by showing two examples. First example.
How could I miss that vital information? Because it didn't take long before their scout found me.

"There you are!" a man groaned as the blade touched my neck.

So, we have MC, a sniper, and a thug. She narrates her inner thoughts, then a man subdues her. What happens in the middle? I remind you, this is a first-person POV. She should've commented on HOW this man appeared, commented on noise or something. No. He finds her, and the very next second the blade touches her neck.

Not only that, "With his body pressed on my back," this also happened. So the dude materialized out of thin air and ended up on MC's back?

Another point is when you start this section, // Loading data…
You simply copy and pasted it. MC doesn't comment on it, you didn't break it up in any way or form. Despite this being a first-person POV, I, a reader, am forced to read this part. Do you know what happened to me? I thought of the following. So is she just standing here unmoving without any thoughts at all while this stuff happens? Does she have no emotions, no movements, nothing at all? Well, maybe she does, but at least make some kind of a remark or comment on it.

The second example.
When I was here four years ago, this faction wasn't in existence.

She must be distressed. Yet, she just stood there surrounded by the notorious members of the Crowenlings Faction.

This shows how your story is completely disconnected. Your MC didn't even know about this faction, yet she says they are NOTORIOUS. I mean, sure, she learns about them from a helmet thingy, but... But...

When I was here four years ago, this faction wasn't in existence. This sentence right here comes right after the helmet sequence. So she learns about the gang, says she doesn't know them, and then proceeds to call them notorious.

This probably sounds like nitpicking, but I just wanted to illustrate your problem with good examples. I can't dissect your whole chapter and explain this or that. It will take too much time, and this isn't something I volunteered to do.

And that's all. As usual, I didn't rate your novel, but if I had to, 1.75 stars. Although you don't have a lot of mistakes, and the story is relatively easy to read, it's way too choppy and disconnected for me to rate it higher. If you have any questions feel free to ask me. If I can, I will answer them.

 

[mcarrowen]

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 1: One Rule And An Exception

Okay, this is going to be hard. The reason for that is the following. I have one point that is hard to properly explain or illustrate with examples.
Let me start with a few things that I can explain. First of all, grammar. I've seen a few cases of you using the wrong tenses. Some light editing will fix it. Another kinda mistake is weird phrases.

Here are a couple of examples.

The silencer on the rifle did its work. Did its job?
That stopped them from their track. Stopped IN their tracks?
But there's something about the girl that drew me into her orbit. What? I can understand what it means, but it is weird.

Though I'm not sure about these examples, there were a couple more weird sentences. It's not something major, but it would be cool if you fixed some of them. Other than that, personally, I didn't notice a lot of mistakes.

Okay, the last thing that is easy to explain is your synopsis. It's not good. It's way too big, convoluted, and simply not interesting enough. It doesn't provide a hook for me to read it. Like, should I be excited after reading this, "Together, we embarked on a journey to the Tower That Reaches The Sky." The fact that you repeat parts of your synopsis in the first chapter is also a downside.

I will simply post this link here.

Jay's Synopsis Formula will work on your novel.

This is actually an answer to an earlier thread, but it's best to share as a full thread. Why? Because it works. It does not matter if your story is slice of life about a GENDER-BENT BLOB OF ENERGY. My synopsis formula works. All you have to do is answer these FOUR QUESTIONS and you can create...

forum.scribblehub.com

Now that I've talked about everything I could've explained: let me get to the main point of my feedback. There is no storytelling; the pieces of your story are not connected properly. The story is very choppy.

How should I explain this properly? At least chapter one is in a first-person POV. However, despite it being first-person, it feels like the narrator is omniscient and simply provides comments from above. It doesn't look like coherent storytelling.

I will try to further explain this point by showing two examples. First example.
How could I miss that vital information? Because it didn't take long before their scout found me.

"There you are!" a man groaned as the blade touched my neck.

So, we have MC, a sniper, and a thug. She narrates her inner thoughts, then a man subdues her. What happens in the middle? I remind you, this is a first-person POV. She should've commented on HOW this man appeared, commented on noise or something. No. He finds her, and the very next second the blade touches her neck.

Not only that, "With his body pressed on my back," this also happened. So the dude materialized out of thin air and ended up on MC's back?

Another point is when you start this section, // Loading data…
You simply copy and pasted it. MC doesn't comment on it, you didn't break it up in any way or form. Despite this being a first-person POV, I, a reader, am forced to read this part. Do you know what happened to me? I thought of the following. So is she just standing here unmoving without any thoughts at all while this stuff happens? Does she have no emotions, no movements, nothing at all? Well, maybe she does, but at least make some kind of a remark or comment on it.

The second example.
When I was here four years ago, this faction wasn't in existence.

She must be distressed. Yet, she just stood there surrounded by the notorious members of the Crowenlings Faction.

This shows how your story is completely disconnected. Your MC didn't even know about this faction, yet she says they are NOTORIOUS. I mean, sure, she learns about them from a helmet thingy, but... But...

When I was here four years ago, this faction wasn't in existence. This sentence right here comes right after the helmet sequence. So she learns about the gang, says she doesn't know them, and then proceeds to call them notorious.

This probably sounds like nitpicking, but I just wanted to illustrate your problem with good examples. I can't dissect your whole chapter and explain this or that. It will take too much time, and this isn't something I volunteered to do.

And that's all. As usual, I didn't rate your novel, but if I had to, 1.75 stars. Although you don't have a lot of mistakes, and the story is relatively easy to read, it's way too choppy and disconnected for me to rate it higher. If you have any questions feel free to ask me. If I can, I will answer them.

Hello~ Thanks for the feedback. Hmmm.... Yes, it should be 1st person POV. I'll review my chapter. Good Lord! I'm glad I haven't gotten that far haha

MC was wearing a hellraider helmet wherein the visor displays data. In the // Loading data part... there's a Memo there stating 'The infamous outlaw Crowenling Faction claimed the town as their hideout.' followed by 'Wanted: Crowenling Faction [Threat Level: Severe. Directive: Shoot On Site]'

The part 'She must be distressed. Yet, she just stood there surrounded by the notorious members of the Crowenlings Faction.' follows after the // Loading data part.

I had to admit, I was trying to wing it with the part of the sniper and gun part. The only gun I saw a toy gun. Sigh.

No worries. English is also my second language :)

 

[LuoirM]

To Teach Civics and To Die

Thuong Anderson, a Vietnamese-Canadian teacher in 2022, spent her days dealing with unappreciative high school students and seeking solace in her dimly lit apartment where she indulged in online roleplaying. One seemingly ordinary day, her life took a drastic turn for the worse. ... [2050] In a...

www.scribblehub.com

I would want to ask about enjoyability and understandability of my novel, since that's the two things I'm mainly concerned about, thank you

 

[SailusGebel]

MC was wearing a hellraider helmet wherein the visor displays data. In the // Loading data part... there's a Memo there stating 'The infamous outlaw Crowenling Faction claimed the town as their hideout.' followed by 'Wanted: Crowenling Faction [Threat Level: Severe. Directive: Shoot On Site]'

The part 'She must be distressed. Yet, she just stood there surrounded by the notorious members of the Crowenlings Faction.' follows after the // Loading data part.

Err, what? Sorry if this sounds brash or rude, this isn't my intent, but I know that it can be hard to understand what I write, so I'm asking this question. Are you sure you understood my feedback?

I had to admit, I was trying to wing it with the part of the sniper and gun part. The only gun I saw a toy gun. Sigh.

I have no problems with sniper and gun part. I didn't mention it in feedback either.

 

[SailusGebel]

Can you review mine? I need a honest opinion on everything as this is my first novel so i trying to tune out mistakes and bad habits. https://www.scribblehub.com/series/801419/a-new-era-marches/

Edit: The first chapter was made to quickly so many details are left out.

Two friendly pieces of advice. If you will continue to write and post on SH, use as many fitting tags and genres as possible. The more tags and genres you use, the better the visibility of your novel. If you plan to continue writing and posting on SH, don't post chapters in quick succession. Try not to post more than 3 chapters a day, and try to spread your releases. If you post chapters in quick succession, your story will be flagged as spam, and it will be hidden from the latest updates for some time(usually less than a day). No latest updates = almost zero views. Deleting and reuploading chapters is also considered as spam.

Unfortunately, I won't be able to give you any feedback as your story is very bad. There are so many mistakes that I can't read it. There are typos, punctuation mistakes, wrong tenses, bad paragraphing, messed up capitalization, unnecessarily long sentences, repetitions, and more in-depth mistakes that I won't be able to properly explain. Like, for example, how you mix up POVs. I'm not talking about how you use different POVs in different chapters. I'm talking about how you use a first-person, and then, in the same chapter, in the same scene, you start writing in a third-person POV.

Anyway, this isn't something that I do in this thread. In my thread, I give feedback. Although I usually focus on prose, grammar, and so on, I still pay attention to the story. In your case, I can only focus on the technical side. And even if I wanted to help you, I'm not good enough. I'm not a great author or reviewer, and I don't know English well enough. So if you want help, you should ask in other threads. I can only give basic advice to you. Read well-written stories and compare it with your own and read guides. Lastly edit your chapters. If you find it hard to edit on your own, use sites like grammarly or google edit, use ChatGPT to edit, use text to speech devices to listen to your own story.

 

[Notadate]

I guess?

Well okay, Here
-
Im not suspect anything praise for well, my first draft.
-
poopsies doops, wrong link Here the true link

 

[A-Thousand-ideas]

Sorry that it is bad i didn't prep for the story at all i just jumped in and started writing. i'm tired of being blocked by adhd on trying to make storys perfect. So i just pushed myself to write and ignore perfectionist side, too see if people would even try and read it and see if the story plot is good.

since some people liked the plot, i think. My main worry was the story plot, Now I'm making a map, plot, character development and trying to get opinions to see my own mistakes.

I will try your suggestions.

Thank you for the review, Hope you have a nice day.

 

[SailusGebel]

Sorry that it is bad i didn't prep for the story at all i just jumped in and started writing. i'm tired of being blocked by adhd on trying to make storys perfect. So i just pushed myself to write and ignore perfectionist side, too see if people would even try and read it and see if the story plot is good.

since some people liked the plot, i think. My main worry was the story plot, Now I'm making a map, plot, character development and trying to get opinions to see my own mistakes.

I will try your suggestions.

Thank you for the review, Hope you have a nice day.

Uh, I'm sorry for not being able to help. There are just too many mistakes for me to look past them and focus on the plot. In my opinion, (I can be wrong) you should always focus on clarity before anything else. Even if your story is great, if no one can comprehend what is written it's futile. No one will appreciate a story that they can't read. In your case, I can spend 20 minutes on your first paragraph alone, explaining what is wrong with it.

A very small example, these are typos, and you have at least three of them in your first pargraph. And this is one type of mistake from first paragraph.
Then it was pushed open by 2 guards covered in pure white plate armor, which revealed a thrown room
The throne is were a Wise person
After Marched down and stopped in front of the throne,

This isn't okay. You don't have to make your story perfect, but you have to adher to a certain level.

Also, don't be sorry. You didn't do anything wrong, and don't be discorouged by me. It's not your problem, it's my problem. I'm afraid of misguding you, so I choose not to help at all.

 

[A-Thousand-ideas]

It's fine. Everything has pros and cons, just this story has a lot of cons which i was unaware of.

edit: Before i continue writing, i'll be reading the sherlock holmes series to help improve myself

 

[SailusGebel]

To Teach Civics and To Die

Thuong Anderson, a Vietnamese-Canadian teacher in 2022, spent her days dealing with unappreciative high school students and seeking solace in her dimly lit apartment where she indulged in online roleplaying. One seemingly ordinary day, her life took a drastic turn for the worse. ... [2050] In a...

www.scribblehub.com

I would want to ask about enjoyability and understandability of my novel, since that's the two things I'm mainly concerned about, thank you

Understandability is so-so, and I have no idea what enjoyability is. Do you want to ask whether I enjoyed reading the story or not? Since it wasn't easy to comprehend and read, no.

 

[Midnight-Phantom]

bro do the same for me .. and if possible give me some suggestions on how the hell I should describe characters .. i kinda need that ..

 

[SailusGebel]

bro do the same for me .. and if possible give me some suggestions on how the hell I should describe characters .. i kinda need that ..

Bruh, rules.

The rules are simple.
1. You post a link to your story.
2. You state where you would like to receive the review\feedback, this thread, or PM. If you don't specify where do you want your feedback, I will post it in this thread.
3. I read your story. After I read as much as I can(I won't force myself to read more than I want), I will reply to you.
4. I won't read and review three genres; GL(girls love\yuri), BL(boys love\yaoi), and GB(gender bender).

 

[Midnight-Phantom]

Bruh, rules.

yeah yeah ..

Echoes of The Ascendant Voidwalker: Chronicles of Nova Aaron Celestia

 

[Notadate]

Bruh, rules.

What about me

 

[SailusGebel]

What about me

Will do tomorrow.

 

[Notadate]

Will do tomorrow.

…m

 

[Notadate]

Will do tomorrow.

Hello