Please give my story a shot as well, i've edited my first two chapters already once, but i'm still unsure. And those are arguably the most important ones so yeah.
Amber dies and is reincarnated in Nereid, a medieval fantasy world where mana is present in every being. Fueled by a boundless thirst for magic and adventure, she begins her journey of discovery. She is eager to learn all she can about this world, its magical abilities and creatures, and...
www.scribblehub.com
So, my immediate reaction would be to drop this because your grammar is amateur and so I find it annoying to read. Let’s touch up on some basics here with the first sentences.
Finally Free, I let out a relived sigh as I walked sluggishly. My feet hurt from a long day of work and my head was pounding relentlessly from the constant noise and chatter of the hospital as I made my way to the parking lot.
I’m so tired.
Here are the number of issues I see here alone:
- Improper use of tags and beats when combined with internal dialogue. If you’re using an action beat after dialogue, it should end with a period, not a comma. If you’re using a comma, you should have something like “I thought.”
- Adverbs for things like “walked sluggishly” instead of just getting a strong verb. Also, kill adverbs as much as possible and just pick one verb that does the job.
- Telling that you can easily avoid. You name emotions, for example.
I’ll rewrite this entire thing real quick while focusing on showing and setting the stage.
I heaved a sigh as I trudged out the hospital’s automatic doors, my head and feet throbbing from a long day of work.
I’ll even work on the second paragraph since it would’ve been better to use indirect internal dialogue instead of direct internal dialogue. Here we go, adding that in…
I heaved a sigh as I trudged out the hospital’s automatic doors, my head and feet throbbing from a long day of work. We had been understaffed since covid hit and twelve hours in layered masks and sweaty overalls didn’t help.
There we go, that made that far more cohesive, clean, and so on. There is so much repetition that I was already bored at the beginning, like, I get it, she’s tired.
Say more with less. You overwrite so much, like…
I made my way to the apartment, shivering due to the freezing cold.
I’d just put…
I made my way to the apartment, shivering.
Also, if you’re naming an emotion, cut the label. I see you do it a lot. Also, since you’re using first person, you could probably use direct internal dialogue far less. Just use narrative.
So yeah, this is what jumps out and why I got frustrated and stopped reading. This is where you can improve and part of my suggestions on how.
There are more in-depth things I can do here to break down the reasons why behind things, but I’m saving that for a master video that I procrastinated on for far too long. I dislike repeating myself over and over, so I plan to make that next month.
Anyway, I hope this helps a bit! Oh and, since I absolutely hate being negative, I want to say that I do actually like where the story starts. I'm not sure on how effective it is yet because of how distracted I was, but I feel it's a good starting point.
