Free First Chapter Feedback (V2)
- Thread starter TheTrinary
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Twilightfall
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Hello there!
Could you please review my new book? I have attached the link below
www.scribblehub.com
Thankyou; your assistance is greatly appreciated.
Could you please review my new book? I have attached the link below
World Reawakened: The Supernatural Uprising
Whispers of the Vanished, Legacy of Lost Realms In the year 3800, humanity's quest for space exploration led them beyond the confines of Earth to the far reaches of neighboring planets. But what they discovered among the stars was not merely the vast expanse of the cosmos. It was the...
Thankyou; your assistance is greatly appreciated.
breakofdawnstories
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Hello! Please let me know what you think about it. I really want to know if I'm made to write stories or I'm just wasting my time. ( this statement is without self-pity involve XD ) Many thanks in advanceeeeee.
Hushed Paradise
Out of the blue, Yumi decided to break the tranquility and asked, 'Gani...do you think both of us will change?' 'What do you mean?' 'Do you think we will stay this close forever?' Gani glanced at the heavy-in-thought girl, 'Yumi, change is constant. We all change......
Dredd_Sama
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Beyond the Rift
Please give feedback here.
This is my first time writing something like this ... but i am proud of what i have in mind for the future of this story .. hope it reaches that point
Please give feedback here.
This is my first time writing something like this ... but i am proud of what i have in mind for the future of this story .. hope it reaches that point
Megapal
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Love to hear advice on newii https://www.scribblehub.com/series/902410/mias-flavors-of-fate/
TheTrinary
Hi, I'm Stephen
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RATING: Would not Keep Reading.Does this thread still alive? If so, I appreciate reviewing this
Also, if you're confused, read the Introduction first and understand why it's complex
LEGENDARY: The Omnipotence
(This novel is currently under rewrite) Infinite stories unfolds as the creation of the Fiction Verse and evolves into something revolutionary. This series is an All-in-one Genre, everything can happen, even the things you've dreamed of, even the stories that never existed before, it will...
You lost me right away with the prose:
All things don't exist—no universes, multiverses, omniverses, creatures, or everything. Some really confusing phrasing here combining positive and negative attributes and inadvertantly creating a double negative. Just try: Nothing existed: universes. . . . The final "everything is redundant with you stating "all things." Also the tense doesn't match the later past tense. Just some empty, lame old white void where there is just infinite white space. The text here feels very juvenile. I think it would be fine as a voice thing if you showed some restraint. Maybe cut the "just". Also, when using adjectives, if you can put the word "and" between them and it makes sense, use a comma. The void is lame and old, it's not lame old.
But something strangely appeared out of nowhere. Very janky. First off, don't use adverbs if at all possible. Second, the natural way to read this is "But something strange appeared. . ." This one bothered me. It was a blue mythical spirit resembling a blue little flame suddenly summoned from nothingness but unable to do anything because it doesn't know how to control itself yet. Look at this dude. You state blue again five words apart. Your tense is all over the place, and to top it all off, you have so many extra words you can edit down and get to the point. The spirit stayed there for quadrillions of years until the white void slowly became so dark and pitch black that you could not even see anything. This is the only sentence that reads OKAY. I even like the near hypberbolic time frame and the imagry.
OVERALL
Work on the writing.
RATING: Would Keep ReadingIf you could give this a review, I would really appreciate it!
Starless Flower
If you could fundamentally understand people and the meaning behind their words, how would that change you? As a child, Marou Miyashita had a unique ability—he could see deep into people's souls. By focusing his gaze onto the stars that seemingly filled people's eyes, he would be able to...
Thank you!
THE GOOD
I like the opening section. Outside of a note to follow, it's simple but well written. You very wisely move from one idea to the other without getting bogged down on any one thing. It's quaint and I like it.
Note on that section:
. . .person’s very soul was laid out on a platter for me to read. Good attempt but you mix up your metaphor here. You don't put books on platters to read them, and you don't read food. It's a real "rocket surgeon" scenario.
THE CRITIQUE
I don't have any earth shaking critisism to offer. Generally, the writing keeps the tone of the first section. It's accesible and cute. However (and you could include this in the good column, I suppose), you seem to be constantly on the verge of nailing it. You are so close to have this be downright charming, but I don't think it crosses that line. I'm always on the edge of my seat thinking: Just take it one step further. One extra detail, one little punch up on a sentence.
Here's one example, when you first describe the counseler's room and the beanbag, you state that the MC had grown familiar with it. That makes me think they are here a lot. That there is some well defined relationship between the two, some history for WHY they keep going there. But in the scene you construct, the banter and humor is very surface level. Nothing ever reveals a deeper relationship, explains why they spend so much time there. We don't get anything outside of "haha, the MC is annoying this adult," when that banter between the two should give us a deeper understanding and build a relationship or estabilsh a history.
You definitely need to do two things at once.
And thinking about that scene now, I think the set up is what creates the charm. It woudl be childish if it was just this kid poking fun at someone who should know better to not take the bait. But we were promised more at the start, so I spend the whole scene accepting what's literally going on, waiting for the other shoe to drop. You promised me something in the set up that almost feels abandoned.
And that holds true for the rest of the chapter. I'm constantly in this state of "Couldn't you also have. . ." Just give me a tiny bit more.
OVERALL
Good. Light tone. Glimmers of great writing the author just doesn't follow through on.
Hello! I have a novel I made and I hope you can reveiw it.
English is not my first language but my third language because people here know at least 3 languages... so I'm sorry if my English is strange.
Elysian Online
'Yuna, 21 years old, is a young woman without a clear direction or stable job to support her life. Initially, she aspired to become a player in the virtual world game called 'Elysian Online' after completing her education. However, her dreams were shattered when she failed to secure a game...
The writing looks. . . okay at a glance, but I might have had more questions here than pretty much anything I've ever read. RATING: Back to basics.
Paragraph 2 caught my eye right away, because it makes no sense: "We apologize, ma'am. Due to last year's massive purchases, we couldn't renew our contract with the supplier, resulting in a shortage," a staff member mumbled, avoiding eye contact.
Sorry but we spent so much money last year the supplier refused to sell us more? They hate when we give them too much money? OR it's that we bought too much and couldn't renew the contract. But that doesn't make sense because the MC is looking for an item they don't have. If they sold out their stock, they would have made a ton of money and bought more.
In summation, it feels like poorly thought out jargon. "Business people do business thing, business business business."
Reading it again, I think the idea is that the supplier ran out. But then you have cause and effect mixed up. Because of the massive popularity, the supplier couldn't keep up, thus resulting in a shortage. The contract has nothing to do with a shortage. Why bring up a "contract" at all.
Whatever you intended, this paragraph is a mess.
We're just going to keep editing from here: This is Yuna, a 21-year-old girl who aspired to be an Elysian Online player after finishing her schooling. How does that work? How do you play an MMO for a living? Especially since it seems that only one person owns the game? However, a year ago, someone had purchased all the game capsules on the game's launch day,
Initially, Yuna didn't give up and scoured stores in different areas for the capsules. It's a world with MMO's but not online shopping? This might seem pendantic, but you have to follow the logic that a human being would take in this situation. You should start by saying they were sold out online, so Yuna went to every store she could fine. Writing, which takes a TON of work, needs to be smarter than the thoughts your reader has in the seconds that they read your work. But her heart sank when she discovered the exorbitant prices beyond her reach. What prices? You said someone bought them all. Did a single scalper buy them all? This is right after her going to other stores? Did the stores raise their prices because they bought from a scalper? Was the scalper only buying from one store? Do stores raise their prises based on scarcity for mass market goods? (I don't think Walmart sold PS5's for three thousand dollars each. There's normally even contracts and stuff that force stores to sell at the MSRP for goods like this. She chose to bide her time, working part-time at a nearby coffee shop to sustain herself while closely following in-game news and honing her gaming skills. How did she hone her skills at the game if she couldn't play the game? Why is this even an investment; we don't know how she can make a living from this.
Also, what is the capsule??? Why can't she just go on steam and buy the game.
OVERALL
Looks like I'm going to bed angry tonight. This is some moon man logic because human beings make sense. I can understand what a human being does and the world they live in, and I ain't got a clue what's going on in this story.
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Sagacious_Punk
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Hello, Trinary! (Stephen?)
Whenever it's convenient, please offer your opinion on the prologue of The Celestial Way:
www.scribblehub.com
Thanks in advance!
Regards,
Sagacious
Whenever it's convenient, please offer your opinion on the prologue of The Celestial Way:
The Celestial Way - Prologue | Scribble Hub
Thanks in advance!
Regards,
Sagacious
OyoJan
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aimless
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The Perfect Ending - Chapter 1 | Scribble Hub
NoppaiCanno
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Hello! If you're reading the first chap only, please ignore the Prologue, thank you for your time!
www.scribblehub.com
Cohabitation Schizophrenia
For Evin, the Voice inside his head was always something to be despised. Because of it, he is shunned by all, even his own family. His mother had left him, leaving him behind with a father who is beyond done with the mentally-ill child under his care. Yet still, the...
TheTrinary
Hi, I'm Stephen
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RATING: Would Keep ReadingHi! I have a new novel and I hope you can review it!
The Ant’s Nest
The Gods are unfair. My family was ruthlessly slaughtered, and I was sure my own end was imminent. Yet, standing alone at their gravesides, I couldn't bring myself to abandon them. I could only ask why Life was so unfair to us. But then the Gods intervened. As they prepared...
THE GOOD
I quite like your writing style. You have some nice flourishes and attempts at style and it all works. It's not the best prose I've ever read, but you strike a nice balance between tempo, readability, and style. There were a handful of sentences/ phrases that absolutely nailed it and I don't recall you missing in any egregious way that became distracting.
I also liked where it went. The sort of "Meeting with God" trope is super over done which makes it a phenominal litmess test for writers. When just about everyone (literally) is writing the same concept, their ability to effectively write really comes through when they know what they're doing. The concept is fun for this scene, it had some minor twists and turns that made it engaging, and while the. . . metaphor(?) was a bit heavy handed, it sets up where I think the story is going in an effective way.
CRITIQUE
There's nothing here I dislike, let's start by saying that. Instead, all I have to offer is the confusing wording of section one.
The name of your story has the word "Ant" in it. So I was very curious to see if this was about literal ants (which I think that's where it's going). HOWEVER, a lot of the stylistic flourishes and language that you use in section 1 seemed to be describing an ant's perspective. I think you were tryig to create a thematic throughline from where we start to where we are going, but 1) that's goofy, and 2) that also means that the language isn't crafted to the literal events happening. It's a little confusing and I don't think it justifies itself.
And now that I think of it, section one also lacks a true establishment and foundation. We get this tragic backstory, but we really lack any context to understand it outside of those typical human emotions you can attribute to a situation like this. What I'm saying is: It works to a point, especially when we get to section 2, but it would work better with a better laid foundation.
OVERALL
Good work.
RATING: Would Keep Reading
THE INTERESTING
I kind of love the way you've played with the elements for this type of story. The mid point that introduces the LRPG/ portal fantasy element is fantastic and done in a very organic way. And like I alluded to, it takes the order this information is typically given in/ happens in and twists it. Great stuff.
I also like the premise of a make-you-own-university. That could be fun. While I'm a little hesitent as the elements connect the way the university will progress seems to be a little meta, it might work.
CRITIQUE AKA THE PROSE
The only thing that needs work here is some of the prose. It feels like it's one editing pass from being a cleaned up version. This isn't to say that it is bad or unreadable, only that it's a tad rough and ready in places. Cut some words here, rephrase a sentence there. The method I use once my prose is at this point is to have it read aloud (by a computer or someone else if you can really get that lucky), but I'm sure you have your methods. If you're great at getting the feel just from reading, maybe add one more pass to your edits and focus on getting rid of redundant or slow words.
OVERALL
Creatively, I think this one is a big win.
I'm doing the first one. You can get back in line in a week for the second if you wish. And I read chapter 1, not zero. RATING: MIDDLE OF THE ROAD SO WOULD NOT KEEP READING
It was good relative to the star rating you have on this site. Once you dip under 4 stars, I expect it to be awful, but this was pretty standard fair. Didn't love it, didn't hate it. Mostly it didn't affect me at all. Some of the prose and ideas were a little underdeveloped or a childish. I didn't like the constant phrase mommy being used.
But let's not focus too much on the negatives, becaues even if we sanatized this, it wouldn't be a thumbs up. I would focus on doing more with the space you are given. More ideas, more depth, just more. It all feels obligatory, like a chapter you had to write to get to the next one. If I asked you what you found interesting about this chatper, would you have an answer?
Doesn't feel like it.
OVERALL
It's a story.
The rare prologue request. RATING: MIDDLE OF THE ROAD SO WOULD NOT KEEP READING
THE POEM
Poetry is more my wife's thing than my own, but I'm going to share my opinion anyway since this feels like a soft ball:
“Breaking from dark pits despair, and breathing in a gulp of air. Right away, I'd like to discourage you from the in line rhyming. It feels like lymeric and lymerics are supposed to be jokes. Second, your first idea here is gramatically incorrect. Dark pits of despair. The very first words your reader is seeing are gramatically incorrect. It's not a good first impression. And even if this is intentional for meter or whathaveyou, it's still wrong. You can't just cut parts out to artifically create meter.
You found calming waters cleanse your strife, and solid ground to build your life.
With foundation built your will turned steel, with a burning passion none could steal. You rhyme steal with steel. You know that's a lazy cop out. Why start us off with a poem if you don't want to write a poem. Let's be clear, this doesn't add anything to the experience outside of the contained experience of reading a poem. The first three lines are filler.
To find the light that shines within, or lose your fight to demon king.” Within and king are not even slant rhymes. Why establish a structure if you aren't going to follow your own rules. And while intorudcing us to this demon king idea is probably a good idea in the context of where we go from here, it's severely uncut by the stanza. The first thing your reader reads shouldn't be where you've given up.
THE ACTUAL STORY! (THE GOOD)
Conceptually, I like May's right eye. I'm not sure if you're drawing from something there, but it's unique to me and a pretty fun idea to the point where I absolutely wan to see this featured in a fantasy novel.
I also think you keep us moving. There's action, adventure, some twists and turns. It has the drive a chapter likes this needs. Some of the conflict gets a bit loosy goosy. There isn't a clear objective set up from the start, the stakes are somewhat all over the place. It feels very intuitive with the writer trying their hardest to entertain without necessarily knowing the beats they should be hitting (or subverting if they are that good).
THE CRITIQUE
First off, let's talk about the prose. It reads distinctly like a well polished highschool piece by someone who wants to write a fantasy novel (with a capital n). It's rough, it's under prooved, there are sure signs of effort and attempt there, but no single paragraph ever rises to the level of being great.
Like, geez, how many times do you say "special eye" in the first page. Redundancy is the number one sign of an amateur writer. Faster, more trust in your reader.
This is a prologue. It's the least important part of any narrative and mostly exists for the author's own edification. Ideally, it serves as an entertaining short story that the reader can come back to and glean more understanding from after reading your book.
You are sitting on almost 19 pages here. That is longer than almost any prologue needs to be. If you want it to be that long, it has to be 100% justified. It has to move and it has to entertain. As is, you could cut down 50% of what you have here and not loose much of anything. That probably seems harsh when I also say it moves, but let's reframe it. What's the take away? What do you want your audience to experience with this prologue? You could structure this in a way where the intent is met in a shorter space, IMO.
Once again, the exception to that is if it's just that darn entertaining, and I can think of maybe two prologues I've ever read that fit that bill.
OVERALL
I don't want to be discouraging here. This reads like someone with a tiny bit of experience being very ambitious and not even failing. Just not suceeding. If you're 30 or younger, keep at it and work on your craft. Learn all you can and really do a deep dive on your writing. There are good instincts here to hone and perfect.
And if you are older than 30, you're probably going to need a major shift in how you are approaching this. Less wild ideas and more academic structure.
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ReadyGoLove
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Thank you for the feedback! From what I'm getting, you're saying I should dig a little deeper into the things I "promise" early on in certain scenes? For example, like if I had the MC scold the counselor for lighting a cigarette in the room, it would show a deeper connection/comfortability from the counselor, as well as genuine concern from MC while still aligning with the tone.
TsumiHokiro
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I'd like to hear your two salts, if you don't mind. When you have time.
Link to a novel.
Edit: By the time you get here, a lot of time will have gone since I've posted, so let's break it down, shall we?
This is, to say the least, experimental stuff. Not the usual thing you might find. So if you feel you can not rate it well, let me know and I will understand it.
Link to a novel.
Edit: By the time you get here, a lot of time will have gone since I've posted, so let's break it down, shall we?
This is, to say the least, experimental stuff. Not the usual thing you might find. So if you feel you can not rate it well, let me know and I will understand it.
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AstraMagically
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Finally, after a few tries I made something that you would keep reading
The same problem with the prose though, but I think I'm getting better if it's just one editing pass away
Thanks for the input
TheTrinary
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I was prepared to agree with you before I read the propsed section. It's not that you need to add new ideas or take a roundabout way to get a point across, I think you have to do more with what you've got.
Up to and including “Because you’d complain about it.” I think you 100% nailed the scene. I feel like everything after that becomes stilted and kind of pointless. Line edit time!
“Hmm…” I stood up from the bean bag, putting a hand to my chin in a sort of thinking pose, “Do you have any dreams, counselor? Aspirations?” What is this motivated by? It's a complete nonsequitor. Looking back, we're still hanging on the questions "What are you here for this time."
She's laying down, being goofy, and we have a pending question. A question I might add that is in your reader's mind as well. Why is this scene happening? Why is she here, and why is she here so much? You the writer want to move us into this back and forth reparte' about the future and dreams which is fine, but you need to get there organically. And the way to get there organically is by making a connection between that idea, and the outstanding question of why she is here.
Him: "Can you just tell me why you're here this time? Don't you want to graduate some day?"
Her: "I always pictured you as the kind of guy who'd be on to bigger and better things, do you want to graduate someday? Metaphorically of course."
And this is a rough outline. If you really want to get into the literature of it, you can take into consideration the tiny details. Is she still sitting down? Does she sit up? How does her choice contrast with the words she says? How does the choice that she makes affect his perception of the conversation?
It seems like I'm suggesting you write a whole nother page to answer these questions, but often times you can demonstrate that amount of detail in a single sentence. And even if you dont' think things through this thourough, if you could hit on a single detail that deepens the scene and adds nuance, you're going to double your reader's engagement vs. something completely surface level.
“Of course I have dreams,” he sighed again. “What kind of question is that?” Why this sentence? What does it add? What does it tell us? It exists to keep the conversation going and to get us to the next point. 'I have dreams' is all we need to kip us to the next point, so what else can we do with it? Also, sighing and the second sentence acheive the same goal.
If we have him say, "I have dreams" and nothing else. It becomes terse, slightly combative which doesn't feel right, so how does a counselor with a difficult student react? His goal is to engage with a difficult student after all. "I have dreams. Do you have dreams? That beanbag isn't getting saying much when you end up putting it down as a refrence on your resume."
Not sure the quip lands, but I'm keeping the tempo in line with the lightness established. I think making things too direct is going to conflict with the intended tone. As well, I very intentionally took out any direct qualfications for how the teacher is feeling. No sighing, no speech showing frustration. Adults are not children; they aren't going to be imeadiately haggared by poking or prodding, and even when it gets to that point, the clues are going to be more subtle.
I found his choice of words interesting. Have, he said. This is good. Active. You have this push and pull going between the two characters. It's a little wordy, but I won't complain in this forum.
“I thought old people gave those up when they got… well… old?” I think this is where my version of him being a professional is important, because this is a clever derailment, and it's now earned. You haven't emasculated your teacher and continued with that theme, you've had your MC make a clever observation and earn some deeper information.
His left eye twitched. If this is the first overt show of being flustered or annoyed, I think it's fine. It's still a pretty big start and there are more subtle queues you could lead us in with.
“What, you think I’m an ambitionless middle-aged man?” This is so overt, so dumb. The idea is probably correct, but you are taking the shortest paths to get to easy solutions. How does an adult (an adult young enough to not be bothered by this sort of thing, I might add) react to a stupid picking at a tiny insecurity? This will go with the blue below, but my suggestion would be something more naturalistic that sets up a better joke/ observation: "What age do you think adults give up?"
I paused. This is very obviously a trap, but like every sea-floor dwelling crab, I couldn’t help but take a pinch at the bait. This is a great sentence. First part you nailed since the start that we skipped over.
“Yes.” I like the comedic timing here. The short snap works, altough a simply set up for a "yes" is a bit basic. "Twenty two?" Obviously 22 is young, but it's realistic that a kid might say it, but also overt enough that even a younger reader would realize the absurdity. MOST IMPORTANTLY, it adds a second layer to the MC that we didn't have before. She is observant, but she isn't wise. By punching up the comedy a bit, we also avoid making the MC precotious by allowing them to fail. They're headstrong worldview almost becomes the joke.
His left eye twitched. This is the exact same thing you did before. Dynamics, just like music. Notes get higher, notes get lower. In either case, they should match the scene. Is he more annoyed? He should act more annoyed, and that means his eye shouldn't have been twitching before, or he has moved on to something more extreme now. . . . which would be extreme.
“I’ll have you know that I’m 28 years old,” he scoffed proudly, clearing his throat before continuing. “I’m your counselor, treat me with some respect.” Blunt and stupid dialgoue. You're just flat out telling us information in a wooden way. Continuing my parrellel writing suggestions: I was just getting out of school at 22. It has barely been six years. And here we have him capitalize on the MC's error. The teacher has won, he has shown is superiority in this battle of wits confirming what the audience thought themselves.
“You’re right. I should treat my elders with respect.” I bowed. “Thank you for your words of wisdom, dear elder.” Completely stilted, even for sarcasm. "Six whole years, huh?" I looked around the room. And bam. Punch line. It all comes together. While 28 IS young, wasting six years of your life hurts regardless. It's punchier, AND the scene now has a flow to it; there are dynamics. She's on top, he's on top and has won! Oh wait, the come from behind victory.
So this is in essence what I mean. More intention in every word, more thought. And these are all suggestions of course. You could come to different conclusions, different ways to shape the scenes, different points to be made. I thought of some while writing all of this (but I can only put so many thoughts on this page). I even had other little tips and tricks to flesh out a scene and how to fill that "reaction" space with somethig more engagin to the audience, but it doesn't really matter. Gotta focus on one thing at a time at some point.
VERY IMPORTANT: This is the level of intention that I'm looking for whenver possible. I know it's a big ask. You're reader isn't going to conciously be aware of this, but they will naturely benefit if the writing is that tight, that well thought out. HOWEVER, it is entirely possible that you had reasons for what you wrote. I'm not trying to coral you into writing a certain way. If you are happy with what you wrote? Great! BUT, at a minimum, you need to be prepared to answer this question about every single sentence you write: Why did you write it? and Why did you write it that way?
It seems extreme and even professional authors don't host a debate in their heads on every single word they write, but the professional standard is about 90%. A good writer can answer those two questions 9 out of 10 times.
RATING: Would not Keep ReadingHello there!
Could you please review my new book? I have attached the link below
World Reawakened: The Supernatural Uprising
Whispers of the Vanished, Legacy of Lost Realms In the year 3800, humanity's quest for space exploration led them beyond the confines of Earth to the far reaches of neighboring planets. But what they discovered among the stars was not merely the vast expanse of the cosmos. It was the...
Thankyou; your assistance is greatly appreciated.
CRITIQUE
You first swap tenses in Paragraph 2. That's annoying. It goes present to past tense, and it's split down the middle in a sentence. And it's not like you just switch tracks and stick with it. There are several tense errors throughout.
The biggest issue I have is the quality of the prose. It is very. . . young. It feels like someone's first attempt at writing in middle school. There are frequent moments of overt telling and not showing, but more than that the focus is off. Weird details pop up seemingly at random. There's almost logical gaps in why you describe things at certain points.
It's readable in the literal sense, but it's almost impossible to enjoy for the content the way it's written.
OVERALL
If you are in highschool or below, I would recommend on really hitting your basics for creative prose. Read a lot, and pay attention to how your favorite authors construct senteces, paragraphs, and chapters. Try and emulate them. Do literal excercises. It will work wonders.
If you are older than highschool. . . That's not possible is it?
Lot of pressure with this request. Let's ease into it. RATING: Would not Keep Reading.Hello! Please let me know what you think about it. I really want to know if I'm made to write stories or I'm just wasting my time. ( this statement is without self-pity involve XD ) Many thanks in advanceeeeee.
Hushed Paradise
Out of the blue, Yumi decided to break the tranquility and asked, 'Gani...do you think both of us will change?' 'What do you mean?' 'Do you think we will stay this close forever?' Gani glanced at the heavy-in-thought girl, 'Yumi, change is constant. We all change......
TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION
Wether you are made for something is entirely a question of enjoyment. Do you love writing? Do you enjoy writing? Congradulations, you were made for it. Write every day, be happy, publish what you write in case people like it.
Were you made to be a famous author? Nah. There's nothing here that remotely says prodigy. Could you be a professional author? Sure. We don't talk about it a lot, but even fiction writing can be broken down into very academic elements. If you want to work at it, study and learn and bleed yourself dry, you might get there. No gaurentee though, even talented authors don't always become rich and famous; hell, there are what i'd call prodigey's who are genius at the craft who never get recognized. I'm reading a book right now that sold less than five thousand copies and the writer is genuinley great. He got soo depressed about the sales though that he nearly drank himself to death.
CRITIQUE
Not a lot to say here. First off, clean up your damn formatting. The spacing is huge and I have to scroll for every other paragraph.
The prose is mostly acceptable. You have simply, easy to read sentences, but it does waiver, especially towards the end where not just the prose but the writing breaks down and I was unsure what was happening at times. But when it works, I think it works well for a web novel format.
Content wise, I think you could up the tempo considerably and you'd do with some more subtletly. Very little happens in the first half, and you fail to create any sense of drive or progress. Establish what your chapter is about early if you have to, set your audience's expectations, and then you can color in the lines, fill out the characters, maybe add some twists in there.
And like I said the subtly. It wasn't embarressing or anything (like it easily could have been) but I instantly understood what you meant when the story started, but you really hang onto the masturbation joke for a while. I'm sure there's a type of comedy where blunt and obvious works, but lets reel it in a little bit.
OVERALL
If you like to write, write and stop asking stupid questions. If you want to write well, keep writing but work at it.
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Twilightfall
New member
- Joined
- Sep 20, 2023
- Messages
- 5
- Points
- 3
Thankyou for your feedback! I will start working on basics
breakofdawnstories
New member
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- Oct 23, 2023
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- 15
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- 3
Oh my!
I didn't mean to pressure you and I'm sorry for causing you stress 
huhu. Honestly, what I love doing is not writing, it is story telling. 
I've been trying different forms/ways of storytelling and one of these forms/ways is writing. I wanted to know what works for me or what are the forms that I could work on with persistance and hard work. I really appreciate your honest and unfiltered critic because now (if I choose to stick with writing) I know what are the things I need to improve, I'm not a hopeless case in this new field and If I put my mind into this I could eventually be good at it. About the format. It's a frequent concern I got from the other reviewers. I got bad eyes hence the overly done spaces.
but I think I really need to fix it now.And about the chapter content or establishing the chapter, I honestly have zero Idea how to write a novel (this is my first attempt) and it shows. I almost burn up all my brain cells just to write a whole chapter.
Your tips will really help me. At least now I have pointers I need to consider while building my storyyyy! Thanks a looot! Many manyyy thanks!
TwoApes
New member
- Joined
- Oct 9, 2023
- Messages
- 11
- Points
- 3
With a little unease, since this is my ( or our - there are two people under this account ), I would like to ask for a quick glance at our work:
www.scribblehub.com
Parity
While on an archeological expedition, brigands accost Emkay and his employees with offers of 'protection'. Among them is someone who painfully reminds him of his past failures. It took over fifteen centuries for the world to recover from the cataclysm caused by the extinction of an ancient race...
TheTrinary
Hi, I'm Stephen
- Joined
- Nov 23, 2020
- Messages
- 981
- Points
- 133
RATING: Would not Keep Reading.
First off crap website. I can't copy and paste to give very specific advice here, so we'll just talk about things.
-Lots of strange phrasing and word choices.
-There's this split for me because you have a lot of what you need. . . in concept. Ragnar comes in and meets this lady with some obvious character traits, but she's kind of stupid and obnoxious, like its a kid's conception of an annoying receptionist. And then you know to cut and deliver some more character building or to include some exposition about the the world. But those actual sentences are not well thought out and lazy.
So in summary, you have a good flow. It's one of the harder things to achieve for tons of writers around here, but you seem to have a natural intuition about the way a story should progress and how to naturally layer in details. BUT the facts and sentences that you are showing to us are just kind of stupid. Punch up everything, replace the character beats you have with actual human observation, something clever that makes them feel real.
-On occasion, you have weird disruptions where you'll show over tell or provide weird, obtuse details that take us out of the immedaite story.
-I found the story potentially interesting. I do feel like we started at the beggening of the second act, but I can see this being fun going forward.
-In context, your descrpition of the girl character was a little strange and almost objectifying, because it was the only time you stopped to describe anything in any non-surface way. I don't know what our MC looks like, but we've got a large paragraph for her. It was a noticable change of pace which artifically shouted: She's the love interest. And I'll turn this into a backhanded compliment by saying that if the rest of the chapter was written with the same attention to detail, I think it would have been fine, albeit still shouting live interest.
OVERALL
This is a story that evokes no positive or negative feelings in me, whatsoever.
RATING: Back to Basics
The start represents fairly big failure to communicate, so let's just go through the reading experience of the first few paragraphs.
At 9 a.m., the entire slum stirred into reluctant wakefulness.
Resources were scarce in this desolate corner of the world, and to conserve what little energy they had, most residents chose to sleep away the daylight hours. I thought you had straight up contradicted yourself at first. Following broad statement on the sums waking up at 9.A.M, I assumed residents referred to the residents of the slum. Nestled on the outskirts of the protective shield's core, this remote hovel faced constant threats from stray starbeasts, with no other inhabitants in sight. Now I'm doubly confused because apparently this isn't even the slums if its remote. So we're reestablishing a different scene at the end of the second paragraph? And I have to assume that the residents are from here instead?
Nothing lines up, everything is confusing.
Paragraph 3 is a little weird to start with. It is a direct continuation of the final line of paragrah 2. It can't be understood without that information which means it might be read strangely, and it's certainly not how you should use paragraphs as a tool. Spartan is not capitalized when used as an adj. Only capitalize the Grecian state/group of people.
Pargraph 4. It was the smaller occupant who roused first, a tiny figure in a world marked by desolation. You started your story with people waking up, this is such a repetition of idea. AND you have cleary described the house as in desoloation, so what even is the point of the second half of this sentence. The child, a girl of approximately three or four years, possessed eyes that were astonishingly large and bright, hinting at her latent beauty. Why approximately? Also latently means hidden right now. Are you literally saying that the three year old would be beautiful. You can call a baby beautiful, but it gets a bit pedophillic when you say that about toddlers. Yet the scourge of chronic malnutrition had left her emaciated, her outstretched hands incapable of encountering the softness of childhood, only revealing the stark prominence of bones. Two or three issues here. You are very clearly saying that she would have been beautiful, which means that you used the word latent wrong and you're kind of sexualizing a three year old. Second, "softness of childhood" is just kind of stupid. I intuitively understand the intent, but childhood is pretty relative. Some children work in factories, other children grow up destitute without food. Given that's what's going on here, it seems strange to automatically call chilhood soft when what you are demonstrating is the opposite. Finally, "stark prominence of bones" is a good descriptor if used properly, but you're describing hands. Unless you're fat, all hands are is a stark prominence of bone. You'd use that for a rib cage description, not hands.
I was about to start, but I looked forward just to see if the narrative would start happening and I immeadiately saw this sentence: Her complexion was a darkened shadow, the original hue obscured by the harshness of her existence. Once again, I can intuitively undrestand the intent, but listen here: You just carefully explained to use how she lives in a house that is barred from sunlight and she can't go outside, how is her skin darker than normal. She should be pale as she possibly could be. Unless you're just talking about dirt? But that fails because no one is so dirty that you can't see them being a sikly pale color underneath.
OVERALL
The sentences are grammatical and coherent in their own right, yet this reprsents one of the more impressive failures in coherence that I've seen, relative to the language being used. There's waaayyy worse stuff out there, but they don't use phrases like prominence of bone. This does use individual phrases that take real effort and thought, yet the work as a whole seems to be lacking in the thought department.
I know this is going to read harsh. Keep in mind this didn't make me mad or anything, there's just so much to critique from an editing perspective.
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