Free First Chapter Feedback (V2)

[TheTrinary]

Hi! I would love some feedback if you're still offering. Here's the first chapter.

RATING: Would not Keep Reading

THE GOOD

Decent character voice. And it's written decently for a web novel, and by decently I mean short easy to understand sentences. You could read this for enjoyment.

NEEDS WORK

There's some general confusion on scene construction. It all makes sense when I read it back, but I struggled a bit on the first go several times. Take the start, you put into your audience's head that she's falling and going to die. But then there's this animal that she's on top of. We can't see it properly, it's unclear how she fell and didn't hurt herself. She apparently can't see what it looks like. You're missing key details like how big it is until she rolls off of it and hurts herself from falling(?). You run into these issues where it can't be understood linearly. If we had more present sense impressions, like how big the horns are and a thought about her trying to see the whole thing but commenting on it being so big, then it would be an easier read.

Structurally it's a bit odd. It feels like a story that starts in the middle and she's even refrencing things that just happened, but didn't in the literal text. Talking about thugs or whatever. I guess you're trying to be clever, but it's confusing. I backed out and tried to see if there was a prologue that had critical details and was shocked to find that there wasn't. I think you're too reliant on your audience implicitily understanding this "type" of story without doing the leg work to craft a scene.

OVERALL

Fine. Bit confusing and lacking necessary details.

Hello i am already fix the mistake you point out earlier,care to give me some feedback again Here the chapter

Replied to your message.

Hi, I'm new to the site and I was wondering if i can get feedback on the first chapter of My Webnovel

RATING: Would not Keep Reading

You have some tense issues right away in the first paragraph. And this is pretty consistent going forward with you flip flopping between past and present tenses seemingly at random. I think part of the issue is that it's a character in the present narrating things about the past, but then things int he past are sometimes in current tense, and some things in the current are in past tense. Bit of a mess.

And then when the story starts it's all in present tense? But then a couple of the past tenses are wrong or skewed in some way. Frankly, if the author can't put in the work to get the most basic aspect of writing (tense) correct, I'm not putting in the work to get past the first page.

as it’s a phenomenon to defy its typicality. This is just nonsense.

OVERALL

Start with fixing your tenses.

 

[daight]

I am ready for you to tear me a new one. This is the first novel I wrote, its genre is dark fantasy.
English isn't my first language, and I'm terrible at it.
Tried using Grammarly and other spelling-checking apps to fix the grammars and whatnot.

https://www.scribblehub.com/series/1059845/esmeria/

 

[NotAUniquename4502]

My chapter - first novel i'm seriously writing, looking for feedback to understand where as an aspiring author i could do better

 

[AutumnBanks]

RATING: Would not Keep Reading

THE GOOD

Decent character voice. And it's written decently for a web novel, and by decently I mean short easy to understand sentences. You could read this for enjoyment.

NEEDS WORK

There's some general confusion on scene construction. It all makes sense when I read it back, but I struggled a bit on the first go several times. Take the start, you put into your audience's head that she's falling and going to die. But then there's this animal that she's on top of. We can't see it properly, it's unclear how she fell and didn't hurt herself. She apparently can't see what it looks like. You're missing key details like how big it is until she rolls off of it and hurts herself from falling(?). You run into these issues where it can't be understood linearly. If we had more present sense impressions, like how big the horns are and a thought about her trying to see the whole thing but commenting on it being so big, then it would be an easier read.

Structurally it's a bit odd. It feels like a story that starts in the middle and she's even refrencing things that just happened, but didn't in the literal text. Talking about thugs or whatever. I guess you're trying to be clever, but it's confusing. I backed out and tried to see if there was a prologue that had critical details and was shocked to find that there wasn't. I think you're too reliant on your audience implicitily understanding this "type" of story without doing the leg work to craft a scene.

OVERALL

Fine. Bit confusing and lacking necessary details.

Replied to your message.


RATING: Would not Keep Reading

You have some tense issues right away in the first paragraph. And this is pretty consistent going forward with you flip flopping between past and present tenses seemingly at random. I think part of the issue is that it's a character in the present narrating things about the past, but then things int he past are sometimes in current tense, and some things in the current are in past tense. Bit of a mess.

And then when the story starts it's all in present tense? But then a couple of the past tenses are wrong or skewed in some way. Frankly, if the author can't put in the work to get the most basic aspect of writing (tense) correct, I'm not putting in the work to get past the first page.

as it’s a phenomenon to defy its typicality. This is just nonsense.

OVERALL

Start with fixing your tenses.

Thanks so much for the feedback! I appreciate it.

 

[den_forestt]

Here is my first chapter of a new story I’m writing! Thanks in advance for the feedback!
The Winter We Lost: A Sci-Fi AI Story

 

[supremechadd]

Hi there, it would be nice to get feedback on my first chapter: Descendant of The Dual Cultivation Progenitor

 

[miyoga]

Here's the prologue to my first short story. Posted it a year ago, and am still satisfied with how I wrote it. Mostly, as I'm tossing around ideas for a 3rd short with the potential of leading to a long-form novel, I'm looking for areas to improve in general terms. As a head's up, it's full of memes and pop culture references that date from the present back to the 1980s-ish, so have fun with that.

If you enjoy it, the whole thing is under 4000 words so feel free to see it through to the end (again, with tons of jokes and references throughout...think of all the easter egg references from movies like "Ready player one" and then have Deadpool narrate the entire thing). (PS. now that I've said that, you'll definitely be reading it in Ryan Reynold's voice and it will be glorious.)

 

[Loewenmensch]

Here's the first chapter of my current project.

I feel like my worldbuilding is really generic—though the later chapters might improve on that a little. Interested to see what you think.

 

[BAM_Works]

RATING: Would not Keep Reading

THE GOOD

Decent character voice. And it's written decently for a web novel, and by decently I mean short easy to understand sentences. You could read this for enjoyment.

NEEDS WORK

There's some general confusion on scene construction. It all makes sense when I read it back, but I struggled a bit on the first go several times. Take the start, you put into your audience's head that she's falling and going to die. But then there's this animal that she's on top of. We can't see it properly, it's unclear how she fell and didn't hurt herself. She apparently can't see what it looks like. You're missing key details like how big it is until she rolls off of it and hurts herself from falling(?). You run into these issues where it can't be understood linearly. If we had more present sense impressions, like how big the horns are and a thought about her trying to see the whole thing but commenting on it being so big, then it would be an easier read.

Structurally it's a bit odd. It feels like a story that starts in the middle and she's even refrencing things that just happened, but didn't in the literal text. Talking about thugs or whatever. I guess you're trying to be clever, but it's confusing. I backed out and tried to see if there was a prologue that had critical details and was shocked to find that there wasn't. I think you're too reliant on your audience implicitily understanding this "type" of story without doing the leg work to craft a scene.

OVERALL

Fine. Bit confusing and lacking necessary details.

Replied to your message.


RATING: Would not Keep Reading

You have some tense issues right away in the first paragraph. And this is pretty consistent going forward with you flip flopping between past and present tenses seemingly at random. I think part of the issue is that it's a character in the present narrating things about the past, but then things int he past are sometimes in current tense, and some things in the current are in past tense. Bit of a mess.

And then when the story starts it's all in present tense? But then a couple of the past tenses are wrong or skewed in some way. Frankly, if the author can't put in the work to get the most basic aspect of writing (tense) correct, I'm not putting in the work to get past the first page.

as it’s a phenomenon to defy its typicality. This is just nonsense.

OVERALL

Start with fixing your tenses.

Thank you so much for the feedback! I have rewritten it almost entirely, making it more in line with my current writing style. This is a relatively older project, so i didn't look at it as thoroughly as I should have. I'd like you to reread it if possible, but I can understand if you don't want too. Thanks again

 

[TheTrinary]

I am ready for you to tear me a new one. This is the first novel I wrote, its genre is dark fantasy.
English isn't my first language, and I'm terrible at it.
Tried using Grammarly and other spelling-checking apps to fix the grammars and whatnot.

https://www.scribblehub.com/series/1059845/esmeria/

RATING: Would not Keep Reading.

As someone who speaks two langauges and is learning a third, the last thing I want to do is tear you a new one. But yes, the grammatical issues are apparent so let's just go through them:

in the continent of Azevaria. On the continent

It is not that Gregory wanted to live alone, Right away, tense issues. First paragraph was past tense. This is present. ALSO, the first paragraph had him living with his daughter so why are you saying that he is alone? but that he has an obnoxious personality, hard to say what's wrong here without knowing the intention of the first phrase, doesn't work though. and being a heavy drinker himself, made it worse. Reads way better without the comma and 'himself'.

Regina quickly moved to the storage where she placed all the beers, to get a few bottles and placed them on Gregory's table. To get a few bottles and place them. The way verb phrases work is that they have to stay in the same tense. You are effectively saying to get a few bottles AND to place them. You are then taking these two seperate sentences and then combinng them. Get in the infinitive, then place is in the infinitive.

OVERALL

It's hard work. Keep at it if you enjoy it.

My chapter - first novel i'm seriously writing, looking for feedback to understand where as an aspiring author i could do better

I was ready to go to sleep but knew this was outstanding. RATING: Middle of the Road so Would not Keep Reading

THE GOOD

You have some good writing here. Not all of it is good, but some paragraphs like your first hit. Likewise, I think you have a keen attention to detail. Lots of thought put in to what you're crafting here. As a skill, it's something that I like to see in a work.

CRTIQUE

I guess I don't talk about the ratings I give, but Middle of the Road normally means I liked a decent chunk of it but wasn't engaged enough to read all the way through.

It is long, but taking a step back, I think you have some fundamental issues that I got hung up on:

When you start by creating a scene, we need to know the who, what, and why as soon as possible (the where and when can be somewhat more negotiable and sprinkled down the line). Here, it's a bit in the inverse. We know there is some need for a rush, but we don't know who this character is outside of his job title and we don't know what he's doing. This also means that we don't have the ability to understand him as a person because there is no room to show his relationship to his actions; we don't understand his actions.

So when I said that you have good details, I really did mean it. It's just that without a solid foundation to hang those details on, they become meaningless. The building isn't a character. However much you punch up the location with the deep lore, my enjoyment is capped by my engagement.

What does the wizard want? What happens if he doesn't get what he wants? What is impeding his ability to accomplish this goal. And within that frame work we can explore his character. And then on top of that, you can add all your world building.

OVERALL

Give me some of that humanity, brother man.

 

[daight]

OVERALL

It's hard work. Keep at it if you enjoy it.

Wow I didn't know there's still so much error after using Grammarly and grammar checker! Thank you for showing me how a human proofreader can do so much more than mere AI tools. Really appreciate it.

 

[PalatineWritter]

Hear ye, hear ye. The old thread is dead, long live this thread. (It can be found here)

After two years+, I am unable to edit the very first post and update my "Best of List" shoutout, so I have created a new thread.

The Rules are the same. Submit a link to your first chapter (or prologue) and I will give you a critique as well as a rating. There are no requirements and I will read anything. If I miss your story, it was by accident- just send me a message.

THE V2 BEST OF LIST

1. Caninstinct https://www.scribblehub.com/series/62445/caninstinct/
2. Ange'ls Dirge https://www.scribblehub.com/series/229892/angels-dirge/
3. Queensmen https://www.scribblehub.com/series/163971/queensmen/
4. Hive https://www.scribblehub.com/series/334266/hive/
5. A Meeting of the Ways https://www.scribblehub.com/series/700231/a-meeting-of-the-ways/

Be Sure to Check out my Other Thread for my Youtube Channel
https://forum.scribblehub.com/threads/looking-for-things-to-review.6228/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUJHTBWLa93g8k9SAXCgSzw

Congrats on your second thread! Please review my series, I really would like am opinion. https://www.scribblehub.com/series/1074277/litrpg-world/

 

[harrydouthwaite]

Hey! I really did appreciate your honest and helpful feedback on my first story a couple of months ago. I've just started a sequel and now have a completed first chapter. I'd be most grateful for your insight, suggestions or general feedback on any improvement I could do to it.

https://www.scribblehub.com/read/1083781-sixes-and-sevens/chapter/1083783/

 

[namangoel]

Hey i am new on this site, i hope you can review the first chapter, the link is below

https://www.scribblehub.com/series/932868/shadow-world-i-realm-of-magic/

 

[Gnosis]

I love this thread! Please, give my humble first chapter a review.

https://www.scribblehub.com/read/1090767-behemoth-bookworm-keeps-growing-stronger/chapter/1090769/