Free First Chapter Feedback (V2)

[TheTrinary]

Hii. No wonder. I posted my story link on the old thread. Didn't notice it was dead lol. So....

The Deformed Star In the Sky - The Return | Scribble Hub

www.scribblehub.com

Waiting for your response

Rating: Back to basics.

There are a ton of tense swaps which makes it read poorly. I'd recommend to do some editing and make sure your prose is consistent.

Happy new thread! I've been lurking on your threads for a while (here and on RR), and they've been really interesting and useful.

Maybe I'll use this occasion to finally be brave and ask for some feedback. The reader response to my first chapter has been pretty good so far, but I keep feeling like there's something a little...off about it. I can't figure out what, though. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Thanks in advance!

https://www.scribblehub.com/series/589902/the-consequences-of-meeting-a-dragon/

RATING: Would Keep Reading!

The Strong Parts

Pretty much the entire thing worked for me, top to bottom. Those first two paragraphs were golden and I was in love. Past that, it was just some really strong character writing. Some of it was a bit on the nose like how much he loved flying, but some on the nose themeing like that is fine in this context. It's focused character work for a chapter, and I love that.

Could Be Improved

There is an element to redundancy to some of the ideas here. The second section didn't give us any new character beats, and I was waiting for that. Dad is a grump who only likes money; that's been established. And then he just harps on that to exposit some basic information. I was waiting for those extra colors to be thrown in, for a depeneding of character or new information that sheds light on them. In terms of what this chapter is and what it does well, it's all front loaded and then you coast on that.

OVERALL:

Still very good.

 

[Kaze_NG]

Hello, in new here so I'm not sure how this works.
Can you please look at this?
Being a hero

 

[TheTrinary]

After hours of thinking, I've finally decided please review my Novel if u have time also XD dont be too hard on me this is my first story and English is my third language. I feel like im gonna get cooked early but oh well.https://www.scribblehub.com/series/682333/reincarnated-as-the-archmages-son/

RATING: Would Not Keep Reading.

The Critqiue:

You throw us into it, in almost a comedical way. You just start listing off character traits and information and then boom, he's dead. And we can break that down into two parts:

As a whole, I find it weak. There are no interseting or unique ideas. He's just a boring character without a single intersting feature.

Execution: The first paragraph is one long, run on sentence. I think I get what you're going for, but it reads poorly and can be communicated better with italics and periods. And then part where he dies was jarring because he's thinking about suicide and then just. . . oh? Did he intentionally die. Was it an accident. You are so bored writing the first section that you might as well have skipped over it.

Once in the new world, everything we get is just world building and magic systems. These things are horribly uninteresting if they aren't grounded in a character or the story.

Congratulations on the new thread! It would mean a lot if you review mine. I'll leave the link to the prologue below.

Nowhere to Run - Prologue: Nowhere to Run | Scribble Hub

www.scribblehub.com

RATING: Would Not Keep Reading.

Editing time!

Deep through the dark forest, a shadowy figure tore through the cold night air as fast as the body allowed. Cut. Redundant with tore. In fact you used a strong verb and then undercut it by being redudnant. Behind , said figure Cut. Pointless were Cut. Don't use To Be verbs to describe active things; you also split the verb phrase by putting "another four giving" in between "were giving" another four giving gave chase like a pack of predators chasing down their prey. Cut. A bit more pedandtic, but not redundant. Looking closely one could draw the picture of a teenage girl, dressed in a long leather tunic, breathing and panting so quickly that she wondered if they could hear her. Following her footsteps right not too behind were four men clad in furs and with swords in hand. This entire section is awkward for a lot of reasons. First, you repeat the first two sentences over again just with more detail. Second, you use filler phrases like "one could"


Her mind was racing just as fast as her heart, trying to recollect all the events that have transpired recently and led to this very moment. You repeat the phrase "mind racing." You also tell use we're going back in time to bring us up to speed, even though the previous paragraph did exactly that without pointing it out. So essentially, we time cut and then cut back only for the narration to tell us we are going back in time.

Overall:

It's by no means unreadable, but the writing needs some work.

I would really appreciate it if anyone would review my novel. The link is below.

I started with the prologue because chapter 1 was your fourth entry.

RATING: Back To Basics.

I honestly gave up after paragraph two. Let's put the two paragraphs back to back and see if we notice anything.

In the dimly lit underground base, the sound of gunfire reverberated off the concrete walls. A lone figure with dead, fish-like eyes moved with mechanical precision through the man-made terrain, dodging the bullets of the sentries who pursued him.

The young man's dead, fish-like eyes scanned the artificial terrain as he moved with machine-like precision. Sentries fired at him as he took cover behind a tree, but he quickly peeked out, fired a shot, and destroyed his target before returning to cover.

Hello, in new here so I'm not sure how this works.
Can you please look at this?
Being a hero

RATING: Back To Basics

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

What's with the brackets?
What's with this sentence? The legs were spread on the armrest, the left was arm between the teeth and the right was stuck between the legs.
Where is the first scene taking place? You establish a house, but they aren't having sex in a house. I'm very confused.
Don't refer to human beings as "It"

 

[Oreo]

Rating: Back to basics.

There are a ton of tense swaps which makes it read poorly. I'd recommend to do some editing and make sure your prose is consistent.

RATING: Would Keep Reading!

The Strong Parts

Pretty much the entire thing worked for me, top to bottom. Those first two paragraphs were golden and I was in love. Past that, it was just some really strong character writing. Some of it was a bit on the nose like how much he loved flying, but some on the nose themeing like that is fine in this context. It's focused character work for a chapter, and I love that.

Could Be Improved

There is an element to redundancy to some of the ideas here. The second section didn't give us any new character beats, and I was waiting for that. Dad is a grump who only likes money; that's been established. And then he just harps on that to exposit some basic information. I was waiting for those extra colors to be thrown in, for a depeneding of character or new information that sheds light on them. In terms of what this chapter is and what it does well, it's all front loaded and then you coast on that.

OVERALL:

Still very good.

RATING: Back To Basics.

I honestly gave up after paragraph two. Let's put the two paragraphs back to back and see if we notice anything.

RATING: Back To Basics

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

What's with the brackets?
What's with this sentence? The legs were spread on the armrest, the left was arm between the teeth and the right was stuck between the legs.
Where is the first scene taking place? You establish a house, but they aren't having sex in a house. I'm very confused.
Don't refer to human beings as "It"

If I might add a few words? I'm not surprised with the verdict after reading those stories and comparing them.

It seems like most SH authors just can't compete with RR authors in terms of quality but that's okay. We all gotta start somewhere.

@Gunshot_god, @ManwX, @Kaze_NG my advice? Just keep writing. Reading something written by a better author like @RynnTheTired could also help. It might give you some insight.

 

[Macha]

It seems like most SH authors just can't compete with RR authors in terms of quality but that's okay. We all gotta start somewhere.

Why are we here just to suffer?

 

[Zakuro]

Why are we here just to suffer?

Because GB+GL = easy trending.

 

[Oreo]

The sad part is if this back to basic trend continues, Erys story might made it into the V3 best of list.

Authors of SH! Step up your game and overthrow the vile queen! You too can join the hall of fame with enough improvement!

 

[Bartun]

RATING: Would Not Keep Reading.

The Critqiue:

You throw us into it, in almost a comedical way. You just start listing off character traits and information and then boom, he's dead. And we can break that down into two parts:

As a whole, I find it weak. There are no interseting or unique ideas. He's just a boring character without a single intersting feature.

Execution: The first paragraph is one long, run on sentence. I think I get what you're going for, but it reads poorly and can be communicated better with italics and periods. And then part where he dies was jarring because he's thinking about suicide and then just. . . oh? Did he intentionally die. Was it an accident. You are so bored writing the first section that you might as well have skipped over it.

Once in the new world, everything we get is just world building and magic systems. These things are horribly uninteresting if they aren't grounded in a character or the story.

RATING: Would Not Keep Reading.

Editing time!

Deep through the dark forest, a shadowy figure tore through the cold night air as fast as the body allowed. Cut. Redundant with tore. In fact you used a strong verb and then undercut it by being redudnant. Behind , said figure Cut. Pointless were Cut. Don't use To Be verbs to describe active things; you also split the verb phrase by putting "another four giving" in between "were giving" another four giving gave chase like a pack of predators chasing down their prey. Cut. A bit more pedandtic, but not redundant. Looking closely one could draw the picture of a teenage girl, dressed in a long leather tunic, breathing and panting so quickly that she wondered if they could hear her. Following her footsteps right not too behind were four men clad in furs and with swords in hand. This entire section is awkward for a lot of reasons. First, you repeat the first two sentences over again just with more detail. Second, you use filler phrases like "one could"


Her mind was racing just as fast as her heart, trying to recollect all the events that have transpired recently and led to this very moment. You repeat the phrase "mind racing." You also tell use we're going back in time to bring us up to speed, even though the previous paragraph did exactly that without pointing it out. So essentially, we time cut and then cut back only for the narration to tell us we are going back in time.

Overall:

It's by no means unreadable, but the writing needs some work.

I started with the prologue because chapter 1 was your fourth entry.

RATING: Back To Basics.

I honestly gave up after paragraph two. Let's put the two paragraphs back to back and see if we notice anything.

In the dimly lit underground base, the sound of gunfire reverberated off the concrete walls. A lone figure with dead, fish-like eyes moved with mechanical precision through the man-made terrain, dodging the bullets of the sentries who pursued him.

The young man's dead, fish-like eyes scanned the artificial terrain as he moved with machine-like precision. Sentries fired at him as he took cover behind a tree, but he quickly peeked out, fired a shot, and destroyed his target before returning to cover.

RATING: Back To Basics

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

What's with the brackets?
What's with this sentence? The legs were spread on the armrest, the left was arm between the teeth and the right was stuck between the legs.
Where is the first scene taking place? You establish a house, but they aren't having sex in a house. I'm very confused.
Don't refer to human beings as "It"

 

[Paul_Tromba]

The sad part is if this back to basic trend continues, Erys story might made it into the V3 best of list.

Authors of SH! Step up your game and overthrow the vile queen! You too can join the hall of fame with enough improvement!

I'm doing what I can.

 

[Oreo]

View attachment 17756

If it's any consolation, you are doing better than the others. At least you have a solid grasp of the basic.

I recommend listening to your chapters on text to speech before publishing them. You will know something is wrong when you don't understand what it's saying.

I'm doing what I can.

You are part of the aristocracy politicking to overthrow the current regime behind the queen's back. Of course you are doing what you can.

 

[TheTrinary]

View attachment 17756

Awww.

Let's phrase it this way. You've got the writing down, now you just need to edit. It hurts writers, but what you need to do is cut down what you made to the bone. Ideally, you look at every word or phrase and ask:

1) "Does this add anything?" Cut it.
2) "Have I conveyed this information before?" Cut it.

If you can do that efficiently, you'll be an entertaining writer. Then we get to discuss your works themes and wether what happened is meaningful. If 90% of your work passes that test, then you're a professional author.

 

[Zakuro]

Ideally

Ideally.

The first step to be an entertaining writer is to enjoy what you are writing. Don't enjoy your own work? The reader won't. Simple.

 

[Leti]

View attachment 17756

Here are some tutorials to write an entertaining story! Don't give up! It's only over when you give up!

 

[Kaze_NG]

RATING: Would Not Keep Reading.

The Critqiue:

You throw us into it, in almost a comedical way. You just start listing off character traits and information and then boom, he's dead. And we can break that down into two parts:

As a whole, I find it weak. There are no interseting or unique ideas. He's just a boring character without a single intersting feature.

Execution: The first paragraph is one long, run on sentence. I think I get what you're going for, but it reads poorly and can be communicated better with italics and periods. And then part where he dies was jarring because he's thinking about suicide and then just. . . oh? Did he intentionally die. Was it an accident. You are so bored writing the first section that you might as well have skipped over it.

Once in the new world, everything we get is just world building and magic systems. These things are horribly uninteresting if they aren't grounded in a character or the story.

RATING: Would Not Keep Reading.

Editing time!

Deep through the dark forest, a shadowy figure tore through the cold night air as fast as the body allowed. Cut. Redundant with tore. In fact you used a strong verb and then undercut it by being redudnant. Behind , said figure Cut. Pointless were Cut. Don't use To Be verbs to describe active things; you also split the verb phrase by putting "another four giving" in between "were giving" another four giving gave chase like a pack of predators chasing down their prey. Cut. A bit more pedandtic, but not redundant. Looking closely one could draw the picture of a teenage girl, dressed in a long leather tunic, breathing and panting so quickly that she wondered if they could hear her. Following her footsteps right not too behind were four men clad in furs and with swords in hand. This entire section is awkward for a lot of reasons. First, you repeat the first two sentences over again just with more detail. Second, you use filler phrases like "one could"


Her mind was racing just as fast as her heart, trying to recollect all the events that have transpired recently and led to this very moment. You repeat the phrase "mind racing." You also tell use we're going back in time to bring us up to speed, even though the previous paragraph did exactly that without pointing it out. So essentially, we time cut and then cut back only for the narration to tell us we are going back in time.

Overall:

It's by no means unreadable, but the writing needs some work.

I started with the prologue because chapter 1 was your fourth entry.

RATING: Back To Basics.

I honestly gave up after paragraph two. Let's put the two paragraphs back to back and see if we notice anything.

In the dimly lit underground base, the sound of gunfire reverberated off the concrete walls. A lone figure with dead, fish-like eyes moved with mechanical precision through the man-made terrain, dodging the bullets of the sentries who pursued him.

The young man's dead, fish-like eyes scanned the artificial terrain as he moved with machine-like precision. Sentries fired at him as he took cover behind a tree, but he quickly peeked out, fired a shot, and destroyed his target before returning to cover.

RATING: Back To Basics

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

What's with the brackets?
What's with this sentence? The legs were spread on the armrest, the left was arm between the teeth and the right was stuck between the legs.
Where is the first scene taking place? You establish a house, but they aren't having sex in a house. I'm very confused.
Don't refer to human beings as "It"

If I might add a few words? I'm not surprised with the verdict after reading those stories and comparing them.

It seems like most SH authors just can't compete with RR authors in terms of quality but that's okay. We all gotta start somewhere.

@Gunshot_god, @ManwX, @Kaze_NG my advice? Just keep writing. Reading something written by a better author like @RynnTheTired could also help. It might give you some insight.

Was a hard pill to swallow, needed a few hours to calm myself down ^^

Thank you very much for your time and feedback! I really appreciate it!

 

[Zakuro]

Here are some tutorials to write an entertaining story! Don't give up! It's only over when you give up!

Link not working.

 

[RebelLion]

It seems like most SH authors just can't compete with RR authors

RRL authors will always be superior to SH authors. They don't write as a hobby, but to make money.

 

[Narcissistic_loser]

RATING: Would Not Keep Reading.

The Critqiue:

You throw us into it, in almost a comedical way. You just start listing off character traits and information and then boom, he's dead. And we can break that down into two parts:

As a whole, I find it weak. There are no interseting or unique ideas. He's just a boring character without a single intersting feature.

Execution: The first paragraph is one long, run on sentence. I think I get what you're going for, but it reads poorly and can be communicated better with italics and periods. And then part where he dies was jarring because he's thinking about suicide and then just. . . oh? Did he intentionally die. Was it an accident. You are so bored writing the first section that you might as well have skipped over it.

Once in the new world, everything we get is just world building and magic systems. These things are horribly uninteresting if they aren't grounded in a character or the story.

RATING: Would Not Keep Reading.

Editing time!

Deep through the dark forest, a shadowy figure tore through the cold night air as fast as the body allowed. Cut. Redundant with tore. In fact you used a strong verb and then undercut it by being redudnant. Behind , said figure Cut. Pointless were Cut. Don't use To Be verbs to describe active things; you also split the verb phrase by putting "another four giving" in between "were giving" another four giving gave chase like a pack of predators chasing down their prey. Cut. A bit more pedandtic, but not redundant. Looking closely one could draw the picture of a teenage girl, dressed in a long leather tunic, breathing and panting so quickly that she wondered if they could hear her. Following her footsteps right not too behind were four men clad in furs and with swords in hand. This entire section is awkward for a lot of reasons. First, you repeat the first two sentences over again just with more detail. Second, you use filler phrases like "one could"


Her mind was racing just as fast as her heart, trying to recollect all the events that have transpired recently and led to this very moment. You repeat the phrase "mind racing." You also tell use we're going back in time to bring us up to speed, even though the previous paragraph did exactly that without pointing it out. So essentially, we time cut and then cut back only for the narration to tell us we are going back in time.

Overall:

It's by no means unreadable, but the writing needs some work.

I started with the prologue because chapter 1 was your fourth entry.

RATING: Back To Basics.

I honestly gave up after paragraph two. Let's put the two paragraphs back to back and see if we notice anything.

In the dimly lit underground base, the sound of gunfire reverberated off the concrete walls. A lone figure with dead, fish-like eyes moved with mechanical precision through the man-made terrain, dodging the bullets of the sentries who pursued him.

The young man's dead, fish-like eyes scanned the artificial terrain as he moved with machine-like precision. Sentries fired at him as he took cover behind a tree, but he quickly peeked out, fired a shot, and destroyed his target before returning to cover.

RATING: Back To Basics

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

What's with the brackets?
What's with this sentence? The legs were spread on the armrest, the left was arm between the teeth and the right was stuck between the legs.
Where is the first scene taking place? You establish a house, but they aren't having sex in a house. I'm very confused.
Don't refer to human beings as "It"

He's just like me fr boring and simple, jokes aside Thanks for your time mann, ill do better next time, I may not apply 100% of what you said but I'll keep this critique in mind.

 

[RynnTheTired]

Rating: Back to basics.

There are a ton of tense swaps which makes it read poorly. I'd recommend to do some editing and make sure your prose is consistent.

RATING: Would Keep Reading!

The Strong Parts

Pretty much the entire thing worked for me, top to bottom. Those first two paragraphs were golden and I was in love. Past that, it was just some really strong character writing. Some of it was a bit on the nose like how much he loved flying, but some on the nose themeing like that is fine in this context. It's focused character work for a chapter, and I love that.

Could Be Improved

There is an element to redundancy to some of the ideas here. The second section didn't give us any new character beats, and I was waiting for that. Dad is a grump who only likes money; that's been established. And then he just harps on that to exposit some basic information. I was waiting for those extra colors to be thrown in, for a depeneding of character or new information that sheds light on them. In terms of what this chapter is and what it does well, it's all front loaded and then you coast on that.

OVERALL:

Still very good.

Hmm...I think you're right—that second part is where it kind of falls flat. I should probably rewrite that conversation to break up the world building elements and add a little more character depth. Maybe throw in some tidbits about how the father feels about his job and the pressure to provide for the family, rather than just stating the facts. Some hints that he isn't very comfortable being around Thenio would help set things up for the next chapter, too.... Yeah, I'll need to work on it a little more, but I'm starting to get some ideas.

Thanks very much for the feedback! It was really helpful.

 

[TheTrinary]

He's just like me fr boring and simple, jokes aside Thanks for your time mann, ill do better next time, I may not apply 100% of what you said but I'll keep this critique in mind.

Hmm...I think you're right—that second part is where it kind of falls flat. I should probably rewrite that conversation to break up the world building elements and add a little more character depth. Maybe throw in some tidbits about how the father feels about his job and the pressure to provide for the family, rather than just stating the facts. Some hints that he isn't very comfortable being around Thenio would help set things up for the next chapter, too.... Yeah, I'll need to work on it a little more, but I'm starting to get some ideas.

Thanks very much for the feedback! It was really helpful.

I really like those ideas.

 

[Bartun]

Awww.

Let's phrase it this way. You've got the writing down, now you just need to edit. It hurts writers, but what you need to do is cut down what you made to the bone. Ideally, you look at every word or phrase and ask:

1) "Does this add anything?" Cut it.
2) "Have I conveyed this information before?" Cut it.

If you can do that efficiently, you'll be an entertaining writer. Then we get to discuss your works themes and wether what happened is meaningful. If 90% of your work passes that test, then you're a professional author.

Thank you for the tips, and for taking the time to review. It means a lot. Really.

I know is no excuse but English isn't my first language and I'm trying my best to write as well as possible. My chapters are kinda long and it takes me a considerable amount of time to finish them. I already edited all my chapters at least twice. I know there is room for more improvement but I wanted to finish the current arc before going into another edit spree.

Thank you again. It only means I need to improve as a writer. I'll take the advice you just gave me and make it something worth everyone's time.

Here are some tutorials to write an entertaining story! Don't give up! It's only over when you give up!

Thank you! It means a lot!

If it's any consolation, you are doing better than the others. At least you have a solid grasp of the basic.

Thank you! It means a lot hearing that!

I recommend listening to your chapters on text to speech before publishing them. You will know something is wrong when you don't understand what it's saying.

Oh, I'm an old boomer who doesn't know much about those things. Is there a good site for using text-to-speech?