I didn't expect this much detail, thanks for the review!
I will fix this on future chapters, and will edit the earlier chapters. Thank you!
Maybe it would be better if I put the onomatopeia in a sentence to make it flow better?
As the swords clash, a loud *Clang* can be heard
I also need to find better onomatopeia to use.
I have no artistic talent, so I can't make one. I also can't commission one due to various reasons, but I'm planning on doing so whenever I'm able to, so I left it empty for now.
I'm still a new writer so I have a long road to follow. Thank you for your detailed review! I will make a better story as things go on! I will fix the things you mentioned like ellipses and the "suddenly, immediately" problem. I will also add more details to the dialogue so you know who's speaking at any given moment.
Once again, thanks for the review! It helps me realize my mistakes earlier than I would on my own!
You're welcome, I'm glad if anything said is something one might find useful. I do want to reply again to clarify a few things in your response, though.
As for the cover, I understand. I also lack any artistic talent to speak of but I found it prudent to mention it just in case.
Onomatopeia most of the time gets used by newer authors in action because they haven't yet figured out how to integrate the sense of sound into their prose. Sometimes it's related to a lack of vocabulary to draw off of, and sometimes it's because they instinctively feel that their description would be too long or too distracting so they default to writing the sound outright instead. Try and describe sounds with verbs or nouns in sentences, rather than treat them like comic book flairs.
I wouldn't use the example in your spoiler. For one, you still highlighted clang like it was onomatopeia, and second, 'can be heard' is telling instead of showing the action.
About the details to dialogue, I also want to clarify that the way you're doing it (action beats over dialogue tags) is the preferred method. It doesn't hurt to have a dialogue tag sometimes as your proficiency improves, but don't go overboard and drown what your characters say in endless, intricate stage directions. Unless you know the rules, and wanted to break them on purpose, but you and I wouldn't be here if we were experts.
Hey, I wouldn't mind if you took a look at my story. I am pretty new here on SH, so I have no clue how things work here. My cover is a placeholder for now, so I know I am getting passed over because of that, but I would like to hear what you think otherwise.
“Your first death is always the hardest.” Miguela was the third-born child of a well-off merchant family and knew from around the time she could speak that her life’s path was already decided for her by her father. She was to become an Orator, as was Xandran tradition. However,...
www.scribblehub.com
And you can decide where to put the review, here or on SH. I trust your judgement for that.
Writers are spoiled with feedback threads like these. Though most of the time, they last around 3 pages before fizzling out, it's still something totally undeserved yet we keep receiving.
As an unequal but attempted exchange, I'll give you three different works from yours truly for you to choose which one to give a feedback on. You're also free to go with all 3. All the power to me and you.
Shiro believes he's been sent to the wrong school. Rormund Academy: home to only the best of the best. A school so exclusive even its name remains elusive to the public. An establishment where only the wealthiest, smartest, and most athletic students of the world reside. Shiro exhibits none of...
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Main tags: Action, Drama, Furries
This is a story about a wolf who's great at kicking the shit out of others getting the shit kicked out of him because he refused to kick the shit out of others.
Though it has Action as its first tag it's more of a slow-burn character melodrama. Think of something in the same vein of Beastars which I'm repeatedly accused of plagiarising (on god I already have Caninstinct's concept down a year before the anime announcement came it's serendipity I swear)
If you can't tell, yes, it's got anthropomorphic animals on it. I'll invite you to put down precognitions and dive into this with an open mind. Some have done so and are met with favourable results, so why not go for it and let me pop that furry cherry for you?
I have to warn you that the first few chapters are done during my infancy into this medium, which means they aren't that good. You're free to skip chapters if you feel like they don't contribute much. The chapters average from 7k to even 16k words a pop, with 200k words total as of now, so it'll be understandable if you tap out from this.
Something tore the old world apart. Nobody knows what, when, why, or how. All that's left are dried remnants of the past and the birth of a new, savage, cruel world. Subjek woke up right at the cusp of a turning age for this desolate landscape; two roaring factions vying...
This series have been put on some lists as people's favourite series on this site, so it's probably doing something right to warrant such recognition.
This one's a Fallout fanfic that's less of a fanfic and more of an excuse to bastardise the world-building. If I have to put it in layman terms, you can consider this a fanfic like how Goblin Slayer is a fanfic to DnD.
Set in an unknown time after the Great War, Subjek is a lone, innocent subject who just so happens to be present in many events, important or trivial, happening throughout the wasteland. His main goal is to bury his maker's ashes under the ocean, which in a nuclear fallout, might prove to be a heavy task at hand.
It's my on-and-off series where I spend time there to take a break. Check it out, but don't hold any attachments to it.
Compared to Caninstinct, this one hits around 2k - 3k words per chapter, under 40k words in total, so a lighter read than what I've recommended before.
There was a guy who went by the name of Guy. He lives in a World, and has many stories to tell about it. Stories of relationships, indulgence, brotherhood, reconciliation, women, and skinship. Especially women and skinship. Guy has a lot of stories about women and skinship. You may or...
It's got not only furries, but narcotics, homelessness, existential crisis, divine interventions, public footjobs, suicidal masochism, and blackmail, all in a compact 3k words per chapter, 60k+ words in total.
No snuff/watersports/underage shit, though. Well, there is some domestic violence, but trust me when I say the perpetrator is the victim in this.
Synopsis goes that a guy named Guy meets girls, involving himself into their stories while fucking them hardcore, interjected with some flashbacks in a non-linear story structure.
This is essentially my vice. My Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (without the skillful craft). It may be smut, but it does have some semblances of thematic work and characterization, though it's still mainly smut. Also, despite being porn, most of my focus goes to character interactions and dialogue, so take that as you will.
(Sorry I took a while. Without further ado, these are my uneducated rambles.)
Initially, I looked at your smut story, then I saw the way sex was written and decided to pass. Your biggest issue lies with Euphonics in regards to that. Unless I missed the joke and it was all meant to be a satire, using descriptions like ‘meaty obelisk’ and ‘jet of bitter slime’ gives the wrong impression.
With that mild tangent out of the way, I settled on Kapal. I read up to chapter 3.5, which I think is all the chapters at the time of this post.
This story begins with so many rug pulls I’m left wondering what the point of it all was. You give the readers a whole bunch of characters that get their own descriptions, kill a ton of them off, then pretend to have one man be the reader surrogate, just to kill him off too. After that, we get the point of view of two surviving bandits, who both get jobbed by the real MC in the end.
From 1.1 to 1.3 the reader's head hops through multiple people who are about to die. Readers have to go through 4000+ words before the true main character gets referenced doing something — only being mentioned earlier as basically a sleeping corpse and nothing else — and then the last 2000 or so words of 1.3 are a tension to action set piece showing off his skills in combat.
In my mind, that’s about 6000 words to figure out that the land is ruthless and apocalyptic, while the MC is pretty good at stabbing goons. I honestly think that the beginning was way too long for an establishing piece, and the lack of any proper surrogate character to attach to as it goes only makes me feel more detached from the experience.
As I read on, what I’m getting out of Subjek is that you’re wanting to treat him like a Sherlock sort of MC, one that gets viewed upon by others while never really getting their own point of view.
If this is true, then I think your Sherlock doesn’t have a proper Watson for readers to attach to.
You have a lot of point-of-view characters throughout the narrative, but you give none of them enough individual importance to become a surrogate for the readers. This lack of anchor hurts engagement, and this point is exacerbated by the fact that outside of his appearance, his stabby stabby, and his social awkwardness, Subjek the Sherlock just hasn’t been that compelling a character to witness so far. I think that the story would be more engaging if Subjek was more energetic or he had been paired with a character that helped show off more facets of his personality.
Now I want to talk about the elephant I was avoiding. I’ll just lob a fastball: In my opinion, you have way too much unnecessary description bogging up the story that turns your pace glacial, while some of the descriptions you use (particularly with character movement) feel sterile.
Let’s go with what I mean about bloat and pacing first. The last chapter has a great example. I’ll simplify as much as possible.
A part of Chapter 3.5:
Abdus and Subjek leave the building.
693 words are now used to describe Sampah’s markets, all with very little interaction from the point of view characters.
Now there’s a portion that describes the traffic, but this time there’s actual interaction as Abdus uses Subjek as a human shield to bulldoze his way through. Now they reach a bar.
181 words are used to describe the outside of this place. This is all in one paragraph.
They enter the bar.
198 words are used to describe the inside of this place. This is all in one paragraph.
The duo makes noise, and attracts the bartender’s attention. Abdus orders dog food for himself and hardtack for ‘The Freak’ Subjek.
217 words are now used to describe the bartender. This is all in one paragraph.
They get to communicating. Subjek reveals his name, and food gets served. Subjek takes off his bandages and goggles. The bartender and Abdus notice his face.
288 words are now used to describe Subjek’s face. Two paragraphs.
Every time there felt like some movement in the plot was going to occur, you hit me with a descriptive ensemble complete with a full course meal and dessert. I'm not saying that long descriptive paragraphs are inherently a bad thing, but these happen so often and so frequently, with a lot just describing places and physical characteristics, that the entire story slows to a crawl.
Put another way, Abdus and Subjek got to a bar, ordered gross food, and then Subjek gets his face scrutinized… but it took a total of 3034 words to achieve this. There are interesting segments in the story, but they are spaced so far apart due to your desire to describe as much as you can that you’re almost 40,000 words deep and barely anything that feels meaningful happened. It's like I'm watching a scenic documentary instead of reading a story.
Another point is that because you use multiple POVs, you've had to describe things like Subjek's lunchbox multiple times too. It would've been an easier pill to swallow if the descriptions invited a window into the POV character's voice or personality, but it felt like you explained it the same old way every time, along with many other things.
Now for the sterile bit. I picked an example from earlier in the story.
The man dropped down to a crouched position over the bodies and began patting on their clothes. The man started with the dead man with the metal arm. He looked around his bloody clothes, which had since then dried to an almost crispy texture. He found nothing on him. He looked into the bag beside him instead. He opened the bag beside him. He tossed everything that wasn’t related to a firearm out of the bag and slung it over his neck. He switched over to the woman and began undoing her vest.
There's a massive lack of sentence variety in this example. Every sentence in that paragraph starts with one of two pronouns ('The man' or 'He'), and so many of the actions are explained in the most mundane way imaginable. It's almost like looking at a grocery list.
Round Two.
The woman in the vest bent her knees and leapt outside the carriage, crashing against the road. She felt the pebbles and rocks sear across her face. She didn't care. She can't care. She lobbed the shotgun up in the air and caught it by the pump. She racked it with a flick and caught it back by its grip. She turned to her back and caught the man flying mid-air towards her. She ducked and rolled out of the way, jerking her head to meet the man face to face.
This has similar issues as to the paragraph above. Every sentence starts in pronouns, and the basically omniscient distance gives this entire action sequence an almost surgical feel.
Round Three.
The door swung open again and in stepped Aqib. This time, his expression was different. The look of hostility and contempt he used to give to the bandaged man was gone. The face he held now was one of fear and alarm. He brought two men with him; one of them was the man he'd given his revolver to at the main road, carrying a sack full of bullets and the dagger the bandaged man came with in his rope belt. The other guy was a man the old lady and the bandaged man hadn't met before. He was dressed in the same jumpsuit as everyone else. He stood tall and lean with a hunched back, compressed by the giant backpack he carried on his back. He had a dust-coloured shemagh wrapped around his face with a knot tied to the side of his head, leaving a small portion of his eyes exposed.
There is so much telling with the emotions at the start of the paragraph, and then the next portion is crammed to the brim with static verbs and the focus on the description is entirely exterior.
Grammar pile: (Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong or not take my advice)
The man kept the knife lodged in the woman’s throat for a few seconds more before he eventually pulling it out.
- ‘Pulled’, I assume. Or I think you can remove ‘he’ if you think that sounds better.
She turned her back against the man and, to his horror, starting falling backwards.
- ‘Started’, I assume.
He lamented even taking them inside the town, where they could discern the layout of the town, even for a short while.
- Redundancy with ‘the town’, I think.
SH wise, I’d give you a 3. Truthfully, the same. There is a lot of potential sitting in there, but the description overdose and lack of character anchor were just too much to handle for me.
(Sorry I took a while. Without further ado, these are my uneducated rambles.)
Initially, I looked at your smut story, then I saw the way sex was written and decided to pass. Your biggest issue lies with Euphonics in regards to that. Unless I missed the joke and it was all meant to be a satire, using descriptions like ‘meaty obelisk’ and ‘jet of bitter slime’ gives the wrong impression.
With that mild tangent out of the way, I settled on Kapal. I read up to chapter 3.5, which I think is all the chapters at the time of this post.
This story begins with so many rug pulls I’m left wondering what the point of it all was. You give the readers a whole bunch of characters that get their own descriptions, kill a ton of them off, then pretend to have one man be the reader surrogate, just to kill him off too. After that, we get the point of view of two surviving bandits, who both get jobbed by the real MC in the end.
From 1.1 to 1.3 the reader's head hops through multiple people who are about to die. Readers have to go through 4000+ words before the true main character gets referenced doing something — only being mentioned earlier as basically a sleeping corpse and nothing else — and then the last 2000 or so words of 1.3 are a tension to action set piece showing off his skills in combat.
In my mind, that’s about 6000 words to figure out that the land is ruthless and apocalyptic, while the MC is pretty good at stabbing goons. I honestly think that the beginning was way too long for an establishing piece, and the lack of any proper surrogate character to attach to as it goes only makes me feel more detached from the experience.
As I read on, what I’m getting out of Subjek is that you’re wanting to treat him like a Sherlock sort of MC, one that gets viewed upon by others while never really getting their own point of view.
If this is true, then I think your Sherlock doesn’t have a proper Watson for readers to attach to.
You have a lot of point-of-view characters throughout the narrative, but you give none of them enough individual importance to become a surrogate for the readers. This lack of anchor hurts engagement, and this point is exacerbated by the fact that outside of his appearance, his stabby stabby, and his social awkwardness, Subjek the Sherlock just hasn’t been that compelling a character to witness so far. I think that the story would be more engaging if Subjek was more energetic or he had been paired with a character that helped show off more facets of his personality.
Now I want to talk about the elephant I was avoiding. I’ll just lob a fastball: In my opinion, you have way too much unnecessary description bogging up the story that turns your pace glacial, while some of the descriptions you use (particularly with character movement) feel sterile.
Let’s go with what I mean about bloat and pacing first. The last chapter has a great example. I’ll simplify as much as possible.
A part of Chapter 3.5:
Abdus and Subjek leave the building.
693 words are now used to describe Sampah’s markets, all with very little interaction from the point of view characters.
Now there’s a portion that describes the traffic, but this time there’s actual interaction as Abdus uses Subjek as a human shield to bulldoze his way through. Now they reach a bar.
181 words are used to describe the outside of this place. This is all in one paragraph.
They enter the bar.
198 words are used to describe the inside of this place. This is all in one paragraph.
The duo makes noise, and attracts the bartender’s attention. Abdus orders dog food for himself and hardtack for ‘The Freak’ Subjek.
217 words are now used to describe the bartender. This is all in one paragraph.
They get to communicating. Subjek reveals his name, and food gets served. Subjek takes off his bandages and goggles. The bartender and Abdus notice his face.
288 words are now used to describe Subjek’s face. Two paragraphs.
Every time there felt like some movement in the plot was going to occur, you hit me with a descriptive ensemble complete with a full course meal and dessert. I'm not saying that long descriptive paragraphs are inherently a bad thing, but these happen so often and so frequently, with a lot just describing places and physical characteristics, that the entire story slows to a crawl.
Put another way, Abdus and Subjek got to a bar, ordered gross food, and then Subjek gets his face scrutinized… but it took a total of 3034 words to achieve this. There are interesting segments in the story, but they are spaced so far apart due to your desire to describe as much as you can that you’re almost 40,000 words deep and barely anything that feels meaningful happened. It's like I'm watching a scenic documentary instead of reading a story.
Another point is that because you use multiple POVs, you've had to describe things like Subjek's lunchbox multiple times too. It would've been an easier pill to swallow if the descriptions invited a window into the POV character's voice or personality, but it felt like you explained it the same old way every time, along with many other things.
Now for the sterile bit. I picked an example from earlier in the story.
The man dropped down to a crouched position over the bodies and began patting on their clothes. The man started with the dead man with the metal arm. He looked around his bloody clothes, which had since then dried to an almost crispy texture. He found nothing on him. He looked into the bag beside him instead. He opened the bag beside him. He tossed everything that wasn’t related to a firearm out of the bag and slung it over his neck. He switched over to the woman and began undoing her vest.
There's a massive lack of sentence variety in this example. Every sentence in that paragraph starts with one of two pronouns ('The man' or 'He'), and so many of the actions are explained in the most mundane way imaginable. It's almost like looking at a grocery list.
Round Two.
The woman in the vest bent her knees and leapt outside the carriage, crashing against the road. She felt the pebbles and rocks sear across her face. She didn't care. She can't care. She lobbed the shotgun up in the air and caught it by the pump. She racked it with a flick and caught it back by its grip. She turned to her back and caught the man flying mid-air towards her. She ducked and rolled out of the way, jerking her head to meet the man face to face.
This has similar issues as to the paragraph above. Every sentence starts in pronouns, and the basically omniscient distance gives this entire action sequence an almost surgical feel.
Round Three.
The door swung open again and in stepped Aqib. This time, his expression was different. The look of hostility and contempt he used to give to the bandaged man was gone. The face he held now was one of fear and alarm. He brought two men with him; one of them was the man he'd given his revolver to at the main road, carrying a sack full of bullets and the dagger the bandaged man came with in his rope belt. The other guy was a man the old lady and the bandaged man hadn't met before. He was dressed in the same jumpsuit as everyone else. He stood tall and lean with a hunched back, compressed by the giant backpack he carried on his back. He had a dust-coloured shemagh wrapped around his face with a knot tied to the side of his head, leaving a small portion of his eyes exposed.
There is so much telling with the emotions at the start of the paragraph, and then the next portion is crammed to the brim with static verbs and the focus on the description is entirely exterior.
Grammar pile: (Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong or not take my advice)
The man kept the knife lodged in the woman’s throat for a few seconds more before he eventually pulling it out.
- ‘Pulled’, I assume. Or I think you can remove ‘he’ if you think that sounds better.
She turned her back against the man and, to his horror, starting falling backwards.
- ‘Started’, I assume.
He lamented even taking them inside the town, where they could discern the layout of the town, even for a short while.
- Redundancy with ‘the town’, I think.
SH wise, I’d give you a 3. Truthfully, the same. There is a lot of potential sitting in there, but the description overdose and lack of character anchor were just too much to handle for me.
I want you to understand that I've read this all thoroughly and want to apologize for not being able to come up with a response of equal effort similar to the others because I quite literally have nothing else to add. I don't know any other way I could declare my acknowledgement. There are agreements and disagreements but they're so minute they don't need to warrant mention. I really appreciate what you've given me, I really do.
Can you tell how desperate I am to show I did not take your feedback for granted oh god
I want you to understand that I've read this all thoroughly and want to apologize for not being able to come up with a response of equal effort similar to the others because I quite literally have nothing else to add. I don't know any other way I could declare my acknowledgement. There are agreements and disagreements but they're so minute they don't need to warrant mention. I really appreciate what you've given me, I really do.
Can you tell how desperate I am to show I did not take your feedback for granted oh god
It's alright, admittedly I think my tone might've come off harsher than I intended when I wrote your feedback. I think it was mainly due to the fact I wanted to use as much clarity as I could so as little as possible would be misunderstood. Like I said in the piece, there is a lot to find interesting in it, and you can make moments like the fake-out with Raksa in the interrogation room or the introduction of the primary antagonist in the bandit camp feel entertaining, but it felt like I had to wade through a swamp of description to get to them.
I also learned a couple of new words, like Bantam (A type of chicken) and Kapal ('Ship' in Indonesian, I assume).
So yeah, as long as I've somehow given you a new perspective that feels helpful in some way, that's all that matters in the end.
It's alright, admittedly I think my tone might've come off harsher than I intended when I wrote your feedback. I think it was mainly due to the fact I wanted to use as much clarity as I could so as little as possible would be misunderstood. Like I said in the piece, there is a lot to find interesting in it, and you can make moments like the fake-out with Raksa in the interrogation room or the introduction of the primary antagonist in the bandit camp feel entertaining, but it felt like I had to wade through a swamp of description to get to them.
I also learned a couple of new words, like Bantam (A type of chicken) and Kapal ('Ship' in Indonesian, I assume).
So yeah, as long as I've somehow given you a new perspective that feels helpful in some way, that's all that matters in the end.
No, no, your tone came as clear as it could be. I much prefer straightforward, to-the-point approaches to critiques. This is very helpful.
Though to think you would've reviewed The Problem Store, though. Smut isn't my forte so the first few R18 scenes are gonna be harsh. That's probably why you opted for Kapal instead.
I'm about to start uploading Volume 6 in a couple of days so I'll throw in mine. Forum feedback would be great.
It's pretty lengthy though since I'm going for an actual physical LN feel, so feel free to tell me where you stopped and your general impressions up to that point. Do take note that Volume 1 (and only Volume 1) has split chapters. Which makes it so that chapters 1 and 2 are one in the original writing, and so are 3 and 4, etc.
That's because I started out writing like 5-6k words per chapter then shortened them from Volume 2 onward.
As for what to expect? My sig says it all, but in case you're on mobile, think something like Persona or Under Birth In-Night with influences from actiony harem anime for the most basic comparison.
Wow, I’m surprised how small the world is at times. Before I get into the meat of my feedback, let me just say that I’ve actually read the first two volumes of this series before when I was just a lowly anon, but I’ll still give part of the first volume another look over for my review.
I’ll also preface that I love the Index series (despite struggling to keep up with the releases) and battle harem junk food like Strike The Blood, Campione!, Sekirei, Heaven’s Lost Property, and Date A Live, so I imagine I’m bang on the kind of target audience you’re looking for.
Your prologue is pretty good, it’s the in-media-res type that puts your concept center stage and has the MC in a panic, wondering where the hell he is. He sees a bunch of crazy things, and then you cut it short at a cliffhanger. It gives the reader a bunch of interesting questions to ask, so for a prologue it does its job.
Now from chapter 1 to about a fifth of the way to chapter 4, I feel the story fumbles a bit. I think the reason for this is because you take too long setting up the inciting incident without giving the reader much else to think about in the meantime. Let me elaborate.
There are two tricks the majority of battle harems tend to use when beginning their story:
- Get the protagonist and the first major heroine (related to the primary incident) interacting as fast as possible. [And/Or]
- The protagonist is related to the concept already or actively pursuing it.
In Fractal Plane, until the inciting incident drops, Kazuki is just being asocial due to past trauma and only gets connected to the plot indirectly by Sayaka. Put in numeric terms, it takes about 9,900 words after the prologue for Kazuki to become truly involved.
The prologue set an expectation in the reader, and throughout those initial chapters, they see all forms of foreshadowing to something you’ve already let them experience firsthand. Now it's a good thing that they’re being fed bits and pieces of information related to the concept, but just like the reader, for most of that Kazuki is only an onlooker.
- He doesn’t take an interest in the mysterious disappearances his friend talks about, so this only becomes foreshadowing.
- He doesn’t interact with the kid holding the briefcase outside of bumping into him. He smells trouble so he avoids him. A sensible decision, but this again turns into more foreshadowing.
- There is zero direct interaction between him and the first major heroine, Sayaka, until the end of the inciting incident. Normally this is okay, but you introduced her early and I felt there could have been tons of potential here with a few tweaks. (Side note, but I don’t think they even talked to each other properly until chapter 11. That’s a hell of a long time.)
Don’t get me wrong, there are a few things to like in those chapters. The moment where Kazuki and Ishida interact suggests an interesting history between the boys and invites questions, while the last part of chapter two solidifies the dread of the other world to the reader. I just think that Kazuki acting so passively for so long while the plot keeps throwing him bones until Sayaka loses her ID makes the beginning feel slow.
However, the ending of chapter 4 and beyond is definitely where the novel picks up. In a good way. You seem to find your stride once you get Kazuki involved, as the plot finally engages ignition and drives.
The first part of Chapter 7 was a great introduction to Amagi’s mindset, tying a swim competition with Sayaka as a way to show Amagi’s competitive spirit and jealous insecurities.
I guess you wanted readers to be suspicious of the doctor by chapter 7 as evidence began to pile up, but I felt the way it was done was a bit too on the nose.
I also like that it doesn’t take long for Kazuki to embrace his role and get right into the thick of it. He also gets a unique ‘weapon’ compared to the majority of MCs in this genre, one that implies he needs to work with heroines to succeed.
(Though the weapon is shared with another infamous MC, I’ll still give you points)
As for the writing, I don’t have that many complaints about it on a technical level. One thing I will say is that the way you’ve written the prose feels like a form of dry omniscient rather than the more colorful intimacy of third person. This might be a personal preference on my end, but I think trying to close the narrative distance with a more intimate form of prose might do the story better, especially since Kazuki can be rather dry at times.
One other thing I will say is that while the plotting and structure are quite solid, I think the story beats are being played a little ‘too safe’ if you get my drift. While this definitely resembles anime from the late 2000s to early 2010s, I think the story is a bit too faithful to the predecessors it emulates. In my opinion, I think a small modern twist to the formula could be a potential way to spice up the plot beats so nostalgic readers also feel like they might get something new out of the experience.
Grammar Pile: (Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong or not use my advice)
‘It was not superhuman strength by any means, but he was completely caught off-guard by the strength from someone who did not seem athletic by any means.’
- ‘By any means’ appears twice. The sentence itself is a bit awkward since it explains her strength twice in two different ways.
SH wise, you get my first 5 in the thread. In truth, I’d give you a 4.25. The things that brought the score down were the stuff I mentioned about the beginning and my subjective desire to see a bit of a modern flavor in a nostalgic genre.
Wow, I’m surprised how small the world is at times. Before I get into the meat of my feedback, let me just say that I’ve actually read the first two volumes of this series before when I was just a lowly anon, but I’ll still give part of the first volume another look over for my review.
I’ll also preface that I love the Index series (despite struggling to keep up with the releases) and battle harem junk food like Strike The Blood, Campione!, Sekirei, Heaven’s Lost Property, and Date A Live, so I imagine I’m bang on the kind of target audience you’re looking for.
Your prologue is pretty good, it’s the in-media-res type that puts your concept center stage and has the MC in a panic, wondering where the hell he is. He sees a bunch of crazy things, and then you cut it short at a cliffhanger. It gives the reader a bunch of interesting questions to ask, so for a prologue it does its job.
Now from chapter 1 to about a fifth of the way to chapter 4, I feel the story fumbles a bit. I think the reason for this is because you take too long setting up the inciting incident without giving the reader much else to think about in the meantime. Let me elaborate.
There are two tricks the majority of battle harems tend to use when beginning their story:
- Get the protagonist and the first major heroine (related to the primary incident) interacting as fast as possible. [And/Or]
- The protagonist is related to the concept already or actively pursuing it.
In Fractal Plane, until the inciting incident drops, Kazuki is just being asocial due to past trauma and only gets connected to the plot indirectly by Sayaka. Put in numeric terms, it takes about 9,900 words after the prologue for Kazuki to become truly involved.
The prologue set an expectation in the reader, and throughout those initial chapters, they see all forms of foreshadowing to something you’ve already let them experience firsthand. Now it's a good thing that they’re being fed bits and pieces of information related to the concept, but just like the reader, for most of that Kazuki is only an onlooker.
- He doesn’t take an interest in the mysterious disappearances his friend talks about, so this only becomes foreshadowing.
- He doesn’t interact with the kid holding the briefcase outside of bumping into him. He smells trouble so he avoids him. A sensible decision, but this again turns into more foreshadowing.
- There is zero direct interaction between him and the first major heroine, Sayaka, until the end of the inciting incident. Normally this is okay, but you introduced her early and I felt there could have been tons of potential here with a few tweaks. (Side note, but I don’t think they even talked to each other properly until chapter 11. That’s a hell of a long time.)
Don’t get me wrong, there are a few things to like in those chapters. The moment where Kazuki and Ishida interact suggests an interesting history between the boys and invites questions, while the last part of chapter two solidifies the dread of the other world to the reader. I just think that Kazuki acting so passively for so long while the plot keeps throwing him bones until Sayaka loses her ID makes the beginning feel slow.
However, the ending of chapter 4 and beyond is definitely where the novel picks up. In a good way. You seem to find your stride once you get Kazuki involved, as the plot finally engages ignition and drives.
The first part of Chapter 7 was a great introduction to Amagi’s mindset, tying a swim competition with Sayaka as a way to show Amagi’s competitive spirit and jealous insecurities.
I guess you wanted readers to be suspicious of the doctor by chapter 7 as evidence began to pile up, but I felt the way it was done was a bit too on the nose.
I also like that it doesn’t take long for Kazuki to embrace his role and get right into the thick of it. He also gets a unique ‘weapon’ compared to the majority of MCs in this genre, one that implies he needs to work with heroines to succeed.
(Though the weapon is shared with another infamous MC, I’ll still give you points)
As for the writing, I don’t have that many complaints about it on a technical level. One thing I will say is that the way you’ve written the prose feels like a form of dry omniscient rather than the more colorful intimacy of third person. This might be a personal preference on my end, but I think trying to close the narrative distance with a more intimate form of prose might do the story better, especially since Kazuki can be rather dry at times.
One other thing I will say is that while the plotting and structure are quite solid, I think the story beats are being played a little ‘too safe’ if you get my drift. While this definitely resembles anime from the late 2000s to early 2010s, I think the story is a bit too faithful to the predecessors it emulates. In my opinion, I think a small modern twist to the formula could be a potential way to spice up the plot beats so nostalgic readers also feel like they might get something new out of the experience.
Grammar Pile: (Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong or not use my advice)
‘It was not superhuman strength by any means, but he was completely caught off-guard by the strength from someone who did not seem athletic by any means.’
- ‘By any means’ appears twice. The sentence itself is a bit awkward since it explains her strength twice in two different ways.
SH wise, you get my first 5 in the thread. In truth, I’d give you a 4.25. The things that brought the score down were the stuff I mentioned about the beginning and my subjective desire to see a bit of a modern flavor in a nostalgic genre.
Thanks. The part about the slow start is especially helpful. I had a nagging feeling about it, but I didn't want to sacrifice a lot of the "build-up" like how he interacts with Ishida (which comes to play full fore in volume 4, where the girl of the arc is Akane, who happens to be his own childhood friend, albeit the naive genki girl mold instead of the gentle, dandere one Amagi is based off). I'll see which parts I can trim so Kazuki doesn't seem too passive.
And yeah, with those shows you listed, I'm pretty sure we can get along irl haha. The part where I borrowed from StB and DAL is actually the protag's reliance on the girls for power ups. The only way he gets new toys in his arsenal would be bonding with them and finding a true connection where they can truly "entrust" their magic weapon's powers onto him. And the challenge comes in his rather anti-social and admittedly insensitive attitude holding him back from easily doing that at the start of each volume.
I also prefer this method rather than the usual Isekai/OP protag route because the girls actually matter here in a more tangible way as compared to one where the hero overshadows them all in terms of powerlevel and usefulness. Even as of this writing (volume 6), Kazuki is still not the strongest member of the team, but he's the most versatile since he has like 4 modes to the shield already.
Follow-up: On Kazuki and Sayaka not interacting until chapter 11 (which is really chapter 5 in my original writing due to the split chapters), I initially wanted to keep them apart due to her "don't get him involved" attitude. Then, I wanted to give them something akin to the Shirou/Saber summoning moment where they're hostile, but instead of quickly warming up like the others in the genre, they stay that way until the climax.
I was actually trying to juggle the suspect between the doctor and the cap blonde guy. Apparently, I can't write mysteries lmao. And I don't want the reveal towards the end to feel like an asspull, so I sprinkled a lot of foreshadowing (apparently too much) as early as those chapters.
The weapon is actually inspired from Boosted Gear when I was designing it. But the end result is something more from Absolute Duo. Funnily enough, AD wasn't in my top inspirations list, consciously at least. But looking back at it, even the climax of the second volume feels like one of the arcs there.
The other thread gave me tips on prose, so I'll be sure to keep tabs on those once I start my refining phase once I put all volumes out. I'm planning around 9 to 10.
Thanks for the very in-depth evaluation. I'm so glad you liked it, and that ought to inspire me to keep the series going. Probably gonna be done in 2 years or so given my release schedule, which I even try to emulate actual LN releases (around 4 to 6 months between volumes)
Thanks. The part about the slow start is especially helpful. I had a nagging feeling about it, but I didn't want to sacrifice a lot of the "build-up" like how he interacts with Ishida (which comes to play full fore in volume 4, where the girl of the arc is Akane, who happens to be his own childhood friend, albeit the naive genki girl mold instead of the gentle, dandere one Amagi is based off). I'll see which parts I can trim so Kazuki doesn't seem too passive.
And yeah, with those shows you listed, I'm pretty sure we can get along irl haha. The part where I borrowed from StB and DAL is actually the protag's reliance on the girls for power ups. The only way he gets new toys in his arsenal would be bonding with them and finding a true connection where they can truly "entrust" their magic weapon's powers onto him. And the challenge comes in his rather anti-social and admittedly insensitive attitude holding him back from easily doing that at the start of each volume.
I also prefer this method rather than the usual Isekai/OP protag route because the girls actually matter here in a more tangible way as compared to one where the hero overshadows them all in terms of powerlevel and usefulness. Even as of this writing (volume 6), Kazuki is still not the strongest member of the team, but he's the most versatile since he has like 4 modes to the shield already.
Follow-up: On Kazuki and Sayaka not interacting until chapter 11 (which is really chapter 5 in my original writing due to the split chapters), I initially wanted to keep them apart due to her "don't get him involved" attitude. Then, I wanted to give them something akin to the Shirou/Saber summoning moment where they're hostile, but instead of quickly warming up like the others in the genre, they stay that way until the climax.
I was actually trying to juggle the suspect between the doctor and the cap blonde guy. Apparently, I can't write mysteries lmao. And I don't want the reveal towards the end to feel like an asspull, so I sprinkled a lot of foreshadowing (apparently too much) as early as those chapters.
The weapon is actually inspired from Boosted Gear when I was designing it. But the end result is something more from Absolute Duo. Funnily enough, AD wasn't in my top inspirations list, consciously at least. But looking back at it, even the climax of the second volume feels like one of the arcs there.
The other thread gave me tips on prose, so I'll be sure to keep tabs on those once I start my refining phase once I put all volumes out. I'm planning around 9 to 10.
Thanks for the very in-depth evaluation. I'm so glad you liked it, and that ought to inspire me to keep the series going. Probably gonna be done in 2 years or so given my release schedule, which I even try to emulate actual LN releases (around 4 to 6 months between volumes)
Yeah, I also prefer when the main character and heroines have to work together rather than the MC stomping his way through while the ladies sit and watch. Choosing a power that highlights these sorts of mutually beneficial relations is usually a plus in my book since it's one of the positive ways the heroines can remain relevant.
With the way Kazuki and Sayaka's personalities are, I can see it is difficult to have them interact earlier as you mentioned. I couldn't honestly think of many instant solutions, but I thought I'd point it out, especially since it's something that helps enable Kazuki's passiveness in the beginning.
I mostly suspected the doctor straight away because the blonde guy acted like a blackmailed cog in the machine and the continual references made me assume that either the doc was a red herring or the prime suspect. The tickets cinched the deal. It's not entirely a bad thing the mystery was revealed, since it leaves tension instead. The protagonist doesn't know, but the reader might, so they're left to wonder when the other shoe drops.
I'm glad my feedback inspired you to keep writing. That's always a good sign.
This might be the weirdest day of my life. First off, I somehow finished my test exams which is quite a feat considering that I didn't study, at all, like always. Secondly, my sister didn't rush her work making me doubt if that was my sister. Lastly, this woman right...
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Umm, a new writer here so expect some average stuff. Also, you can do it here.
Yeah, I also prefer when the main character and heroines have to work together rather than the MC stomping his way through while the ladies sit and watch. Choosing a power that highlights these sorts of mutually beneficial relations is usually a plus in my book since it's one of the positive ways the heroines can remain relevant.
With the way Kazuki and Sayaka's personalities are, I can see it is difficult to have them interact earlier as you mentioned. I couldn't honestly think of many instant solutions, but I thought I'd point it out, especially since it's something that helps enable Kazuki's passiveness in the beginning.
I mostly suspected the doctor straight away because the blonde guy acted like a blackmailed cog in the machine and the continual references made me assume that either the doc was a red herring or the prime suspect. The tickets cinched the deal. It's not entirely a bad thing the mystery was revealed, since it leaves tension instead. The protagonist doesn't know, but the reader might, so they're left to wonder when the other shoe drops.
I'm glad my feedback inspired you to keep writing. That's always a good sign.
Yeah it certainly is a thing with their personalities They're both introverted.
I appreciate more insight on the mystery angle. The tickets made it so obvious, eh. Maybe I should establish him as a fan haha. He's quite eccentric anyway.
Hoping to hear more about the future volumes once you get around to checking them out. So that I can also get feedback in the way the plot is going. 4 and 5 in particular is when things start getting serious and where we get more of the worldbuilding, with traces of it starting at 3.
Oh, you only have one chapter at the time of me posting this. Alright then.
Before I get to the story itself, I want to talk about the synopsis. In my opinion, as one sentence it is way too generic to attract most people outside of those interested in assassins. It doesn’t describe anything about the system apocalypse, there’s nothing describing his character apart from his job, and a ‘unique ability’ is something 95% of all LitRPG protagonists get. There really isn’t much incentive here to convince those on the fence to give your story a shot.
Next, and it is super important, but your main character’s motivations are inconsistent. In the beginning, the reader is told about Derek’s desire to retire from assassination work and all the plans he had laid out in mind, but then after the isekai he’s thrilled about how his line of work could get him more work doing the exact same stuff he wanted to get away from. That doesn’t make sense at all; I thought he would’ve taken the chance to try a new line of work instead.
Going back a little, but the way Derek knocked out the guards suspended my disbelief. You can’t tell me that they wouldn’t have made a bunch of noise after Derek tossed the smoke grenade inside. Don’t they have walkie-talkies? Why didn’t they just spray the door hinges with bullets to get out? Did the cubby room not have any other opening, like a window? On another note, how did Mujahid stay conscious after the smoke? If Mujahid had a gas mask too, why wasn’t that mentioned? When Derek screamed after getting stabbed, why didn’t the guard in the kitchen hear that?
This isn’t to mention the fact that Derek made hella noise using his gun to turn Mujahid’s head into a human rendition of swiss cheese. What was his game plan to get out after that? I’ll give the benefit of the doubt in that Derek’s situation at that point was pretty critical, but he can’t exactly retire the way he wants to if the rest of the guards in the house came and turned his body into a metal detector’s worst nightmare. He wouldn’t have had any idea about a system apocalypse approaching to bail him out either, so he decided to go with the situation you envisioned and assumed it was his best likelihood for success and survival. That doesn’t seem very professional assassin to me.
Another thing that made me raise an eyebrow is that he somehow immediately assumed that thinking about the word ‘status’ would bring up an RPG stat menu when you made no connection to this fact prior. Originally I thought the menu came up on its own but you created the contradiction when Derek wanted to know the stats of some other mook next to him and said mook didn’t know how.
This is a personal preference, but when the system gives such blatant favoritism to the protagonist I worry about the story’s tension. If he grows at a rate that stomps out any and all competition, he’s just going to end up like the guy who spent $100,000 in Diablo Immortal; so overpowered that the game can’t even find anyone to pit him against.
And then the last thing Derek does is slink away from the crowd instead of seeing if any of them could be useful to him, jumping blind into a dense forest likely populated with monsters he’s never seen before alone. That sounds suicidal to me.
Grammar Pile: (Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong or ignore my advice)
Then, he leaned out to hold the door shut.,
- Extra comma at the end.
For some reason, this fit man only had stats at around the 10 lever, even though he clearly exercised a lot.
- ‘Level’, I assume, though I’d go a step further and go ‘10’s’ instead and remove ‘lever’ entirely.
It was time to hunt
- Missing a period at the end.
SH wise, I’d give you a 2. Truthfully, the same. I can see the appeal behind the idea, but there are way too many inconsistencies in the narrative for me to be able to enjoy this. I think one thing that might help you is to research and plan out most of the plot and scenes first before updating on SH, so you can better create a more cohesive narrative.
Hey, I wouldn't mind if you took a look at my story. I am pretty new here on SH, so I have no clue how things work here. My cover is a placeholder for now, so I know I am getting passed over because of that, but I would like to hear what you think otherwise.
“Your first death is always the hardest.” Miguela was the third-born child of a well-off merchant family and knew from around the time she could speak that her life’s path was already decided for her by her father. She was to become an Orator, as was Xandran tradition. However,...
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And you can decide where to put the review, here or on SH. I trust your judgement for that.
This isn’t exactly related to my review, but how prevalent is the tragedy element in your story? This tag doesn’t tend to do so hot on this site (people like to filter it out), which is why I was curious. I also read all 17 chapters available at the time of this post.
Since you mentioned that the cover was a placeholder, I’ll forego talking about it. I do however want to talk about the synopsis. You seem to have a lengthy author’s note on it right after a rather lengthy synopsis, making it seem super bloated. I’d recommend putting that author’s note at the end of chapter one or the like, so the synopsis can breathe on its own.
Speaking of, I think there’s a lot of missed potential with the summary itself. Not mentioning the fact that her new job involves Scrying and watching how people die is a HUGE missed opportunity. That is a giant hook if I’d ever seen one. Not to mention the fact that the intimacy of these memories is messing with her head.
Let me put it another way: I genuinely believe you’re not selling your story properly.
What your synopsis implies is a general fantasy with the typical nobility politics thrown into the mix.
What your story truly is, is a magical detective fantasy where the main protagonist looks deep into the pasts of dead people around their time of death to pry for information that the higher-ups' request of her, soon turning into a chase where she tries to track down a dangerous, ancient necromancer. This doesn’t even mention all the suspicions around the Archmage she works under, or the potential war looming.
Holy shit, that plot is cool as hell, but I would’ve had no idea if all I had to rely on was your summary.
While showing the character’s situation and motivation in the synopsis is nice, and the initial quote is great, I truly think you downplayed the plot far too much by barely mentioning details outside of suggesting that it is dangerous. I think letting readers know a bit more there would help you immensely.
Going into the story itself, it didn’t truly sell me wholesale until chapter 13. To me, while the beginning had those minor, intriguing moments, and you went quickly to sell the scrying angle, the fact that it took so long to get a solid piece that connected to a major mystery felt like a big miss to me. The first few Scry’s, while fascinating in their own right, kinda came off as one-shot pieces related to things outside the scope of the novel itself. It’s only when the necromancer portions start coming into play that I started feeling a connection to the overall narrative. I might be wrong, and the initial scry’s connected in a way I don’t expect, but I’m an idiot, so I missed them.
Once chapter 13 gets going, it also feels like Miguela takes a much more proactive stance in the plot in comparison to before. She starts taking the initiative to go out and find out more about the circumstances of the victims in the city and begins to take risks that might get her in trouble to figure out the case. I definitely wanted more of this compared to the earlier stuff.
The mystery surrounding the handsome Archmage is a nice angle as well. Miguela has a subtle fancy for him, but her brother warns her of his suspicions while the Archmage does himself no favors either by pressing on with taboo methods for whatever his end game is.
Prose wise, while I think the dialogue tags occasionally stand out, overall I don’t have much issue with it. I also like the fact that you remember the WN format and have cheeky sorts of cliffhangers on some chapters that leave readers with something to think about.
“No, they say, the first time you die is always the hardest.”
This ending line in chapter 2 coming full circle from the synopsis something I really like. It kind of hammers home the absurdity Miguela signed up for.
“Scrying takes a toll on one’s soul.”
Another simple line I like. I see you’ve taken well to the web novel format, leaving thought provoking statements as their own kind of cliffhanger to keep people interested.
Grammar Pile: (Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong or ignore my advice)
After somehow surviving her childhood, her father arranged for her to join the military, and she became a member of the Ramon calvary.
- ‘Cavalry’. Calvary means an open-air representation of the Crucifixion of Jesus.
“I am afraid he is gone, but I will do everything in my power to find justice for me,” Miguela said. Keli had tears forming in her eyes, but she fought them off bravely.
- Justice for ‘him’, I think.
I’d give you a 4 in both SH and truth. The plot is really fun once it gets going, but the beginning feels slow and sometimes confusing while the synopsis doesn’t sell your book at all.
This isn’t exactly related to my review, but how prevalent is the tragedy element in your story? This tag doesn’t tend to do so hot on this site (people like to filter it out), which is why I was curious. I also read all 17 chapters available at the time of this post.
Since you mentioned that the cover was a placeholder, I’ll forego talking about it. I do however want to talk about the synopsis. You seem to have a lengthy author’s note on it right after a rather lengthy synopsis, making it seem super bloated. I’d recommend putting that author’s note at the end of chapter one or the like, so the synopsis can breathe on its own.
Speaking of, I think there’s a lot of missed potential with the summary itself. Not mentioning the fact that her new job involves Scrying and watching how people die is a HUGE missed opportunity. That is a giant hook if I’d ever seen one. Not to mention the fact that the intimacy of these memories is messing with her head.
Let me put it another way, I genuinely believe you’re not selling your story properly.
What your synopsis implies is a general fantasy with the typical nobility politics thrown into the mix.
What your story truly is, is a magical detective fantasy where the main protagonist looks deep into the pasts of dead people around their time of death to pry for information that the higher-ups' request of her, soon turning into a chase where she tries to track down a dangerous, ancient necromancer. This doesn’t even mention all the suspicions around the Archmage she works under, or the potential war looming.
Holy shit, that plot is cool as hell, but I would’ve had no idea if all I had to rely on was your summary.
While showing the character’s situation and motivation in the synopsis is nice, and the initial quote is great, I truly think you downplayed the plot far too much by barely mentioning details outside of suggesting that it is dangerous. I think letting readers know a bit more there would help you immensely.
Going into the story itself, it didn’t truly sell me wholesale until chapter 13. To me, while the beginning had those minor, intriguing moments, and you went quickly to sell the scrying angle, the fact that it took so long to get a solid piece that connected to a major mystery felt like a big miss to me. The first few Scry’s, while fascinating in their own right, kinda came off as one-shot pieces related to things outside the scope of the novel itself. It’s only when the necromancer portions start coming into play that I started feeling a connection to the overall narrative. I might be wrong, and the initial scry’s connected in a way I don’t expect, but I’m an idiot, so I missed them.
Once chapter 13 gets going, it also feels like Miguela takes a much more proactive stance in the plot in comparison to before. She starts taking the initiative to go out and find out more about the circumstances of the victims in the city and begins to take risks that might get her in trouble to figure out the case. I definitely wanted more of this compared to the earlier stuff.
The mystery surrounding the handsome Archmage is a nice angle as well. Miguela has a subtle fancy for him, but her brother warns her of his suspicions while the Archmage does himself no favors either by pressing on with taboo methods for whatever his end game is.
Prose wise, while I think the dialogue tags occasionally stand out, overall I don’t have much issue with it. I also like the fact that you remember the WN format and have cheeky sorts of cliffhangers on some chapters that leave readers with something to think about.
“No, they say, the first time you die is always the hardest.”
This ending line in chapter 2 coming full circle from the synopsis something I really like. It kind of hammers home the absurdity Miguela signed up for.
“Scrying takes a toll on one’s soul.”
Another simple line I like. I see you’ve taken well to the web novel format, leaving thought provoking statements as their own kind of cliffhanger to keep people interested.
Grammar Pile: (Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong or ignore my advice)
After somehow surviving her childhood, her father arranged for her to join the military, and she became a member of the Ramon calvary.
- ‘Cavalry’. Calvary means an open-air representation of the Crucifixion of Jesus.
“I am afraid he is gone, but I will do everything in my power to find justice for me,” Miguela said. Keli had tears forming in her eyes, but she fought them off bravely.
- Justice for ‘him’, I think.
I’d give you a 4 in both SH and truth. The plot is really fun once it gets going, but the beginning feels slow and sometimes confusing while the synopsis doesn’t sell your book at all.
Thanks for that. I will dig into my blurb tonight. I think authors (at least me) are always too scared of giving too much away in their summary, but now that you mention it, I do suppose I should give away more than I did.
Also thanks for catching those couple of typos that slipped through.
I like cliffhangers and use them, but just try not to overuse them.
Yeah, I will get on knocking up a new summary and try to figure out what to do with the overall universe summary that advice alone really helped me out.
(You didn’t specify where, so I’ll put my uneducated ramblings here.)
I read both available chapters at the time of this post. There weren’t even a thousand words for me to look at, so forgive me if I can’t get into many specifics.
So, um, let's start with the synopsis. I uh, didn’t really get what you going for there. I imagine it has something to do with the theme of your story, where one person is another’s light, but it is so vague that I got nothing else out of it. Who is the main character? What is this about? Where is this set? What is the hook? I’m getting multitudes more information out of your tags than I am from the summary, that’s usually not a good sign.
Your prologue was less confusing, but I still had to focus pretty hard to make sense of it. The quote at the start was simple enough to understand — despite me having little clue of what this story is about — and I guess you were describing a festival that will be a pivotal part of the story later, like the backdrop for a confession scene. Since your synopsis was ultra vague, people can only make assumptions to begin with, and leaving readers totally lost can be a bad sign. I am kind of giving this a hesitant pass though since it seems more built around establishing a certain tone and it was a super short prologue.
(You also mentioned mecha, and I’ll admit my inner child got excited for a moment, but I realized you didn’t use the tag so this was probably window dressing.)
I also want to mention that the stuff in brackets had a sentence in past tense while the paragraphs describing the festival were in present tense. It’s usually a good idea to pick one or the other and not dip into both, for clarity’s sake, unless you’re an expert.
Now for chapter one.
At first, I thought this was a soft sci-fi AU when the teacher began her lecture about photos showing blue skies on Uranus and Neptune and things about seeing no signs of extraterrestrial life. Then I remembered you started the chapter with ‘Year 2028’ and realized you likely meant AD and were just talking about both planets’ real color compositions in their skies. The reason I made this mix-up is that you didn’t specify the Gregorian calendar after all that sci-fi in the quotes and prologue. I’m elaborating on this to point out how difficult it is to parse clarity in the narrative in general.
This is also where the vague synopsis comes to bite the reader again, as they’re going to assume the teacher is the protagonist as she is the first point of view. Going by the tags, prologue, and the scene the teacher witnessed outside her classroom, they’re also going to assume that it’s a romance story. You didn’t tag romance, so if it isn’t heavily romance-centric and instead higher on the mystery scale, then that concept wasn’t well shown in my opinion.
Grammar-wise, the problems stemmed across the board, from tense to punctuation to clarity. Unfortunately, I don’t have all the time in the world to sit down and teach every aspect from scratch, but I will leave a small grammar pile. All I can really advise here is to do a bunch of self-study regarding grammar rules and read books like Sin & Syntax or Dash of Style.
Grammar Pile: (Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong or ignore my advice)
[starry, ink blue sky's. standing beneath them was a youth clutching a glowing star in their hands.]
- Missing capitalizations: ‘Starry’, ‘Standing’
- Unnecessary apostrophe: ‘skies’
This tradition has lasted from when the mecha's were daily wear for the humans to protect themselve, to when each and every mecha from those horrid days has been locked up in a museum, for the naive and ignorant striplings to admire in awe...
- ‘Themselves’ I assume.
- Unnecessary apostrophe: ‘mechas’
- Personally, I don’t think the ellipsis at the end was necessary. Subjective opinion.
[Before the year 30432 there was a once society where uniqueness in humans were either pushed up a high pedestal or thrown to the ground and trampled over. A society restricted, by their narrow minded experiences as well as the prejudice that was not properly fixed even before their doom...]
- The ‘once’ and ‘a’ should swap sides in the first sentence.
- The last sentence is a bit of a mess in my opinion. I don’t usually restructure entire sentences in these piles, so I can only recommend running this one through an editing program or rewriting it entirely.
[ the before origin of star day]
- The first word isn’t capitalized.
- There’s a gap between the bracket and ‘the’.
- I assume this is something like ‘The origin of Star Day’ or the like?
"It was probably then when the our ancestors trying to play their hand at being creators realized their blue skies, their own creations as well as their own intellect only furthered to prove their loneliness "
- Missing a period at the end.
- Unnecessary 'the' between 'when' and 'our'.
"in the photos, they captured no signs of life, no signs of life that had existed nor any clues as to how, if maybe, life could be created ther-"
- The first word isn’t capitalized.
- ’No signs of life’ is mentioned twice in a weird way.
her heels click-clacking as they nimbly avoid messy desks, chairs, pencils and other miscellaneous obstacles, moving towards windows.
- The first word isn’t capitalized.
- 'Click-clacked', otherwise it is present tense again.
- 'moving towards the windows' I assume.
confetti scraps and flower petals lie in every corner of the field, except for the grassy area.
- The first word isn’t capitalized.
- There’s an extra space between ‘the’ and ‘grassy’.
- ’lie’ is present tense, and ‘lied’ is past tense.
SH wise, and in truth, I’d give you a 2. I didn’t understand what the overall plot was and the prose felt quite raw. I can’t really comment on much else since there wasn’t much for me to go off of, so I guess I’ll leave it at that.
(You didn’t specify where, so I’ll put my uneducated ramblings here.)
I read both available chapters at the time of this post. There weren’t even a thousand words for me to look at, so forgive me if I can’t get into many specifics.
So, um, let's start with the synopsis. I uh, didn’t really get what you going for there. I imagine it has something to do with the theme of your story, where one person is another’s light, but it is so vague that I got nothing else out of it. Who is the main character? What is this about? Where is this set? What is the hook? I’m getting multitudes more information out of your tags than I am from the summary, that’s usually not a good sign.
Your prologue was less confusing, but I still had to focus pretty hard to make sense of it. The quote at the start was simple enough to understand — despite me having little clue of what this story is about — and I guess you were describing a festival that will be a pivotal part of the story later, like the backdrop for a confession scene. Since your synopsis was ultra vague, people can only make assumptions to begin with, and leaving readers totally lost can be a bad sign. I am kind of giving this a hesitant pass though since it seems more built around establishing a certain tone and it was a super short prologue.
(You also mentioned mecha, and I’ll admit my inner child got excited for a moment, but I realized you didn’t use the tag so this was probably window dressing.)
I also want to mention that the stuff in brackets had a sentence in past tense while the paragraphs describing the festival were in present tense. It’s usually a good idea to pick one or the other and not dip into both, for clarity’s sake, unless you’re an expert.
Now for chapter one.
At first, I thought this was a soft sci-fi AU when the teacher began her lecture about photos showing blue skies on Uranus and Neptune and things about seeing no signs of extraterrestrial life. Then I remembered you started the chapter with ‘Year 2028’ and realized you likely meant AD and were just talking about both planets’ real color compositions in their skies. The reason I made this mix-up is that you didn’t specify the Gregorian calendar after all that sci-fi in the quotes and prologue. I’m elaborating on this to point out how difficult it is to parse clarity in the narrative in general.
This is also where the vague synopsis comes to bite the reader again, as they’re going to assume the teacher is the protagonist as she is the first point of view. Going by the tags, prologue, and the scene the teacher witnessed outside her classroom, they’re also going to assume that it’s a romance story. You didn’t tag romance, so if it isn’t heavily romance-centric and instead higher on the mystery scale, then that concept wasn’t well shown in my opinion.
Grammar-wise, the problems stemmed across the board, from tense to punctuation to clarity. Unfortunately, I don’t have all the time in the world to sit down and teach every aspect from scratch, but I will leave a small grammar pile. All I can really advise here is to do a bunch of self-study regarding grammar rules and read books like Sin & Syntax or Dash of Style.
Grammar Pile: (Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong or ignore my advice)
[starry, ink blue sky's. standing beneath them was a youth clutching a glowing star in their hands.]
- Missing capitalizations: ‘Starry’, ‘Standing’
- Unnecessary apostrophe: ‘skies’
This tradition has lasted from when the mecha's were daily wear for the humans to protect themselve, to when each and every mecha from those horrid days has been locked up in a museum, for the naive and ignorant striplings to admire in awe...
- ‘Themselves’ I assume.
- Unnecessary apostrophe: ‘mechas’
- Personally, I don’t think the ellipsis at the end was necessary. Subjective opinion.
[Before the year 30432 there was a once society where uniqueness in humans were either pushed up a high pedestal or thrown to the ground and trampled over. A society restricted, by their narrow minded experiences as well as the prejudice that was not properly fixed even before their doom...]
- The ‘once’ and ‘a’ should swap sides in the first sentence.
- The last sentence is a bit of a mess in my opinion. I don’t usually restructure entire sentences in these piles, so I can only recommend running this one through an editing program or rewriting it entirely.
[ the before origin of star day]
- The first word isn’t capitalized.
- There’s a gap between the bracket and ‘the’.
- I assume this is something like ‘The origin of Star Day’ or the like?
"It was probably then when the our ancestors trying to play their hand at being creators realized their blue skies, their own creations as well as their own intellect only furthered to prove their loneliness "
- Missing a period at the end.
- Unnecessary 'the' between 'when' and 'our'.
"in the photos, they captured no signs of life, no signs of life that had existed nor any clues as to how, if maybe, life could be created ther-"
- The first word isn’t capitalized.
- ’No signs of life’ is mentioned twice in a weird way.
her heels click-clacking as they nimbly avoid messy desks, chairs, pencils and other miscellaneous obstacles, moving towards windows.
- The first word isn’t capitalized.
- 'Click-clacked', otherwise it is present tense again.
- 'moving towards the windows' I assume.
confetti scraps and flower petals lie in every corner of the field, except for the grassy area.
- The first word isn’t capitalized.
- There’s an extra space between ‘the’ and ‘grassy’.
- ’lie’ is present tense, and ‘lied’ is past tense.
SH wise, and in truth, I’d give you a 2. I didn’t understand what the overall plot was and the prose felt quite raw. I can’t really comment on much else since there wasn’t much for me to go off of, so I guess I’ll leave it at that.
thank you!
also, I wish I could write about mechas, but nope. I'll probably screw it up while writing a fighting scene because I'm unable to picture a mecha fighting and being able to express it.
I’m pretty new here, but I’m sort of a “veteran” in RR, six months and counting. As for here, it has 8 chapters, and two more will come at 12:00 AM (GMT+8).
Parallaxis: the otherworld, whimsical yet close to its sibling. A mega annum later, six champions fought a beast to eclipse all. Brave, they were. Heroes, never in their lifetime. Such fantasies didn’t exist in the land of giants, dragons, and magic. But Haruto’s story told of victory against...
Oh, you only have one chapter at the time of me posting this. Alright then.
Before I get to the story itself, I want to talk about the synopsis. In my opinion, as one sentence it is way too generic to attract most people outside of those interested in assassins. It doesn’t describe anything about the system apocalypse, there’s nothing describing his character apart from his job, and a ‘unique ability’ is something 95% of all LitRPG protagonists get. There really isn’t much incentive here to convince those on the fence to give your story a shot.
Next, and it is super important, but your main character’s motivations are inconsistent. In the beginning, the reader is told about Derek’s desire to retire from assassination work and all the plans he had laid out in mind, but then after the isekai he’s thrilled about how his line of work could get him more work doing the exact same stuff he wanted to get away from. That doesn’t make sense at all; I thought he would’ve taken the chance to try a new line of work instead.
Going back a little, but the way Derek knocked out the guards suspended my disbelief. You can’t tell me that they wouldn’t have made a bunch of noise after Derek tossed the smoke grenade inside. Don’t they have walkie-talkies? Why didn’t they just spray the door hinges with bullets to get out? Did the cubby room not have any other opening, like a window? On another note, how did Mujahid stay conscious after the smoke? If Mujahid had a gas mask too, why wasn’t that mentioned? When Derek screamed after getting stabbed, why didn’t the guard in the kitchen hear that?
This isn’t to mention the fact that Derek made hella noise using his gun to turn Mujahid’s head into a human rendition of swiss cheese. What was his game plan to get out after that? I’ll give the benefit of the doubt in that Derek’s situation at that point was pretty critical, but he can’t exactly retire the way he wants to if the rest of the guards in the house came and turned his body into a metal detector’s worst nightmare. He wouldn’t have had any idea about a system apocalypse approaching to bail him out either, so he decided to go with the situation you envisioned and assumed it was his best likelihood for success and survival. That doesn’t seem very professional assassin to me.
Another thing that made me raise an eyebrow is that he somehow immediately assumed that thinking about the word ‘status’ would bring up an RPG stat menu when you made no connection to this fact prior. Originally I thought the menu came up on its own but you created the contradiction when Derek wanted to know the stats of some other mook next to him and said mook didn’t know how.
This is a personal preference, but when the system gives such blatant favoritism to the protagonist I worry about the story’s tension. If he grows at a rate that stomps out any and all competition, he’s just going to end up like the guy who spent $100,000 in Diablo Immortal; so overpowered that the game can’t even find anyone to pit him against.
And then the last thing Derek does is slink away from the crowd instead of seeing if any of them could be useful to him, jumping blind into a dense forest likely populated with monsters he’s never seen before alone. That sounds suicidal to me.
Grammar Pile: (Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong or ignore my advice)
Then, he leaned out to hold the door shut.,
- Extra comma at the end.
For some reason, this fit man only had stats at around the 10 lever, even though he clearly exercised a lot.
- ‘Level’, I assume, though I’d go a step further and go ‘10’s’ instead and remove ‘lever’ entirely.
It was time to hunt
- Missing a period at the end.
SH wise, I’d give you a 2. Truthfully, the same. I can see the appeal behind the idea, but there are way too many inconsistencies in the narrative for me to be able to enjoy this. I think one thing that might help you is to research and plan out most of the plot and scenes first before updating on SH, so you can better create a more cohesive narrative.
I mean, you liked my post which said I would rewrite the story, in first person, and re submit it, so I assumed that was approval. I've thought about a plot which should last until the end of the tutorial as well, like you suggested. It is now in first person, with an updated description coming shortly. Assassins Apocalypse
They're both introverted.
