Feedback on my story

Zirrboy

Fueled by anger
Joined
Jan 25, 2021
Messages
1,135
Points
153
1. Appearance dumps. I'd suggest spreading the information out and mention things as they become relevant.
2. The pronouns seem inconsistent. Though idk whether there's just an underlying rule I'm not familiar with.
Ghyuoui looked down at their deadpan face with excited glee in her eyes before they continued.
Ghyuoui leapt up and wrapped their arms around Hiyou
3. I have no idea how I should imagine Ghyoui's accent.
I'm no pronunciation expert, but if I take the apostrophe as a shortening or ellipsis, like with " doin' ", I can't make sense of the two above.
 

ConcubusBunny

Chaotic lewd enby bunny. They/them
Joined
Feb 10, 2020
Messages
261
Points
83
1. Appearance dumps. I'd suggest spreading the information out and mention things as they become relevant.
2. The pronouns seem inconsistent. Though idk whether there's just an underlying rule I'm not familiar with.


3. I have no idea how I should imagine Ghyoui's accent.


I'm no pronunciation expert, but if I take the apostrophe as a shortening or ellipsis, like with " doin' ", I can't make sense of the two above.
Thanks for taking the tie to review my work.
1 yeah I know, but it's sorta my style, I sometimes forget how some characters are supposed to look like and it throws off my writing when their description is spread out throughout the chapter. Besides this way, everyone knows how everyone in the cast looks like.

2. The pronouns aren't inconsistent if you check my glossary you'll see that Ghtuoui's pronouns are she/they so put those together is appropriate for them.

3. It's a desert people things. Yeah, I know people in the desert don't actually talk like this, but it's a speech quirk I gave to all desert inhabitant animals within my universe. The apostrophe is the shortened version of doin' I thought what if I made a certain group of people speak in broken shortened versions of their general language so that's why Homuri, Ghyuoui, and the receptionist have that speech quirk.
 

Zirrboy

Fueled by anger
Joined
Jan 25, 2021
Messages
1,135
Points
153
2. The pronouns aren't inconsistent if you check my glossary you'll see that Ghtuoui's pronouns are she/they so put those together is appropriate for them.
TIL that giving a selection of pronouns to use is a thing, too.

But in this case I'd also specify that Ghyuoui prefers to have both pronouns used, since afaik this notation can also mean that the person is fine with either.

3. It's a desert people things. Yeah, I know people in the desert don't actually talk like this, but it's a speech quirk I gave to all desert inhabitant animals within my universe. The apostrophe is the shortened version of doin' I thought what if I made a certain group of people speak in broken shortened versions of their general language so that's why Homuri, Ghyuoui, and the receptionist have that speech quirk.
My complaint is not "Why give them accents", but "Some of those cannot be pronounced imo"
 
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LostLibrarian

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 27, 2019
Messages
709
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133
Honestly, I won't comment too much on the content because I am not part of your target audience. So I'll just comment on another thing that might you hold back. Especially on a webnovel site: The pacing of the chapter feels really off.

It starts with a 52 words sentence paragraph in the beginning that is needlessly complex and has the actual important information at the very end thanks to passive voice. That's a sentence one needs to read 3 times to get all the information, because you mix a lot of different subjects into one passive sentence.

When starting your novel is already a chore, that's an instant drop for a lot of people who look for an enjoyable and light reading experience compared to reading a textbook. And this is the very first impression your reader will get.

And the same thing continues through the next paragraphs. It feels like you want to push as much information as possible into one sentence, but this leads to the focus of the sentence or paragraph jumping topics as well. Going by my first impression: cutting most long sentences into two shorter ones with their own topic would improve the reading flow by a lot.

It's not badly written, but the jumping focus makes it harder to follow than it needs to be. And every time it jumps to a place I didn't expect, it takes me out of the reading and I question why I would want to continue.

It's the same with the endless ";" of the character description pressed into one big paragraph screaming "skip me!". If I take the time and the focus to read through it, there might be a lot of good information in it, but the nagging at the back of my head tells me, that I invested more than I should have.


And it's a shame, because there are parts of the chapter filled with a lot of good foundation, e.g. the combination of action and dialogue. But then there is another paragraph like this:

They headed to their bed where they left their phone last night thinking how they were going to break the news to their spouse or how Ghyuoui will take it if they refuse, when they noticed that Ghyuoui was about to trip on a bottle and pulled them out of the way.

Multiple topics squeezed into one long sentence with no focus. Once more, I'm out of my flow. And that's also important, because without a nice reading flow, I'll see all the little mistakes made in the chapter. Wrong tense, wrong punctuation, a sentence that is slightly off.

I might have read through that normally, but now I'm focused on it, because the book asked for my full attention. And it doesn't help. It just throws the "Do you really want to read it?" question at me over and over again. Until I stopped.

Once more, I'm probably not part of your target audience. But your writing style makes it really hard to get invested into your story and find the reasons to continue. It's hard to get hooked, when I first need to invest a lot of my time and attention.

Hence, the one advice I'll leave: work on your pacing. You want to hook people who look at this chapter from their phone or tablet. Readers who have 100+ stories in their reading list and will always have an alternative at hand, if they get bored in the middle of the beginning. This isn't a book they paid 10$ for and now feel obligated to sit through. Instead, they are only a click away from something else.

--------------------------------------------

if you check my glossary
A bit on the overall topic of my feedback, but just to add a simple thing: if the flow and understanding of your chapter relies on the glossary, you are doing something wrong. Nobody wants to read a textbook to understand your story. Every information needed should be given inside the story and the glossary should only be used for (a) unimportant additional information for those who like it or (b) to remind people who forget stuff.

That said, I just ignored the pronouns at some point, because the difference between "They" and "They" didn't help...
 

KoyukiMegumi

Kitty
Joined
Jun 11, 2021
Messages
898
Points
133
Creative. There are some run-ons at the start is a perfect example. You should break those sentences up a bit. I also suggest you use something like ProWritingAid to help with placing commas. I don't know if you use Grammarly, but it is another thing that can help.

Ex.

"Oh, right..." They turned around heading into the room.

Fix:
"Oh, right..." They turned around, heading into the room.

Another ex of a run-on:

They headed to their bed where they left their phone last night thinking how they were going to break the news to their spouse or how Ghyuoui will take it if they refuse, when they noticed that Ghyuoui was about to trip on a bottle and pulled them out of the way.

I liked the way you placed music in some parts. c:

To detect run-ons and other errors, I recommend using a read-aloud. A friendly blob provided this one to me!

https://www.naturalreaders.com/online/
 

ConcubusBunny

Chaotic lewd enby bunny. They/them
Joined
Feb 10, 2020
Messages
261
Points
83
Creative. There are some run-ons at the start is a perfect example. You should break those sentences up a bit. I also suggest you use something like ProWritingAid to help with placing commas. I don't know if you use Grammarly, but it is another thing that can help.

Ex.

"Oh, right..." They turned around heading into the room.

Fix:
"Oh, right..." They turned around, heading into the room.

Another ex of a run-on:

They headed to their bed where they left their phone last night thinking how they were going to break the news to their spouse or how Ghyuoui will take it if they refuse, when they noticed that Ghyuoui was about to trip on a bottle and pulled them out of the way.

I liked the way you placed music in some parts. c:

To detect run-ons and other errors, I recommend using a read-aloud. A friendly blob provided this one to me!

https://www.naturalreaders.com/online/
Thanks for the feed back, Kitty
I actually do use grammarly for the editing.
Now I know where to make adjustments in my writing style to be more enjoyable. I was actually beginning to think that I was putting too many paragraphs or cutting the sentences too short, guess I was wrong.
 
Joined
Jul 12, 2021
Messages
91
Points
18
Really? Okay. You asked for it.
Fix your first sentence. You overuse "in", have a tin ear, and don't know when to let a description speak for itself. To wit:

"During mid-day in an early summer day in a small town close to the exterior border of the kingdom of Yehora in the top floor of an inn in a messy room with alcohol bottles, snacks, clothes, and gadgets littered all over the room sleeping in a peculiar way was a pomeranian."

Should read:

"During the middle of an early summer's day, in a small town at the very edge of Yehora, on the top floor of a delapidated flop-house, within a misused attic littered with empty bottles of alchohol, leftover snacks, dirty clothes, and half-broken gadgets, sleeps, sprawled in a peculiar way, a pomeranian."

The rest of your chapter suffers from similarly poor diction. Go back and rewrite the entire chapter without using -ing, and stop using "they" unless you have a Really good excuse. Yes, I know, English does not have a singular, third person, neuter pronoun, you're going to get creative. Maybe even use the oportunity to point out the MC's gender ambiguity.

Overall Assessment: I'm not willing to read and critique beyond the first sentence.

"I actually do use grammarly for the editing." -- Quothe Inflamebawdy

If your work is what Grammarly produces, then stop using Grammarly.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Jul 12, 2021
Messages
91
Points
18
Okay, some progress. I'm past the first sentence! Which is good. You're title sounded cool, but I'm no longer willing to spend my reading time reworking poorly written sentences in my head till they make sense. But, we progress!

Seriously though, cut it with the "they" business unless you're going to give the reader a good reason. It's actually very disorienting to an English reader and gets confusing very fast when you start adding in other characters. Are you intending the singular to be all post-modern and pc, or are you talking about a group? The reader can only guess from context clues and hope they're right. Remember: written English is at least two decades behind conversational English. Also, English authors have the priviledge of making up new words. If you really need a third person nueter pronoun, invent one.

Did the pomeranian spill the energy drink or quaff it? In the case of quaffing, he "knocked back". If he spilled it, say so.

As mentioned above and by other posters, your descriptions are fairly artless. Some advice: Do not Ever specify cup size on a woman. Usually, cup sizes hare off into realms of absurdity very quickly and become meaningless. Really, all they usually tell the reader is "ah, the author likes big boobs". It's much better to use relative or contextual size clues. The key to satisfying smut is aiding the reader in building their own mental image that satisfies the readers' own tastes. Unless you're writing a grim-dark guro fantasy. Let's not go there.

Try to work descriptions into the narative instead of dumping them in the reader's lap all at once.

Simple past or present tense work better for descriptions than past perfect (unless there's a reason for past perfect).

Be more consistent with your pronouns. If you refer to an individual as "her" in one paragraph, don't call her "them" in the next. Especially when you've already reserved they, their, them for the pomeranian mc. See point 2 above.

Semi-colons are not a substitute for periods. A semi-colon has the same syntactic meaning as a conjunction.

" Before the fox could react to seeing their friend after coming over unannounced, the pomeranian swung their fist at the desert fox's face, their fist Colling with it. Simultaneously, the fox gave the pomeranian a right hook, sending them slamming into the side of the door frame before she slammed against into the wall and slumping on their ass."

Again, with the they, their, them confusion. Whoever told you they, their, them can be used in preference to he, she, him, her, his, hers gave you terrible advice. You have already identified the fox as a girl, so use "her" unless she is part of a group.

"Colling"?

"Before the fox could react..." contradicts "Simultaneously...". Maybe, "Before the fox could say hello, the pomeranian..."?

And that's as far as I got.

Overall: Better. Many fewer -ing's which helps immensely. Clean up your tenses and fix your pronouns (invent a word if you must but you can do a lot with a bit more creativity). You can work on more stylish descriptions in later chapters.
 

ConcubusBunny

Chaotic lewd enby bunny. They/them
Joined
Feb 10, 2020
Messages
261
Points
83
Okay, some progress. I'm past the first sentence! Which is good. You're title sounded cool, but I'm no longer willing to spend my reading time reworking poorly written sentences in my head till they make sense. But, we progress!

Seriously though, cut it with the "they" business unless you're going to give the reader a good reason. It's actually very disorienting to an English reader and gets confusing very fast when you start adding in other characters. Are you intending the singular to be all post-modern and pc, or are you talking about a group? The reader can only guess from context clues and hope they're right. Remember: written English is at least two decades behind conversational English. Also, English authors have the priviledge of making up new words. If you really need a third person nueter pronoun, invent one.

Did the pomeranian spill the energy drink or quaff it? In the case of quaffing, he "knocked back". If he spilled it, say so.

As mentioned above and by other posters, your descriptions are fairly artless. Some advice: Do not Ever specify cup size on a woman. Usually, cup sizes hare off into realms of absurdity very quickly and become meaningless. Really, all they usually tell the reader is "ah, the author likes big boobs". It's much better to use relative or contextual size clues. The key to satisfying smut is aiding the reader in building their own mental image that satisfies the readers' own tastes. Unless you're writing a grim-dark guro fantasy. Let's not go there.

Try to work descriptions into the narative instead of dumping them in the reader's lap all at once.

Simple past or present tense work better for descriptions than past perfect (unless there's a reason for past perfect).

Be more consistent with your pronouns. If you refer to an individual as "her" in one paragraph, don't call her "them" in the next. Especially when you've already reserved they, their, them for the pomeranian mc. See point 2 above.

Semi-colons are not a substitute for periods. A semi-colon has the same syntactic meaning as a conjunction.

" Before the fox could react to seeing their friend after coming over unannounced, the pomeranian swung their fist at the desert fox's face, their fist Colling with it. Simultaneously, the fox gave the pomeranian a right hook, sending them slamming into the side of the door frame before she slammed against into the wall and slumping on their ass."

Again, with the they, their, them confusion. Whoever told you they, their, them can be used in preference to he, she, him, her, his, hers gave you terrible advice. You have already identified the fox as a girl, so use "her" unless she is part of a group.

"Colling"?

"Before the fox could react..." contradicts "Simultaneously...". Maybe, "Before the fox could say hello, the pomeranian..."?

And that's as far as I got.

Overall: Better. Many fewer -ing's which helps immensely. Clean up your tenses and fix your pronouns (invent a word if you must but you can do a lot with a bit more creativity). You can work on more stylish descriptions in later chapters.
Thanks for the update, but I'm keeping the description thing, sorta of a personal preference for me than anything else and some of my characters use multiple pronouns which is why the fox and Caribou use she/they pronouns, but you're right maybe I should make another neutral pronoun for them. Also the fox isn't a girl just cause they use she/her pronouns along with they/them doesn't make her a girl.
 
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