Free feedback thread.

[EtherealPhonic]

Obligatory reminder that English is my second language, and this is subjective feedback from a reader. I stopped reading after I finished all the available chapters. Current last chapter is Ohana

First of all, you should properly tag your novel as fanfiction, and it's against the law to monetize fanfiction. Yes, I'm talking about Patreon and other similar services.

Before I start with the feedback, here is some friendly advice. If you will continue to write and post on SH, use as many fitting tags and genres as possible. The more tags and genres you use, the better the visibility of your novel. Another advice. If your chapters are on a shorter side, you should release them more often. I know it might be hard for you to write a lot, so I'm not saying you HAVE to do it. I simply share my knowledge. As a general rule of thumb, readers tend to ignore stories with short chapters if an author doesn't release at least three chapters a week. Short chapters are chapters that have less than 1900-2000 words.

Now, let me talk about your synopsis. It's bad. It lacks details and a hook. Sure, some people might like it. However, you are uploading your novel to a site that hosts web novels, so people expect something else. It shouldn't be long, but the current one is way too short and doesn't tell anything. So, a reader(in this case it's me) doesn't know what to expect.

And with all of that out of the way, I can finally start my feedback. And it will be pretty short since there is a major mistake.

Paragraphing. You don't split actions and dialogue lines of different people, different POVs into different paragraphs. I won't copy all of this paragraph, but I think you can understand what I mean if I show a small piece.

“How did you even come up with a spell like that?” The older of the two asked with a puzzled look. He had brown hair, with green highlights on the tips. “Why? Are you jealous of my creativity?” The younger of the two

This is a huge mistake that makes it hard to read, but most importantly, hard to understand what you wrote. All of the first chapter is like this. It's not okay.

Another major downside, (though I can't say it's a mistake) is the lack of variety in how you write. She said, he said, she acted, he acted, he walked, she walked, and so on. Apart from using names, there are multiple ways to address someone and add to the story. The way things are right now looks like a battle log from an RPG game. Dry, no details.

The fact that this chapter consists mostly of dialogue isn't a downside per se, but if you combine it with the previous factors it becomes unbearable to read.

And that's the end of my feedback. It's hard for me to focus on anything else in your novel since most of my attention and mental capacity was spent on trying to split the paragraphs in my head to try and understand who is who. And there is obviously no way I can judge characters or plot since there are only 1300 words of the story, and it is fanfiction.

Anyway, that's it. If you have any questions feel free to ask me. If I can, I will answer them.

I hear you on the formatting, somthing to look into. However I will not be releasing more than once a week as my schedule doesn't allow me to write that often. I'm new to this site so I'm learning how to do that. I don't personally see a problem with my patreon as it is not monetized on there but I will specifically label it as fanfiction. splitting dialogue is a good tip, my partner was the only one who had actually given me feedback (other than you now) and they didn't have a readability issue with it. I'm hessitent to change that without hearing more feedback from people who do have english as their first language, however. I'm not planning on any of the chapters to be much longer than this one, again no time for longer chapters. As for the synopsis, the story isn't finished but that's as accurate to the full idea as I have. If you have a variety of stories/synopsis that would be a good example of what you consider high quality, that would be helpful. All in all, thanks for the feedback.

 

[SailusGebel]

I hear you on the formatting, somthing to look into. However I will not be releasing more than once a week as my schedule doesn't allow me to write that often. I'm new to this site so I'm learning how to do that. I don't personally see a problem with my patreon as it is not monetized on there but I will specifically label it as fanfiction. splitting dialogue is a good tip, my partner was the only one who had actually given me feedback (other than you now) and they didn't have a readability issue with it. I'm hessitent to change that without hearing more feedback from people who do have english as their first language, however. I'm not planning on any of the chapters to be much longer than this one, again no time for longer chapters. As for the synopsis, the story isn't finished but that's as accurate to the full idea as I have. If you have a variety of stories/synopsis that would be a good example of what you consider high quality, that would be helpful. All in all, thanks for the feedback.

I'm not a stickler to rules, but I wanted to warn you so you won't have any problems with monetization.

Not changing anything yet is good approach since, I can be wrong. As for writing more or longer chapters, I will repeat myself. I'm not asking you to do it. I'm informing you of what can happen.

About synopsis. I wasn't talking about accuracy or your story being finished. I said, you need to include more details and a hook for potential readers. I suck at writing synopsis, so I won't be able to help you, but I can link you a guide.

Jay's Synopsis Formula will work on your novel.

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

forum.scribblehub.com

 

[EtherealPhonic]

I'm not a stickler to rules, but I wanted to warn you so you won't have any problems with monetization.

Not changing anything yet is good approach since, I can be wrong. As for writing more or longer chapters, I will repeat myself. I'm not asking you to do it. I'm informing you of what can happen.

About synopsis. I wasn't talking about accuracy or your story being finished. I said, you need to include more details and a hook for potential readers. I suck at writing synopsis, so I won't be able to help you, but I can link you a guide.

Jay's Synopsis Formula will work on your novel.

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

forum.scribblehub.com

Ooh, thank you for the guide! I really don't mind rewritting a better synopsis, this would be my first for a novel.

 

[SummerSweetTea]

Hello! You reviewed my first chapter some time ago and I've made significant changes to the beginning of the story since then. Not so much chapter 1 (it still needs a bit of a rework) but beyond that. There's no more same-sex scene at all, it's been completely removed and I now have a lot more posted. If you are willing to, would you mind flipping through chapter 2 or beyond?

 

[SailusGebel]

Hello! You reviewed my first chapter some time ago and I've made significant changes to the beginning of the story since then. Not so much chapter 1 (it still needs a bit of a rework) but beyond that. There's no more same-sex scene at all, it's been completely removed and I now have a lot more posted. If you are willing to, would you mind flipping through chapter 2 or beyond?

I won't make promises, but I will try.

 

[Anon2024]

I've seen enough promises to know where this is going...

 

[Para23]

Okay, we all know the drill, right? RIGHT!? The glorious comeback of reviewer you will never forget(), the ass ripper, the one who bashes newbies, the man, the myth, the legend. Based silusgimbel .

All jokes aside, I have some free time on my hands and I don't see enough operating feedback threads. With M.G.Driver missing, Story_Marc and TheTrinary being busy with vids and their respective jobs, someone has to provide the feedback for newbies.

Important note, my feedback differs from other feedback threads. English is my second language, and I'm a shit author, but what does it mean to you? It means that I will review your stories based on my feelings rather than technicalities, and I will do it as a reader, not as an author. I will give fair, but SUBJECTIVE feedback, and I will be blunt and harsh. Although I'm a lot tamer than I used to be, I will say whatever I think, without sugarcoating my thoughts.

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

Howdy and hello (again lol) I wrote a new novel, and was wondering if you can give some feedback. You can post on thread, thank you!

Scripted Fate

The off rhythm tick of a clock, and the acidic smell of blood. A lifeless body, and a letter, blood seeping into the floor of an inn I had no memory of. And a revolver, clutched in my own hand. In an age of churning gears and steam engines that...

www.scribblehub.com

 

[SailusGebel]

Hello,

Would love some critique on my story, Reverberation
People seem to find it boring and not engaging, so please shed some light on that as a reader. :)

Thanks!

Sorry for taking so long to give you feedback, I was busy and lazy. Obligatory reminder that English is my second language, and this is subjective feedback from a reader. I stopped reading after I finished 01 – Intertwined pathways

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

With this out of the way, I will start my feedback. And I'm sorry to say this, but there are a lot of mistakes in your novel, and personally, I didn't notice any positives. First of all, I should start with the most obvious and objective part. Do something with your formatting. I don't know if it's SH that messed it up or is it you, but you should fix it. Split your paragraphs properly. Yes, it matters.

Okay, now about your mistakes. I will start with something relatively minor. You sometimes forget to capitalize the start of a new sentence. It's an objective mistake that you should fix.
Here are examples.

He rustled his short brown hair and wondered if he should be natural or have lenses in. he decided on natural

argh! he could not put it into words or thoughts, but it felt so close but closer.

There are typos. Again, this is objective and should be fixed.
Examples.

Finn did not open his eyes as he stretched his aking body and felt stiff and sore. Aching.

and they taught a whole class about the 130 existing specifics in school. Species.

"Uh, Talia?" He taught and wondered if that I have no idea what you wanted to say here but taught is wrong since it doesn't fit the context. Maybe you wanted to write "thought"?

“Finn, are you okay?” His father asked when Finn still didn’t answer. I'm not sure if I can consider this a typo or not, but you can't use "when" here.

You write a lot of weird phrases. This is obviously subjective.
Examples.

Every heartbeat made her existence expand and contract.

She had no clue if it was painful, as her whole body was numb from the cold.

She could hear the howling of the cold as the ice winds from the north came sweeping down the mountains.

The thing I don't like is that you can paraphrase each sentence to make it flow better and look less weird. Some phrases are legit incomprehensible, like the third one. What does it mean? I can't even make a guess, it looks like gibberish.

I will give you an example of paraphrasing using the second sentence. Was it painful? She couldn't answer since the cold made her whole body numb. I don't like it, but I feel like it looks a bit better, and flows better. Anyway, I just wanted to show you that you can keep the meaning, but change how it is said.

Moving on, we have another problem.
Where in(the hell) hell was he?
He was sure that the animals(singular)

What is this? You don't edit your story? Editing is very important. I would argue that it might be even more important than writing. Always edit your novels at least once.

The next stop might be connected to the previous problem(no editing). POV problems.

It hurts so much!

Right, back to the part of me being in the forest naked and cold.

It was something way more, way more, argh!

Switching from third-person to first-person like you did it here is NOT okay. You can do it, but not like this. What you did here looks like a mistake you forgot to edit.

And now we finally reach a really subjective, yet something I consider the biggest downside. I can't say this is a mistake, but it is something I don't like the most.

The way you write is very dry and somewhat disconnected. You can see it even in your synopsis. I'm not saying that Talia's POV feels disconnected from Finn's POV. The problem is that your whole story, each paragraph feels disjointed from the rest. It looks like there is no connection between them. And even though when you read the paragraphs they do connect into a story, the act of reading isn't pleasant. Your work doesn't flow.

Next on her agenda was seeking out the local church and getting their help to complete her holy mission.

But in a panic, she stared at her fingertips and sighed a huge sigh of relief when she saw a flame dance on her fingertips.

Do I understand what is happening here? Yes. Do I like it? No. There aren't enough details, and the transition from one thing to another is non-existent.

I think partially this problem stems from the fact that you don't try to go in-depth. The way you write is shallow, you only write the most basic actions and emotions, without actually explaining the reasons behind them.

Take this sentence for example. His fiance did not stand a chance against her, and Finn realized he was naked before her and blushed. He can only react with blushing? Why? Why does he jump when his phone vibrates, yet he is completely okay with being nude? He didn't try to cover himself, he didn't think that he would get in trouble for having that girl in his bathroom, and he simply panicked.


There are not enough thoughts, and descriptions are lacking. I'm not asking you to add 1000 words of inner thoughts and descriptions by the way. I ask you to add little snippets here and there that will make your story more cohesive. Though you will probably have to rewrite a lot.

BUT, before you run away to do it, I will ask you to ask for more feedback. Some stuff is objective like typos, editing, or capitalization. This you can fix. But other things are subjective, and I can be wrong. Ask others what they think about it, if they give you similar feedback, then you should probably change something. If not, weigh different opinions and think about what you want to do before taking action.

And that's the end of my feedback. As usual, I didn't rate your novel, but if I had to, 1.5 stars. If you have any questions feel free to ask me. If I can, I will answer them.

 

[Anon2024]

gay buttsecks

 

[CrimsonGenius]

Power of the Elements: Recharge

Jake Ishida expected ordinary days when he moved to a new city. He did not expect the mysterious warrior, Pilot, to give him a strange crystal. The crystal transforms him into the Fire Radiant, a warrior of order. Now, he must learn how to utilize his new powers to fight...

www.scribblehub.com

You can reply this thread.
Inspired by shounen battle manga and Sentai genre

 

[konza]

Rise of the Looper

What Luke had been expecting was a first day as a new employee at an IT company. Instead, what he got was a first day in a completely new world, full of menacing monsters and unknown dangers lurking beyond each and every corner. After giving a group of monsters a...

www.scribblehub.com

You can reply in the thread.

 

[yinjenxie]

Hola. If this is still open, I hope you can reply on the thread. Thanks

Planet Breaker

The Universe holds many dark and untold secrets. Secrets that the conscious mind had longed searching in places. A star that has fallen into a mystery-filled planet. Leading him to the heritage of his very existence. Technology. Power. Hegemony. Truth. All the wonders, the dreams of every common...

www.scribblehub.com

 

[soomuu]

Sorry for taking so long to give you feedback, I was busy and lazy. Obligatory reminder that English is my second language, and this is subjective feedback from a reader. I stopped reading after I finished 01 – Intertwined pathways

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

With this out of the way, I will start my feedback. And I'm sorry to say this, but there are a lot of mistakes in your novel, and personally, I didn't notice any positives. First of all, I should start with the most obvious and objective part. Do something with your formatting. I don't know if it's SH that messed it up or is it you, but you should fix it. Split your paragraphs properly. Yes, it matters.

Okay, now about your mistakes. I will start with something relatively minor. You sometimes forget to capitalize the start of a new sentence. It's an objective mistake that you should fix.
Here are examples.

He rustled his short brown hair and wondered if he should be natural or have lenses in. he decided on natural

argh! he could not put it into words or thoughts, but it felt so close but closer.

There are typos. Again, this is objective and should be fixed.
Examples.

Finn did not open his eyes as he stretched his aking body and felt stiff and sore. Aching.

and they taught a whole class about the 130 existing specifics in school. Species.

"Uh, Talia?" He taught and wondered if that I have no idea what you wanted to say here but taught is wrong since it doesn't fit the context. Maybe you wanted to write "thought"?

“Finn, are you okay?” His father asked when Finn still didn’t answer. I'm not sure if I can consider this a typo or not, but you can't use "when" here.

You write a lot of weird phrases. This is obviously subjective.
Examples.

Every heartbeat made her existence expand and contract.

She had no clue if it was painful, as her whole body was numb from the cold.

She could hear the howling of the cold as the ice winds from the north came sweeping down the mountains.

The thing I don't like is that you can paraphrase each sentence to make it flow better and look less weird. Some phrases are legit incomprehensible, like the third one. What does it mean? I can't even make a guess, it looks like gibberish.

I will give you an example of paraphrasing using the second sentence. Was it painful? She couldn't answer since the cold made her whole body numb. I don't like it, but I feel like it looks a bit better, and flows better. Anyway, I just wanted to show you that you can keep the meaning, but change how it is said.

Moving on, we have another problem.
Where in(the hell) hell was he?
He was sure that the animals(singular)

What is this? You don't edit your story? Editing is very important. I would argue that it might be even more important than writing. Always edit your novels at least once.

The next stop might be connected to the previous problem(no editing). POV problems.

It hurts so much!

Right, back to the part of me being in the forest naked and cold.

It was something way more, way more, argh!

Switching from third-person to first-person like you did it here is NOT okay. You can do it, but not like this. What you did here looks like a mistake you forgot to edit.

And now we finally reach a really subjective, yet something I consider the biggest downside. I can't say this is a mistake, but it is something I don't like the most.

The way you write is very dry and somewhat disconnected. You can see it even in your synopsis. I'm not saying that Talia's POV feels disconnected from Finn's POV. The problem is that your whole story, each paragraph feels disjointed from the rest. It looks like there is no connection between them. And even though when you read the paragraphs they do connect into a story, the act of reading isn't pleasant. Your work doesn't flow.

Next on her agenda was seeking out the local church and getting their help to complete her holy mission.

But in a panic, she stared at her fingertips and sighed a huge sigh of relief when she saw a flame dance on her fingertips.

Do I understand what is happening here? Yes. Do I like it? No. There aren't enough details, and the transition from one thing to another is non-existent.

I think partially this problem stems from the fact that you don't try to go in-depth. The way you write is shallow, you only write the most basic actions and emotions, without actually explaining the reasons behind them.

Take this sentence for example. His fiance did not stand a chance against her, and Finn realized he was naked before her and blushed. He can only react with blushing? Why? Why does he jump when his phone vibrates, yet he is completely okay with being nude? He didn't try to cover himself, he didn't think that he would get in trouble for having that girl in his bathroom, and he simply panicked.


There are not enough thoughts, and descriptions are lacking. I'm not asking you to add 1000 words of inner thoughts and descriptions by the way. I ask you to add little snippets here and there that will make your story more cohesive. Though you will probably have to rewrite a lot.

BUT, before you run away to do it, I will ask you to ask for more feedback. Some stuff is objective like typos, editing, or capitalization. This you can fix. But other things are subjective, and I can be wrong. Ask others what they think about it, if they give you similar feedback, then you should probably change something. If not, weigh different opinions and think about what you want to do before taking action.

And that's the end of my feedback. As usual, I didn't rate your novel, but if I had to, 1.5 stars. If you have any questions feel free to ask me. If I can, I will answer them.

Thanks for the great feedback and for taking the time to point out my flaws, back to the drawing board! :D

 

[SailusGebel]

Hello! You reviewed my first chapter some time ago and I've made significant changes to the beginning of the story since then. Not so much chapter 1 (it still needs a bit of a rework) but beyond that. There's no more same-sex scene at all, it's been completely removed and I now have a lot more posted. If you are willing to, would you mind flipping through chapter 2 or beyond?

Sorry for taking so long, I was busy and lazy.

As usual I will be completely honest. I didn't notice any changes. I finished chapter 6, and everything stands. dislike the paragraphing that didn't get any better. Okay, the paragraphs themselves might be shorter, true. However, the fact they are shorter doesn't take away that you should split some of them or rewrite chunks of your text. Don't think the synopsis has changed? Same for prologue, I still feel it is redundant.

I can say one new thing that I missed due to reading only one chapter previously. Lack of emotions. Very dry. To give an example, there were so many foreshadowing in chapter 4 of what will happen, so I was obviously expecting something from chapter 5. But I ended up getting nothing. I can kinda understand now why you used sex scene before, because it could've fixed the total lack of emotions involved in what was supposed to be a highly emotional moment. Even chapter 6, I felt absolutely nothing. Like, cool, they will sleep, so what? MC didn't care about relatives or villagers enough, why should I care? Obvsiously this is subjective opinion.

 

[Anon2024]

Game timers are annoying.

 

[SailusGebel]

Howdy and hello (again lol) I wrote a new novel, and was wondering if you can give some feedback. You can post on thread, thank you!

Scripted Fate

The off rhythm tick of a clock, and the acidic smell of blood. A lifeless body, and a letter, blood seeping into the floor of an inn I had no memory of. And a revolver, clutched in my own hand. In an age of churning gears and steam engines that...

www.scribblehub.com

Sorry for taking so long, I was busy and lazy, very lazy. Another note, I don't remember the previous feedback.

Obligatory reminder that English is my second language, and this is subjective feedback from a reader. I stopped reading after I finished Chapter 2: If Crows Flew

And here is the disappointing part. I can't say much. Apart from one recurring mistake\dislike, I think everything else is good enough.

Before I mention the downsides, let me talk about the good parts. I like the prose. The text has a couple of rarely used words, but with the way you placed them, I can understand the meaning from the context. Overall, I can comprehend the text. And although it's a tad bit harder to read than I prefer, it's still relatively easy to read.

I liked the dialogue in chapter two. The meanings behind the words, characterization, and how you wrote it.

The descriptions are nice because you mostly describe stuff that matters. The way you wrote them is also nice.

What else? I think that's it since I can't mention the plot, worldbuilding, and so on since I've only read two chapters. I have no intention to read further since this isn't something I want to read.

One thing I want to mention about worldbuilding is that I don't like how you used Japanese setting(names, cities). This is my own subjective thing. I don't know what will happen later on in your novel, but I won't deduct points for this now. However, this is also a part that won't give you any points.

Okay, downsides, or to be more precise one downside and a couple of small imperfections.

"...I guess so"
I stared at the street below, This is probably a typo, right?

It was still too dark to see clearly, but the simplistic but detailed molding Two buts. This part doesn't fit with the rest of the text. Honestly, this looks like a typo or something you missed while editing. Anyway, you can easily change it.

His eyes squinted slightly, stark black hair falling loose from a tidy style as murky eyes of the same shade scrutinized me. This is the only thing from various descriptions that I didn't like. Hair falling from a tidy style? Maybe this one is on me, but yet again I feel that this simply doesn't fit the style.

Those were the small imperfections. I won't call those mistakes, and I have to specify that apart from a paragraphing issue that is a typo(I'm fairly sure about that) everything is subjective.

What's next, however, is something recurring. Paragraphing.

"Guests do have a habit of leaving their windows unlocked…how unfortunate" She sighed

"Bloody hell...!" The voice hissed,

I won't copy and paste whole paragraphs, instead, I copied only the beginning to show you examples. The above paragraphs can, and in my opinion, should be split into two(or more) paragraphs. I'm not talking about every long paragraph. The paragraphs should should be split are mostly long ones that have dialogue lines in them. And I mean those that are really long.

The reason for that is simple. First of all, it will help with the flow, second, you split the different scenes. More than that, you should split the actions of different characters when you include a dialogue line. The last part is convoluted and phrased weirdly, but I hope you will understand what I mean.

All in all, I think this is a solid novel. It's not the best, it has flaws. But it's good. Although this is based only on two chapters, I think you deserve more views. Alas, detectives aren't popular.

And that's the end of my feedback. As usual, I didn't rate your novel, but if I had to, 3.5-3.75 stars. If you have any questions feel free to ask me. If I can, I will answer them.

 

[Novel_Fam]

Greetings! I'm interested in your feedback as a reader on one of my series if you are available.

We Got Transported Into A Novel, Mother!

This is a typical isekai story where the protagonists ended up in a web novel they happened to read but I added my own ideas so the settings are biased and my own beliefs.
It's slow at the beginning but it slowly picks up so I would love another reviewer and if possible what I should focus on and what I shouldn't in my writing ^^

 

[SailusGebel]

Power of the Elements: Recharge

Jake Ishida expected ordinary days when he moved to a new city. He did not expect the mysterious warrior, Pilot, to give him a strange crystal. The crystal transforms him into the Fire Radiant, a warrior of order. Now, he must learn how to utilize his new powers to fight...

www.scribblehub.com

You can reply this thread.
Inspired by shounen battle manga and Sentai genre

Sorry for taking so long, I was busy and lazy, very lazy. Before I start, here is a friendly advice. SH readers prefer shorter chapters. Even 4 thousand words is a bit too much. SH readers on average prefer 1.5-2.5 thousand words long chapters.

Obligatory reminder that English is my second language, and this is subjective feedback from a reader. I stopped reading after I finished Chapter 1 – The Fire Ignites and about a third of Chapter 2 – The Hub

I'm sorry, but I couldn't force myself to finish the rest of your second chapter. This feedback will sting since I find your novel really bad. Before I talk about all the downsides and complaints, I will mention the good things. It was easy to read. That's all, sorry.

Back to talking about why I find your novel bad. The reason is simple, it does feel like a Shounen Battle Manga, but there is a twist. It feels like a really bad, old one. It doesn't feel like you pay homage, or were inspired by it. It feels like your novel was stuck in the past and didn't evolve, and again, you do not write a cult classic, sorry.

Why is that? Well, the main problem here is that it looks like you write a script for those who know. The first part of this problem, your novel looking like a script isn't as bad as some other cases I had in this thread, but I can't call your novel a proper story either. Perhaps the second part of this problem is the reason. I'm not sure. Because the story so far was EXTREMELY formulaic, generic, and predictable.

Don't take this wrong, I'm not asking you to write Ranger Reject and subvert every trope and basically write a different story. I'm asking to add something new, break the standard formula, or at least make it REALLY good. You fail at everything. Again, it doesn't look like a NEW story. It looks like a story that I have already read, but a lot worse.

To elaborate on the things I said above, I will start with my biggest gripe, dialogues. They are bad for multiple reasons.

Reason number one is dialogue tags. Too many, and they are bad. They are bad because they don't add to characters at all, despite their variety, their only purpose is to show who is talking. And that's the reason number two. Despite the staggering amount of dialogue tags, I still get lost on who is talking. Why? Because no one here has a personality or emotions. Every character is the same in every situation. You write them the same. No quirks, no attempts to diversify how they talk, nothing. Aliens talk the same as a random bully(jock?), who talks the same way as the sister of MC, who talks the same as MC.

The biggest example of all the things I said about your dialogues is this.
"What, why?" asked Jake.

"Because you still look deeply disturbed."
He does not look disturbed. Do you know why? Because you didn't describe it.

Jake recovered first, then pointed an accusing finger at her. "WERE YOU THERE THE WHOLE TIME?!"
"THAT'S EVEN WORSE!" shouted Jake. "How am I supposed to explain a woman in her 20s in my closet?"
Jake smacked his forehead. "No… no…. no… that's not..."
"Dimension crossing is a thing, got it." Jake said. "Are you the same as Pilot? Guardian?"
"What, why?" asked Jake.

I copied Jake's every dialogue line that had a tag, in the same order as they appeared. I can agree that he was disturbed... at first. You see, you give us two tags. "Jake said," and "Jake asked." He calmed down since you didn't write it otherwise. You might argue that I'm nitpicking here, but as I said this is only an example.

I didn't notice ANY emotions across the first chapter. Oh! A crystal appears and an ALIEN!? Meh, just your everyday thing. Someone kicked me in the face? Embarrassing. And so on. They don't feel ANY appropriate emotions.

"I know…" He reached out for the crystal. "But if the next guy messes up, I will feel bad, knowing I would have done a better job or something." This is his motivation. "Or something." This screams of apathy so much, that I can't even express my own feelings at the time I read it.
Btw, this one sentence shows how much is wrong with the logic of the novel.

I watched(briefly) the first episode of A Power Ranger(random season) to quickly look at the way rangers react to situations, and to see WHO they are. First of all, they express a strong sense of bewilderment and disbelief. Second, they are scared. Third, they have strong morals. Obviously, there are five of them, so they are all different. The thing is, each and every one of them usually is some kind of a stereotype. Despite that, they do have reactions like the ones I described.

You COMPLETELY skipped this part. Jake acted like it was just his everyday life, while at times expressing his exhilaration at what happened to him, and at other times, I will feel bad, knowing I would have done a better job or something. He isn't consistent either. You can see this from the example above about Jake being disrupted. At first, he is disrupted, but when he needs to be disrupted, he acts calm. Or he experiences some feeling, NOTHING HAPPENS, and his feelings change 180 degrees. Can this happen in real life? It can. But in the text, you have to explain why the hell is afraid one second, and the next second he throws an inside joke.

Since I mentioned Jake, I should talk about other characters as well. All of them are caricatures but in the most basic and bad way.

Another thing I want to mention about the general vibe of the story.

The violet-haired woman chuckled. "Alright, let's be serious for a bit." This is what your story lacks. It's not serious at all. You skim over everything, and there is no comedy genre or comedic subplot.

Backtracking a little bit and talking about dialogues and your worldbuilding a bit. You introduce TOO much too early. So many characters that talk the same makes it hard to understand who is who. Introducing so many characters and so many elements like crystals and other worlds also doesn't allow you to focus on one thing and flesh it out. You skim over everything and make me not care about anything. There is no buildup, no stakes, and no emotions, in other words, no reason for me to invest in the novel. Why should I care about anything?

One of the last things I want to talk about is the way you write. Although I can understand what you write, I don't enjoy reading it one bit, and your story suffers from the way you write. A good example of why it suffers is your dialogue tags that stick out like a sore thumb and don't add to the story. Although you skim over a lot of things, it doesn't mean that you spend your word count on good things. Descriptions are bad, sometimes out of place or you simply describe the wrong things.

The text simply doesn't flow, it doesn't feel connected. This one is really hard to explain. What I want to say here is that "sentence two" doesn't feel like a continuation of "sentence one." Or "sentence three" doesn't feel like it is connected to sentences one and two. Part of the reason why this happens is a very repetitive way of your writing. You like to use the same words, you like to use the same sentence structures without trying to adjust them.

The last thing I will mention is this.

"Right… I'm Jake, and this is Tina

Pilot remained unfazed and gazed at her slightly."

Something told him it wouldn't matter, but now he had to deal with this."

"This strange monster appeared, but… there has to be a source." The monster leaped in the air,

A bunch of typos, nothing major here.

And this is it. I'm sure I forgot about things. And I'm sure some of my feedback will look like a word salad since there was so much I wanted to say I had strayed off. That's why if you have any questions feel free to ask me. If I can, I will answer them.

One last thing, of course, everything I mentioned here is subjective(except for typos), so you shouldn't run away to change everything based on only my words. But if you see the same things mentioned in other feedback, or if you felt about your story in the same vein as I do, then you should probably change something.

And that's the end of my feedback. As usual, I didn't rate your novel, but if I had to, 1.75 stars.

 

[CrimsonGenius]

Sorry for taking so long, I was busy and lazy, very lazy. Before I start, here is a friendly advice. SH readers prefer shorter chapters. Even 4 thousand words is a bit too much. SH readers on average prefer 1.5-2.5 thousand words long chapters.

Obligatory reminder that English is my second language, and this is subjective feedback from a reader. I stopped reading after I finished Chapter 1 – The Fire Ignites and about a third of Chapter 2 – The Hub

I'm sorry, but I couldn't force myself to finish the rest of your second chapter. This feedback will sting since I find your novel really bad. Before I talk about all the downsides and complaints, I will mention the good things. It was easy to read. That's all, sorry.

Back to talking about why I find your novel bad. The reason is simple, it does feel like a Shounen Battle Manga, but there is a twist. It feels like a really bad, old one. It doesn't feel like you pay homage, or were inspired by it. It feels like your novel was stuck in the past and didn't evolve, and again, you do not write a cult classic, sorry.

Why is that? Well, the main problem here is that it looks like you write a script for those who know. The first part of this problem, your novel looking like a script isn't as bad as some other cases I had in this thread, but I can't call your novel a proper story either. Perhaps the second part of this problem is the reason. I'm not sure. Because the story so far was EXTREMELY formulaic, generic, and predictable.

Don't take this wrong, I'm not asking you to write Ranger Reject and subvert every trope and basically write a different story. I'm asking to add something new, break the standard formula, or at least make it REALLY good. You fail at everything. Again, it doesn't look like a NEW story. It looks like a story that I have already read, but a lot worse.

To elaborate on the things I said above, I will start with my biggest gripe, dialogues. They are bad for multiple reasons.

Reason number one is dialogue tags. Too many, and they are bad. They are bad because they don't add to characters at all, despite their variety, their only purpose is to show who is talking. And that's the reason number two. Despite the staggering amount of dialogue tags, I still get lost on who is talking. Why? Because no one here has a personality or emotions. Every character is the same in every situation. You write them the same. No quirks, no attempts to diversify how they talk, nothing. Aliens talk the same as a random bully(jock?), who talks the same way as the sister of MC, who talks the same as MC.

The biggest example of all the things I said about your dialogues is this.
"What, why?" asked Jake.

"Because you still look deeply disturbed."
He does not look disturbed. Do you know why? Because you didn't describe it.

Jake recovered first, then pointed an accusing finger at her. "WERE YOU THERE THE WHOLE TIME?!"
"THAT'S EVEN WORSE!" shouted Jake. "How am I supposed to explain a woman in her 20s in my closet?"
Jake smacked his forehead. "No… no…. no… that's not..."
"Dimension crossing is a thing, got it." Jake said. "Are you the same as Pilot? Guardian?"
"What, why?" asked Jake.

I copied Jake's every dialogue line that had a tag, in the same order as they appeared. I can agree that he was disturbed... at first. You see, you give us two tags. "Jake said," and "Jake asked." He calmed down since you didn't write it otherwise. You might argue that I'm nitpicking here, but as I said this is only an example.

I didn't notice ANY emotions across the first chapter. Oh! A crystal appears and an ALIEN!? Meh, just your everyday thing. Someone kicked me in the face? Embarrassing. And so on. They don't feel ANY appropriate emotions.

"I know…" He reached out for the crystal. "But if the next guy messes up, I will feel bad, knowing I would have done a better job or something." This is his motivation. "Or something." This screams of apathy so much, that I can't even express my own feelings at the time I read it.
Btw, this one sentence shows how much is wrong with the logic of the novel.

I watched(briefly) the first episode of A Power Ranger(random season) to quickly look at the way rangers react to situations, and to see WHO they are. First of all, they express a strong sense of bewilderment and disbelief. Second, they are scared. Third, they have strong morals. Obviously, there are five of them, so they are all different. The thing is, each and every one of them usually is some kind of a stereotype. Despite that, they do have reactions like the ones I described.

You COMPLETELY skipped this part. Jake acted like it was just his everyday life, while at times expressing his exhilaration at what happened to him, and at other times, I will feel bad, knowing I would have done a better job or something. He isn't consistent either. You can see this from the example above about Jake being disrupted. At first, he is disrupted, but when he needs to be disrupted, he acts calm. Or he experiences some feeling, NOTHING HAPPENS, and his feelings change 180 degrees. Can this happen in real life? It can. But in the text, you have to explain why the hell is afraid one second, and the next second he throws an inside joke.

Since I mentioned Jake, I should talk about other characters as well. All of them are caricatures but in the most basic and bad way.

Another thing I want to mention about the general vibe of the story.

The violet-haired woman chuckled. "Alright, let's be serious for a bit." This is what your story lacks. It's not serious at all. You skim over everything, and there is no comedy genre or comedic subplot.

Backtracking a little bit and talking about dialogues and your worldbuilding a bit. You introduce TOO much too early. So many characters that talk the same makes it hard to understand who is who. Introducing so many characters and so many elements like crystals and other worlds also doesn't allow you to focus on one thing and flesh it out. You skim over everything and make me not care about anything. There is no buildup, no stakes, and no emotions, in other words, no reason for me to invest in the novel. Why should I care about anything?

One of the last things I want to talk about is the way you write. Although I can understand what you write, I don't enjoy reading it one bit, and your story suffers from the way you write. A good example of why it suffers is your dialogue tags that stick out like a sore thumb and don't add to the story. Although you skim over a lot of things, it doesn't mean that you spend your word count on good things. Descriptions are bad, sometimes out of place or you simply describe the wrong things.

The text simply doesn't flow, it doesn't feel connected. This one is really hard to explain. What I want to say here is that "sentence two" doesn't feel like a continuation of "sentence one." Or "sentence three" doesn't feel like it is connected to sentences one and two. Part of the reason why this happens is a very repetitive way of your writing. You like to use the same words, you like to use the same sentence structures without trying to adjust them.

The last thing I will mention is this.

"Right… I'm Jake, and this is Tina

Pilot remained unfazed and gazed at her slightly."

Something told him it wouldn't matter, but now he had to deal with this."

"This strange monster appeared, but… there has to be a source." The monster leaped in the air,

A bunch of typos, nothing major here.

And this is it. I'm sure I forgot about things. And I'm sure some of my feedback will look like a word salad since there was so much I wanted to say I had strayed off. That's why if you have any questions feel free to ask me. If I can, I will answer them.

One last thing, of course, everything I mentioned here is subjective(except for typos), so you shouldn't run away to change everything based on only my words. But if you see the same things mentioned in other feedback, or if you felt about your story in the same vein as I do, then you should probably change something.

And that's the end of my feedback. As usual, I didn't rate your novel, but if I had to, 1.75 stars.

Okay, thank you.

 

[SailusGebel]

Rise of the Looper

What Luke had been expecting was a first day as a new employee at an IT company. Instead, what he got was a first day in a completely new world, full of menacing monsters and unknown dangers lurking beyond each and every corner. After giving a group of monsters a...

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You can reply in the thread.

Sorry for taking so long, I was busy and lazy, very lazy.

Obligatory reminder that English is my second language, and this is subjective feedback from a reader. I stopped reading after I finished Chapter 3 – Cause & Effect

First things first, your story is not my cup of tea. This means I won't read further and obviously can't say much about worldbuilding or plot. I can and will say a couple of things about characters, but more about that later.

Now I want to talk about the way you write, your prose, call it however you want. I don't like it one bit. First of all, I don't like how you split dialogue or action tags and dialogue lines.

Alex smirked.

"More for me, then."

I don't like this. I like it when authors write like this.

Luke shouted at the top of his lungs: "HELLO!!! IS THERE ANYONE OUT THERE??!! I'M LOST AND NEED HELP!!"

Since I started talking about dialogues, I disliked them a lot. First of all, the aforementioned tags are really bad. One of the examples of why I think they are bad comes from Chapter 3. You refer to the old man as an old man. Each and every time.

The old man sighed and closed his eyes for a second.
The old man scoffed and crossed his arms.
The old man tilted his head, as if he was starting to get amused.
The old man sat straight up, raised his hands up and grinned.
The old man put his hands back on the table and said in a serious tone:
The old man suspiciously looked at Luke,

This goes on, but I won't copy and paste each dialogue tag. There is absolutely no variety or creativity, and on the odd chance that I missed it, I will say it's not enough. There are multiple reasons why this particular thing is bad, but I will mention one.

Your MC and narrator have the same voice. Like literally, the narrator and MC are the same person, even though they should not be(based on your own text).

The forest itself didn’t look too different from what you could find on Earth, but after those bird-like creatures made their appearance, I started doubting my sanity.’ If you change "I" and "my" here, this will sound like something a narrator said.

This leads to the problem that your characters don't feel like a real, living human being. He looks and acts like a function to simply retell the reader what happens in the dullest way possible. You can't bond with him. And this is just a single example of you being repetitive affecting your writing.

Another reason why dialogue tags aren't good is the fact that the majority of them are simple action tags. It's not AS bad, but I would like to see more variety. Like substituting some(not all) of your action tags for dialogue tags, and you make them a bit longer.

Example of what I mean.

The old man sighed and closed his eyes for a second.
The old man snarled.
The old man put his hands back on the table and said in a serious tone:

Make them more variable, but they should fit the context.

Another thing I want to see is a variety of dialogue structures. This is partially the problem of your paragraphing, the first thing that I didn't like. Even if you do something similar to what I want, I can't see it.

Example of what I want to see. Here you write a dialogue or action tag. "Here is a dialogue line" Here is another dialogue or action tag, "Here is a dialogue line." And you end the paragraph with another tag.

Not everything should be like this, but I want to see things changed every now and again. Play around with the positions of your dialogue lines and tags. It helps when a reader reads stuff as it doesn't let your eyes glaze over line after line of identical text of identical length. Plus, it can make your text flow better, and improve the coherence.

The last thing about dialogues that I will mention is the content. And this is where I will mention your characters as well. As I said, they lack individuality, they don't react properly, and they don't talk like people. MC's inner thoughts don't look like the actual thought process of a person, he is repeating the same thing that I've already read before. This is wrong since he is MC, and his inner thoughts should always add more info to build up his personality. His inner thoughts should show the world through his eyes and how he sees it.

I will stop talking about dialogues, and move on towards descriptions. There isn't enough, and they are badly written.

And this old man, now that I think about it, how did he even kill those creatures? He was not carrying any weapons with him, This is an ideal moment for you to actually describe the old man THROUGH the eyes of MC. Instead of dully stating that the old man doesn't have any weapons, you can add the following thing.

Example.
As if doubting his own mind, he looked around the house once more, when his gaze landed upon the old man. He was looking at Luke and simply smiled.

For the first time, Luke's gaze lingered on the old man for more than a moment. He noticed that this strange fella didn't even have any weapons on him. Although he could potentially hide one inside of his silver robes, Luke had a premonition that it wasn't the case. 'How the hell did kill all three of those creatures bare-handed before my swing even landed on any of them? '

I think my way of telling the same info is better. Far from ideal, but if you include more of the same thing and rework my proposition a little bit, it will make MC's interactions more real. Why would he mention weapons and think about it? Because now he is safe, and he CAN pay attention to the old man. You can also play around with stuff like premonitions or whatnot. Add a little bit of MC's personality here and there.

Okay, will end this soon, but before I do, I have two more things to say.

Chapters 2 and 3 have the same ending.

The night Luke would remember for the rest of his life was about to unfold.

Luke would later understand, that it was at this point in time that his misery had truly begun.

Not like they are identical in the literal sense of this word. I mean that they end in the same way, like, it's the same type of cliffhanger. Foreboding, foreshadowing, don't know how to call this properly. Usually, I don't pay attention to stuff like this. It is because stuff like this is really rare. And this really adds to the whole idea that you really like to repeat yourself, and it's not good.

Lastly, But, he said the I would be the one to die if I do not kill him. Typo. He said that, not he said the.

And that's the end of my feedback. The only good part is that it was easy to read but at the expense of any enjoyment that I can get from reading. I'm sure I forgot about things. And I'm sure some of my feedback will look like a word salad since there was so much I wanted to say I had strayed off. That's why if you have any questions feel free to ask me. If I can, I will answer them. As usual, I didn't rate your novel, but if I had to, 1.75 stars.