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TheTrinary

TheTrinary

Hi, I'm Stephen
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980
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Numero said:
Hello! Would you mind reading mine? https://www.scribblehub.com/series/1019722/age-of-spirit-fantasycultivation/
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RATING: Would not Keep Reading.

Honestly, it just comes down to the prose here. It's very wordy and constantly longer than it should be. Not line edits per se, but let's just look at the basic ideas the go into sentences. More of a deep dive.


Cleo coughed up a mouthful of water as he woke up to the taste of salt and blood.

We start with two seperate ideas that more or less occupy the same space: 1) Cleo coughed up water 2) Cleo woke up to the taste of blood and salt. They aren't really related; doesn't make too much sense to put them together with preposition. Not only that, they overlap. He coughed up water and tasted salt for the exact same reasons.

So I ask, why do we need the first half? Why can't we just start with "Cleo woke up to the taste of blood and salt."

Occasionally, his nose twitched due to the fishy smell lingering in the air.

This sentence gets more into your issues with wordiness. Why occasionally? You just said "Cleo woke up." We are grounded in a specific time, experiencing the things that Cleo experiences. But now with occasionally, all that goes away. Same with the choice for lingering. If he's waking up, he doesn't know how long something has been going on. You're adding extra words that take us out of the narrative thrust.

More importantly, why does it matter. All we know is that there is this guy named Cleo. The absolute, only thing your audience cares about is what happens to him in the here and now.

As to his body, the lower half was soaked while the other half was dry from the heat of the sun.

Really clunky transition. What do we gain with this prepositional phrase? Prepositional phrases should add additonal information. You cut that out, it makes just as much sense and tells us just as much stuff.

You obviously can't start every sentence with subject. But the point of a transition is pretty much to create a naturalistic bridge to make it easier to read, create some logical connection between two things. You might as well have written "anyway" for how abrupt it is.

Also I'll point out, I can accept that he tastes salt, but how can he have a mouthfull of sea water if his entire top half is bone dry?

Distilling it down, here's the substance of what you wrote:

Cleo woke up to the taste of salt and blood. His nose twitched due to the fishy smell in the air. The lower half was soaked while the other half was dry from the heat of the sun.

Now it's just matter of making it read nice:

Cleo woke to the taste of salt and blood. The salt surprised him. While the ocean lapped at his lower half, the other half was burning from the heat of the sun.

Now you're probably noticing that the fishy smell doesn't fit here at all. I think we can keep it though:

His body cried as if multiple people had beaten him into a pulp while his head pounded, with the fishy smell in the air doing that no favors. Still, he lifted his head from the sand. The view was unfamiliar. Sand, sea, rocks, and palm trees—an island?

I'll just talk generally about the changes:

1) You talk about head twice, and not in a redundant way, so it groups them together. Don't stop talking about something only to come back to it. The second bit of the head moves the idea forward, so the first instance needs to be moved back.

2) This means that the comments on the characters body need to start the paragraph. This was also helpful because the last paragraph ended body adjacent, so we don't really need any transtiion to make the logic clear.

3) We don't need to know he lifted his head from the sand specifically. We more or less understand the scene and you talk about sand in a second anyway.

4) I changed "place" to view. If you look anywhere, you're looking at a place. So view just meshes better with the idea of looking.

5) The final sentence about sand and whatnot isn't the best, but it's servicable.


Obviously there are no objectively correct ways to write. My version isn't the 'correct' version. But tell me it isn't better. And I'm telling you that as a reader, I would not read your current prose for enjoyment.

OVERALL

Practice the prose.
 
N

Numero

Member
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TheTrinary said:
RATING: Would not Keep Reading.

Honestly, it just comes down to the prose here. It's very wordy and constantly longer than it should be. Not line edits per se, but let's just look at the basic ideas the go into sentences. More of a deep dive.


Cleo coughed up a mouthful of water as he woke up to the taste of salt and blood.

We start with two seperate ideas that more or less occupy the same space: 1) Cleo coughed up water 2) Cleo woke up to the taste of blood and salt. They aren't really related; doesn't make too much sense to put them together with preposition. Not only that, they overlap. He coughed up water and tasted salt for the exact same reasons.

So I ask, why do we need the first half? Why can't we just start with "Cleo woke up to the taste of blood and salt."

Occasionally, his nose twitched due to the fishy smell lingering in the air.

This sentence gets more into your issues with wordiness. Why occasionally? You just said "Cleo woke up." We are grounded in a specific time, experiencing the things that Cleo experiences. But now with occasionally, all that goes away. Same with the choice for lingering. If he's waking up, he doesn't know how long something has been going on. You're adding extra words that take us out of the narrative thrust.

More importantly, why does it matter. All we know is that there is this guy named Cleo. The absolute, only thing your audience cares about is what happens to him in the here and now.

As to his body, the lower half was soaked while the other half was dry from the heat of the sun.

Really clunky transition. What do we gain with this prepositional phrase? Prepositional phrases should add additonal information. You cut that out, it makes just as much sense and tells us just as much stuff.

You obviously can't start every sentence with subject. But the point of a transition is pretty much to create a naturalistic bridge to make it easier to read, create some logical connection between two things. You might as well have written "anyway" for how abrupt it is.

Also I'll point out, I can accept that he tastes salt, but how can he have a mouthfull of sea water if his entire top half is bone dry?

Distilling it down, here's the substance of what you wrote:

Cleo woke up to the taste of salt and blood. His nose twitched due to the fishy smell in the air. The lower half was soaked while the other half was dry from the heat of the sun.

Now it's just matter of making it read nice:

Cleo woke to the taste of salt and blood. The salt surprised him. While the ocean lapped at his lower half, the other half was burning from the heat of the sun.

Now you're probably noticing that the fishy smell doesn't fit here at all. I think we can keep it though:

His body cried as if multiple people had beaten him into a pulp while his head pounded, with the fishy smell in the air doing that no favors. Still, he lifted his head from the sand. The view was unfamiliar. Sand, sea, rocks, and palm trees—an island?

I'll just talk generally about the changes:

1) You talk about head twice, and not in a redundant way, so it groups them together. Don't stop talking about something only to come back to it. The second bit of the head moves the idea forward, so the first instance needs to be moved back.

2) This means that the comments on the characters body need to start the paragraph. This was also helpful because the last paragraph ended body adjacent, so we don't really need any transtiion to make the logic clear.

3) We don't need to know he lifted his head from the sand specifically. We more or less understand the scene and you talk about sand in a second anyway.

4) I changed "place" to view. If you look anywhere, you're looking at a place. So view just meshes better with the idea of looking.

5) The final sentence about sand and whatnot isn't the best, but it's servicable.


Obviously there are no objectively correct ways to write. My version isn't the 'correct' version. But tell me it isn't better. And I'm telling you that as a reader, I would not read your current prose for enjoyment.

OVERALL

Practice the prose.
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Thank you very much! In truth, I'm really having a hard time with my prose. Even though, I'm always thinking when I write. Is this line needed? Am I repeating the same information? Am I delivering what I wanted to say? I really want to improve it but reading doesn't seem to help me. Is there any advice you can give?
 
TheTrinary

TheTrinary

Hi, I'm Stephen
Joined
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Messages
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You can:

1) Try and edit like I outlined here. Look at every word, pick it up, examine it. Decide what you need. Decide what is there.

2) Find an author whose prose you like and copy it. No really. Trying to match a sentence they are writing requires a ton of thought. You're going to have to move and cut things. Every word becomes suspect trying to communicate what you want to under this new strucutre.

3) I would definitely try doing someof the Benjamin Franklin excercises if you're serious:

Drill 1 of 7: Find a passage you would like to study. For each sentence, write down notes on the content.

Drill 2 of 7: Rewrite the passage from memory using only your notes on each sentence. This forces you to think.

Drill 3 of 7: Reread the original passage and correct any mistakes. This teaches you sentence construction.

Drill 4 of 7: Take the passage and convert it into poetry. This helps you practice rhythm and flow.

Drill 5 of 7: Convert your poem back to prose. This reinforces your understanding of the passage.

Drill 6 of 7: Jumble your notes on each sentence, then reassemble them in the right order. This teaches you structure and organization of ideas.

Drill 7 of 7: Repeat as many times as you want!
 
D

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I would love to hear your first impressions!
mankind-diaspora-the-trappist-1-gambit-aaaa7qa14bq.jpg
 
TheTrinary

TheTrinary

Hi, I'm Stephen
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Messages
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lilwriter said:
I’m afraid but imma put on my thick skin armor: Lady Ori Has a Dark Side
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RATING: Would Keep Reading

THE GOOD

A lot of the writing was well done. I thought you did a good job of drawing your reader in once the chapter got going. And it's a weird sort of compliment to give around here, but I really like the way your formatted the chapter. Yeah the bold was cool, but just the way you cut back and forth between Ori and Julie.

So many other people would have just written a chapter about Julie and it would have been flat and boring. But you're taking those elements, moving them around, and making them entertaining. Hard to fault an entertainer.

THE BAD

My one critique is that it needs some heavy lines edits. The prose is fine on a technical level, but you often get wordy, lose the idea, or are otherwise not super cognicnent of what the reader is experience. You could cut quite a few words or sentences here and that would only help with clarity and pacing without losing anything you're trying to communicate.

OVERALL

Really good. My only complaint is that the writing is weak just as often as it's strong.
 
lilwriter

lilwriter

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TheTrinary said:
RATING: Would Keep Reading

THE GOOD

A lot of the writing was well done. I thought you did a good job of drawing your reader in once the chapter got going. And it's a weird sort of compliment to give around here, but I really like the way your formatted the chapter. Yeah the bold was cool, but just the way you cut back and forth between Ori and Julie.

So many other people would have just written a chapter about Julie and it would have been flat and boring. But you're taking those elements, moving them around, and making them entertaining. Hard to fault an entertainer.

THE BAD

My one critique is that it needs some heavy lines edits. The prose is fine on a technical level, but you often get wordy, lose the idea, or are otherwise not super cognicnent of what the reader is experience. You could cut quite a few words or sentences here and that would only help with clarity and pacing without losing anything you're trying to communicate.

OVERALL

Really good. My only complaint is that the writing is weak just as often as it's strong.
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Thank you! I agree with your feedback. I was trying (failing) to pace the scene utilizing more words in some places, and then making the pace feel fast by less words in other. But I still have a lot to learn.

As for the writing style; yeah I dunno either lol. I get frustrated with myself.

Oh and maybe the random stuff was me trying to show how much they dissociate.
 
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TheTrinary

TheTrinary

Hi, I'm Stephen
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Messages
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Sovrign said:
I would love to hear your comment on my first chapter:


Thanks
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RATING: Would not Keep Reading.

SECTION 1

You have a lot of inconsequential sentences in the first half or just poorly thought out sentences. Especially as we get towards the the truck scene, it starts to feel overly repetitive and contradictory.

I also think we need a lot more from this character at the start of your novel. We get two details I guess? He likes Game of Thrones and he may or may not value animals. Actually the death scene is a bit muddled. It's set up where he's very analytic and able to rationalize things. I thought you were doing a meta deconstruction at first of him avoiding the obvious death just to die in another way. But at the end of the day he is actually emotional and impulsive?

Who is this character? What do they want? What issues do they have in their life. The space before they die in the real world is your chance to make us like them and give them real word issues that make us relate to them-- that is the point of portal fantasy vs just pure fantasy: the easy establishment.

SECTION 2

After a lack luster start without any real draw, I'm going into the fantasy section expecting a big hook to set your work apart. And we aren't presented with any stand out ideas. As a writer, do you feel that this is distinct from the ten of thousands of other portal fantasy web novels?

It's just the big question: What are you doing that someone else isn't. As a human being with your own POV and unique life experiences, what do you have to offer/what do you care about/ what interests you that you can make this about.

OVERALL

It's iseakai #7682.
GoodPerson said:
Oh my... It looks like someone is super dedicated here.

Well, I wonder how you will brutally criticize me here. So here we go.

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RATING: SUUUUPPPPEEERRRR BACK TO BASICS

I fundmentally did not understand what was going on. I have. . . guesses. And this isn't the sort of arty farty story where I think you want guesses. Showing is great, but sometimes you do need to tell.

I'm also not even sure if this is a prologue. This feels like set up or something? Prologues are fundamentally just short stories you tell in world to estalbish some exciting or important information ahead of the real story. Maybe it's because I can't understand what's going, but this doesn't seem like a narrative with a start, middle, and end.

We could go further and talk about technical details like tense swaps and stuff, but I would say start with just writing something that can be understood.
 
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TheTrinary

TheTrinary

Hi, I'm Stephen
Joined
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Messages
980
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133
rklehm said:
I would love to hear your first impressions!
View attachment 26580
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Review is on the RR Thread.
Chaperone said:
Hey @TheTrinary please review my prologue. I have edited it a few times already as views dropped off quite hard afterwards. Would love to know where Im going wrong. Thanks in advance.
https://www.scribblehub.com/read/78...gression-fantasymonster-tamer/chapter/783286/
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RATING: Would not Keep Reading.

In a word: Structure. In more words, I think it gets confused and unfoncused. You have this general idea of lucid dreams, but going forward that can apparently just be anything.

THE GOOD:

At the start, I was very entertained. Lucid chicken dreams are fun and while the doctor scene was a little blunt, my initial thought was that people probably aren't giving up due to this chapter.

And at least as an idea, it's a great way to start a story. Going forward, I found myself getting bored.

THE ANALYSIS:

Structure is the be all end all, but if something isn't working, it's THE place to go back to. Once your structure is solid, then you can make changes and embelishments.

Your work is about 4 pages (little under) so we'll just treat it as a straight four since that's super simple with traditional 3 acts:


Act 1, page 1-- set up. You need to tell your audience every bit of information they need in this chapter. If it's not on the first page, it shouldn't be in the chapter.

Act 2, page 2-- Exploration of the idea. Since we can simply call your chapter a problem/solution story. We can frame this page as the character trying to implement their solution. It brings us to the point of no return where their action fundamentally changes the balance of power set up in Act 1. Specifics don't matter as long as we know the only way is forward.

Act 2, page 3-- Further exploration. Same as page 2 but now with that point of no return figured in. It ends with a low point.

Act 3, page 4-- climax. The problem is resolved for better or worse. Normally in a way that was completely telegraphed in Act 1.



Your Work:

Act 1, page 1-- We have lucid dreams chicken, the MC seeing a doctor to get that fixed, being dismissed, and him taking drugs. AND THEN he's in his dreams playing minecraft or something

This is very important talking about focused. You have promised us a story about a guy dealing with his evil chicken dreams-- great. What does that half to do with the second half of act 1? Did the drugs cause him have these dreams that required him to progress in a video game? What does any of this have to do with the chicken we are promised.

Act 2, page 2-- He continues playing this video game like dream and fights a scare crow and dies.

Him dieing in the dream by the end of the page is a great turn. But once again, what is everything else? Still no chicken. Is this chapter about him completeting arbitrary tasks in these dreams to advance?

If it IS about that, then you need to change the first act and frame it: He's stuck in the same place every night and the psycho therapist says "Hey, maybe these dreams will go away if you can walk through the gate."

If it IS about the chicken, then what is any of this.

Act 2, page 3-- He goes back and fights the scarecrow only to be met with a larger obstacle-- the chicken.

This hits the beats you want in every way. He overcomes the first major issue had had (the turn aka scarecrow) only to be blockaded by an even bigger threat (the low point).

At this point, it becomes abundantly clear that the first page is a mistake. This is not a story that is fundamentally about the chicken or the doctor or even the MC trying not to have these dreams.

Act 3, page 4-- he walks across the kills the chicken.

Not much of a climax. I guess he could have always done this? At this point, it's unclear what the act of killng the chicken even signifies. He's been doing a bunch of random crap for the whole chapter that has nothing to do with this. It's also unclear why the doctor was ever a character.

It would be more fitting if he used the doctors advise to somehow resolve the problem.


FINAL DIAGNOSIS

You confuse your audience by advertising a plot that more or less doesn't exist. Frame the conflict appropriately. And then the climax is underwritten. Treat this as a complete stor from start to finish. And make sure you communicate to your audience why they should care.
 
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TheTrinary

TheTrinary

Hi, I'm Stephen
Joined
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Messages
980
Points
133
AspiringMaker said:
Oh wow. I'm really interested. Please review my chapter. I'm a very new writer.

https://www.scribblehub.com/series/1039676/birth-of-a-cosmonar/
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RATING: Middle of the Road so Would not Keep Reading

THE GOOD

The prose was pretty good. Especially coming off a "first time author" post. You write fine, weave in additional information that fleshes out the characters and the scene.

You also have a lot of elements going on in the space provided. Some of them are weird and off the wall, but you have the foundation to engage for sure.

Special commendation goes to the final line about the cheating girlfriend. I thought it was a weird choice to start the MC off with a girlfriend. Normally you start them off at a low point for their character arc. I even thought to myself "that means it should go horribly very fast." But I didn't think you would know to include that beat. Lo and behold you did!

NEEDS WORK

If it sounds like I'm mostly positive about what you got going on here. . . I am! I just think you have some major foundation issues. Particularily regarding setting up information and promises.

Structurally, you want to include everything you need in the first act with is about 25% of the chapter (or work if we're pulling back that far). What are we lacking in the first act? We don't know his mom and her health issues, we don't know this is a world with super powers, and we don't know about the girlfriend.

That might seem like a lot to try and weasel in, but it can be done organically I promise you.

Let's look at the altnerative though. The way you have chosen to introduce every major one of these points is as it happens. I thought the scene with the goth chick was another blue monkey situation with him hallucinating until we find out she actually has super powers. We don't find out he has a girlfriend till I see him having this weird interaction with the goth chick and I think they might have a thing.

Not to mention, the arrangement of these plot elemenets aren't in any particularly meaningful order. Like the mom and the final exams. You would think that he would receive the call before the tests starts and then he would have to decide to rush over or make the practical choice (something you basically do, but look how much more elegant it could be!)

OVERALL

Some good basic skills on display. You now need to look at what you have and understand it. Make intentional choices about what goes where and understand your audience's relationship and how they read a story.
baandrews said:
Hello there! I'm a sucker for honest opinions, and ways to improve my writing, so might as well submit it here too! Thanks in advance!

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RATING: Would not Keep Reading

I started out with a line edit because I thought I was going to give up right away:

Cat ears are cute. What does this have to do with what comes next? It's not a chapter title.

My phone had (continuous past tense requires past purrfect) pinged on repeat since I left the apartment, and I'm the type that always ignores his who messages. But with my anxiety this morning, I allowed myself a quick peek. A wrong decision at the right time changed everything. I quickly lost grasp on my surroundings, but call it luck, fate or destiny, I caught a gimpse of her. I literally have no idea what happened. How is the character seeing "her". How does looking at the phone make that happen. What makes it a wrong decision? And she WHO looked crazy beautiful.

And then I read through the entire thing because there was a noticable jump in quality. I still don't think the prose is good but it was readable. And that's almost my entire review. Not a lot happens, very little seems to line up with each other. I guess he dies at the end? I don't know. As a character all I know about him is that he wants to be a programmer and has a sister, so I don't think I care if he died or not.

The only truely interesting thing here is the popularity. It's hardly super stardom, but it's enough to confuse me. It's very strange to read comments that say 'I don't know what happened but I like it.' I wouldn't beleive that was real if it didn't have a thousand views.

OVERALL

It's a very basic, paint by numbers first chapter and I can't say any element engaged me.
Macky said:
Novel Title : Folklore
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RATING: I would read one more chapter.

THE GOOD

The world building is extremely interesting, on multiple levels. To the point where I'm wondering what your inspriation for a lot of this is. What's a Cinderlla kindgom? I would like to know. And then move into the starved ghetto of Thumblings.

I also appreciated the direction it goes in. Right away, it seems like you're constructing an excuse to spoon feed organic exposition to the reader. But that last for literally one sentence (one sentence that does give us intruiging exposition).

THE BAD

The writing is doing you no favors here. It reads like you're probably in high school. Which good news, you're doing okay if that's the case. The ability to entertain on any level at that point in your writing journey.

But if you're, like, a thirty year old dude, then you're going to want to take some creative writing classes at your local community college if you want to improve your craft.

OVERALL

Wild creativity without a firm grasp on how to present it? Specifically with a question mark.
 
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AdOtherwise

AdOtherwise

Owl Who Reads · Hoot Hoot
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I don't know why I'm not going to RR since I was just there. This is my first novel which I AM currently working on. I got some feedback on it from you a long time ago. It's been through feedback after feedback from all the lovely people on here and now I'm seeing if its good, because I've been using my current writing off of it as a vague example.

 
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