Does This Story Meet Your Expectations?

Phantomheart

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Feb 13, 2019
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The Satisfaction of 100 Lifetimes: Marigold’s Reincarnation
Marigold was your average cannon fodder villainess; she schemed and plotted against her perfect half-sister, the heroine, she attempted to assassinate her own twin brother for betraying her, and she tried to defame her fiance, the prince. Now of course, none of this worked, and eventually she was imprisoned for her crimes. However, on the day of her pardon, where her sister, now queen, gave her mercy, she swiped a guard's weapon and took her own life.

With her last breath filled with curses towards her family and ex-fiance, she left the world with her heart full of hatred. However, her story did not end there; the next thing that Marigold knew, she was in another world with the faint memory of making some sort of deal -- a shadow's mere whisper that in exchange for one hundred lifetimes, she could have her own happily ever after.

However, one hundred lifetimes changes a person, especially when they can go through different eras and periods, all as mere cannon fodder. She met another transmigrator in one of her lives and soon moved on from her hatred -- it wasn't worth it anymore.

But when her contract is complete and she is sent back to her very first life when all her troubles first began, Marigold can't help but change her fate, even if it is not as cruel as she first imagined it so many lifetimes ago. Eventually though, with the help of the strange second prince she gets her own happily ever after.
Annotation 2020-01-17 233418.png

This might be my late night paranoia and third caffeine crash talking, but I was having some doubts about my novel and whether or not it actually lived up to any of the expectations set through its tags and description. I know that the tags Modern Knowledge, Power Struggle, and Doting Love Interests, have yet to become a large part of the story yet, but I was wondering it they actually lined up with the story. I know a good description and cover image draws a reader in, but if that description does not match with the tone or setting of the actual novel, then it is worthless, if the cover is pretty but the writing is shit, then it is worthless.

I've shoved in allusions to fairytales, biblical stories, and myths. I've put in literary devices of rhyme and imagery when it comes to important scenes of the character's thought. I had even put in a continuous string of foreshadowing around the image of a bird's nest. But I don't know if any of these are obvious to the reader or are just too subtle. I know that I am my own worst critic, so I want to get some feedback on what can be done.

The feedback I have gotten back from my readers so far is that they like the imagery and description used in the story and that they catch onto the omens and foreshadowing pretty quickly. Everything else, I am stumped and in a hole.

Pls help.
 

Phantomheart

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Messages
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Read through a bit, what exactly are you concerned about?
Does the story actually fit the description and tags? When you read through does it meet the expectations you set for it? Does the story read well or does is sound awkward?
 

Polpota

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Jan 11, 2020
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Reads fine but you know that as you’ve probably read and reread each chapter. The only tags I care about are the genres and yours hits those so far (I can’t stand reading tragedy so you got the feeling of it down). Meeting expectations? That’s so dang subjective you’ll write yourself into a ditch trying to meet everyone’s expectations and make your work worse for it. Like I said I don’t like tragedies therefore I’d give real crap advice wanting the story to pivot my way instead of the way it needs to go.

It’s not the best story I’ve ever read mainly because I don’t like tragedies, there’s a lot of ‘told not shown’ going on in the first chapter and a bit more in the second but it is definitely not the worst as the story shows some real promise. Second chapter is leaps and bounds more engaging than the first which is great.

Looks a bit like a drop in confidence to me is your biggest problem. I’ve read some real train wrecks on here that were barely readable with no tags matching besides a couple of those listed in genre. You’re good at writing, you’re ranked 7 in the contest by views, you’re double digits in the favorites nearing triple.

The only advice I can give you is to not stand in your way worrying about tags and expectations. You’ve got some good stuff there.
 
D

Deleted member 5560

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First to address your paranoia: I recently binged through this novel and thought it was a real hidden gem! I was excited to see it on trending today. I think it's a really great novel, it has a very clear and unique "voice" and lots of intriguing twists and turns. I think you really created a great story here and I am very excited to see where you go with it, going forward. You should have pride in this one, because it's great and I have really, really enjoyed it so far. Although you tag it as tragedy, I think it actually strikes a nice balance between a sense of melancholy and frustration, but not being just an emotional swamp that makes you feel shitty reading it.

Secondly, addressing the tags: I don't think Marigold is an apathetic protagonist. I think she's an emotionally closed off protagonist, but she actually has fairly clear goals, even early on in the story. "Cold Protagonist" would fit better than apathetic, imo. As far as tags go -- I don't read tags going in to stories, at most I just skim for "trigger" tags, I only go based off synopsis and genre tags, so I can't tell you what my expectations were at all based on the tags, only what I feel in retrospect having already read it. But the other tags seem about accurate.

I found the bird nest foreshadowing a little obvious, and had a feeling about [redacted] being the true identity of [redacted] reinforced by it, but I also don't think that's a problem per se. I think at the beginning of the story, the writing was a little too purple and treacle-y, but it kind of smoothed out as the story progressed (one line in the first chapter especially made me actively consider just dropping the story (sorry): "Find it within yourself to give forgiveness". It just reads awkward, and feels like you're trying too hard to be overly formal and verbose with your language in a way that's just cringey). I might suggest doing some pruning of the first chapter at most since that's the one people are gonna make snap judgements about, but I don't think you should edit anything else and just focus on going forward for right now -- especially because, like I said, the writing did get smoother and more natural after that. I just think it's good to remember that fireworks shows only have the impact they do because they do them once or twice a year, and it has a quiet night sky to contrast against -- y'get me?

The only other criticism I have is that the narrative "voice" of Marigold is very ornamental and purple, but then her speaking voice is so rough and straightforward, it feels a little hard to connect them as the same person. Handled right, this could just reinforce her being an aware unreliable narrator to the audience, but so far it hasn't come off that way.
 

Phantomheart

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Messages
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First to address your paranoia: I recently binged through this novel and thought it was a real hidden gem! I was excited to see it on trending today. I think it's a really great novel, it has a very clear and unique "voice" and lots of intriguing twists and turns. I think you really created a great story here and I am very excited to see where you go with it, going forward. You should have pride in this one, because it's great and I have really, really enjoyed it so far. Although you tag it as tragedy, I think it actually strikes a nice balance between a sense of melancholy and frustration, but not being just an emotional swamp that makes you feel shitty reading it.

Secondly, addressing the tags: I don't think Marigold is an apathetic protagonist. I think she's an emotionally closed off protagonist, but she actually has fairly clear goals, even early on in the story. "Cold Protagonist" would fit better than apathetic, imo. As far as tags go -- I don't read tags going in to stories, at most I just skim for "trigger" tags, I only go based off synopsis and genre tags, so I can't tell you what my expectations were at all based on the tags, only what I feel in retrospect having already read it. But the other tags seem about accurate.

I found the bird nest foreshadowing a little obvious, and had a feeling about [redacted] being the true identity of [redacted] reinforced by it, but I also don't think that's a problem per se. I think at the beginning of the story, the writing was a little too purple and treacle-y, but it kind of smoothed out as the story progressed (one line in the first chapter especially made me actively consider just dropping the story (sorry): "Find it within yourself to give forgiveness". It just reads awkward, and feels like you're trying too hard to be overly formal and verbose with your language in a way that's just cringey). I might suggest doing some pruning of the first chapter at most since that's the one people are gonna make snap judgements about, but I don't think you should edit anything else and just focus on going forward for right now -- especially because, like I said, the writing did get smoother and more natural after that. I just think it's good to remember that fireworks shows only have the impact they do because they do them once or twice a year, and it has a quiet night sky to contrast against -- y'get me?

The only other criticism I have is that the narrative "voice" of Marigold is very ornamental and purple, but then her speaking voice is so rough and straightforward, it feels a little hard to connect them as the same person. Handled right, this could just reinforce her being an aware unreliable narrator to the audience, but so far it hasn't come off that way.
flucket I fucking love you :blob_teary:

tysm for the advice and for pointing out the bit with the first chapter especially. I've been pruning and replanting that damn hell bush of a chapter for three times now and something always sounds off and I think the unneeded formality might just be it. I'll definitely be going back at it for another round to try and actually get the tone right (my first chapters always suck :sweating_profusely:)

I'll probably be replacing that tag with cold protagonist since Marigold's character has evolved from the first few chapters, especially with the introduction of [redacted] and with how [redacted] changes most of the feeling of the story from that point on.

I have a feeling the tone differences with Marigold's narrative are also from my difficulties of trying to write a character that is still frustrated with herself and what happened to [redacted] but also a character that is trying to be optimistic (which is really hard to do since I'm quite cynical and my personality bleeds into the writing with Marigold's character :blob_whistle:) when they are naturally pessimistic. I'll definitely be working on that and when I go back to edit chapters at some point I'll be adding in sentences and paragraphs to even out the tone to match Marigold's rather weird way of speaking and describing things. Sometimes I feel like I'm writing through the perspective of a kid who is picking flowers while the world is burning right behind them lol.

Also, I'm really glad that you are enjoying the story since you are actually one of my first inspirations on SH. I hope to see you around, friend :blob_highfive:
 
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