Might I trouble you with another story?
Hellbound technically not the first written but the first one release under its own banner and where I want to start it. (It started in my anthology collection and likely will move one of them to this banner later).
This one is the opposite of the first and its a no for me.
There's a certain sense of fun and excitement there, but your narrative writing is much weaker than the simple back and forth you had in the first story. You'll gloss over important things with your characters opinion: e.g., "She didn't seem to buy it." Why? What happened that we didn't get to see that allowed your character to draw that conclusion? And that's pretty much my issue with the writing in general. It's so matter of fact. You aren't describing things happening, you're just telling us they happen.
Another example from the start: The MC shoots water jets from the river. Instead of saying that verbatim, describe it. "I raised a hand and the water churned, rose to form giant frothy spears. With a toss of my hand, I threw them at the necromancer who momentarily disappeared in the deluge."
The cover needs help, but first impressions would be lovely if you're willing.
https://www.scribblehub.com/series/269267/magic-in-the-family/
Just the cover?
It looks fine? Clean lines. Nice art. Mermaid. It's a little bland and doesn't tell me anything other than mermaid but its fine.
Hello...
I want to know whether my story is passable by your standard.
Can you check my story?
https://www.scribblehub.com/series/62548/magical-cosmic/
So this is a no from me.
I talked about it previously on this page, but you also do the "how did I get here?" 80's opening. But in your case you fail to communicate the issue. I know
something bad is going on, but I haven't the foggiest clue as to what.
Generally speaking, the prose has two problems. Tense issues, blunt explanation, and more uniquely in your case, dissociation and passive voice with the narrator. Look at your opening paragraph. "The sound of gritting teeth couldn't be ignored. . . ." Those are his teeth; he's doing it. "I couldn't stop gritting my teeth as red exclamation marks flooded the screen."
In terms of character and story, nothing to hook me either. Like I mentioned before, everything with the character is extremely blunt. It's like a grocery list. Here's how they look. Here's what they want. Where's the emotion? Where's the natural train of thought that gets us to these ideas an makes them feel real.
Story-wise there is no hook. I always advocate for a hook in the first chapter, but you can wait if what's before it is engaging on its own. I want to find aliens isn't really a hook. "Holy crap I just found aliens" is a hook. And maybe that's what will happen, but you need to really punch it up if we're going to wait and find out about it.
On the plus side, I actually quite liked the bit about the Dyson Sphere. It was only a paragraph but it was interesting and clever.
Hmm... this is a golden opportunity to improve myself, so why not?
Here's mind:
Leighton Grenville was only strolling around with his best friend on Saturday morning when suddenly, he was transported to another world for mysterious reasons As he arrived at the Otherworld, The System had informed him that a total of 13 people from Earth got transported to the Otherworld as...
www.scribblehub.com
Thanks in advance for your time.
Edit:
Oh by the way, the first chapter is like a prologue or an introduction, but it's necessary. Chapter 2 is basically the starting point of the story, which I think had lesser impact than the first.
It's a day full of no's.
So overall, I think it's pretty middle of the road. Despite what you disclaimed, its structurally a fine start to your story.
Positive: the magic system seems neat and you provide some rigid rules. It's a little expository but in this context its fine. With all the other colors, it gives the reader time to stretch their own imagination and imagine the possibilities. I like that.
Negatives: Weak narrative voice. It's very shopping list-y. You'll just give us asides to explain whole swaths of information that really should come up organically. The Mc is built up and well defined, but I wish it was introduced organically, and that it wasn't so stiff. Like, add a little more depth there. Little more connective tissue too. Normally there's something happens that gets us to the other world. Normally death, but that's whatever. If you ultimately have some grand scheme, it doesn't even have to be the literal thing. Maybe its computer based since that's his thing and he thinks he did something that caused it. Whatever. Things can't just happen.
Also I noticed that you never set the scene. It's just two people talking. And then later you have a single sentence about him sitting back against the wall of his house. And I was genuinely confused because that's not where I thought he was. And going back and reading, you don't establish anything in the way of setting.
