Hello I am a newbie author I just want to know if you can help me fixing my novel

[Enchant]

well I brandnew to creating a novel and I have already made a single novel but I am just concern because I think I have many error creating it and I want to know your advice this is my novel pls check it and can you give me advice to improve it.
1st novel ;https://www.scribblehub.com/series/...sper-so-i-created-an-evil-organization/stats/

 

[Traineye]

Hi lol, btw now I made some interactive novel if you’re interested you can take a look at it. I mean you already got my feedback

 

[Jemini]

Having not read the story, and not enough time to tackle every odd case where someone requests help, I can give the general "one-size-fits-all" advice that will usually work for all writers.

1. Write a 2nd draft. This is a concept that has become a little strange due to web-novels, because most people are actually publishing their first draft and the fact that it's already out there makes it a little harder to move on to a 2nd draft. However, before the age of web-novels, anyone trying to get a published work out would actually scrap the entirety of their 1st draft and then move on to write THE ENTIRE THING from start to finish over again based on insights they have gained from the first run-through of writing the story.

The 2nd draft will always be better than the 1st, and the 3rd better than the 2nd. It usually isn't until you are going for your 4th draft that advice from outside sources is actually REQUIRED in order to go on with your next modification to the story. It is usually possible for an author to have some powerful insights to improve the work by leaps and bounds over the course of the first 3 drafts.

2. Read the best works of other authors who write in the same genre as you. Preferably even those who write similar themes.

3. If you are writing fantasy or anything supernatural, study the classics. And by classics, I mean Celtic and Scandanavian mythology at the newest, and ranging all the way back to Babylonian mythology. And, the only reason I am stopping at Babylonian mythology is because it's the oldest recorded history on the planet.



Overall, until you hit your 3rd draft, about the only reason you would ever need an outside source telling you what to do is if English (or whatever language you are writing in) is not your 1st language. If that's the case, you might want to ask for some linguistic corrections. Otherwise, while a 2nd draft based upon outside advice will be marginally better than a 2nd draft without advice, both will have a colossal improvement over the 1st draft either way. The enormous size of the improvement is so large that it will make the marginal improvement you got from whatever outside help you had not even noticeable.

So, yeah. Really, it's not even worth bothering someone with it until you are on at least your 3rd draft. The point at which your own ability to improve the work with re-writes becomes less pronounced and you start to actually require outside help to even see the problems in the story.


(I will also note. Editing your work for grammar and re-wording a few sections to make more sense, or even adding small scenes here and there, is called polish. It is not a new draft unless you scrap and re-write the work from the beginning, and massively re-arrange sections of the plot, either adding or removing portions of exposition, moving an event around in the story, or giving the character something they didn't have in the earlier draft that will play a role later in the plot. (Or, conversely, taking away an item that either broke the story in the previous draft or just never saw much use and thus brought in the question of why it was even there.) THAT is what a new draft of a story is.)

 

[ArcadiaBlade]

If your a new writer, I have some tips from my experiences as a newbie like yours.

Firstly, do not bother with grammar or anything like that and try your best to at least make your novel a bit understandable for the most part. Spelling correction or phrasing can be fixed at a later time but if you want to convey your thoughts, be more creative and do not try to restrict yourself. Thats most authors struggle when they write their first novel.

Second, always try to be free and not restrict what is already made or be freaked out due to copying something else novel even if they are the same. All authors have already started copy pasting each other but what you write would slowly become more unique as time goes on. So be free to what you want to write and not roadblock yourself due to restrictions.

Third and lastly, do not word count and write as long or short as you can. Your summary can be edited, you can rewrite your chapters. Hell, I would even try to rewrite a new novel if my old one is that bad but never try to restrict yourself in word counting your novel to fit in with the other authors. Some can write long as they have planned it out, some write it short because they are lazy or not good at it but thats how writing can be. You are not trying to be a professional, you are certainly not famous and just started out but one thing all new authors have is their creativity and how they want to proceed their novels to the best they can, thats what makes each authors unique before more diverse can be seen on how they write and as such.

So, just show that your just a newbie and try to write the novel as best you can and you'll slowly enjoy the benefits on how the old authors push you to your own role in this site.

 

[KiraMinoru]

Forget about drafts. Just write and write until you can write no more. Only when you’re stuck, burnt out, and spent of all your creative juices should you go back and care for something like a second draft or editing/proofreading when you have nothing better to spend your time doing. The biggest mistake is switching between the two tasks as doing so greatly hinders and obstructs the mindset you have when writing as editing/proofreading/revising takes a completely different sort of mindset. If you’re stuck in that sort of mindset when you’re trying to progress the story further, you will be bogged down and get nowhere.

 

[Jemini]

Forget about drafts. Just write and write until you can write no more. Only when you’re stuck, burnt out, and spent of all your creative juices should you go back and care for something like a second draft or editing/proofreading when you have nothing better to spend your time doing. The biggest mistake is switching between the two tasks as doing so greatly hinders and obstructs the mindset you have when writing as editing/proofreading/revising takes a completely different sort of mindset. If you’re stuck in that sort of mindset when you’re trying to progress the story further, you will be bogged down and get nowhere.

While it's definitely true that 10K words into the story might be a little early to start thinking about a second draft, and you have more material to work with in your second draft the farther into the story you get, I would most certainly not say that you should just keep writing on with a failing project until you have "spent all of your creative juices." That's just a way to burn yourself out with the thankless and doomed task of writing a failing story.

You should make note as you are writing of all the points that you need to clean up in the earlier chapters, and I would say the point at which you should start on your 2nd draft is as soon as you are beginning to get the inkling that you are writing yourself into a corner and/or you NEED those earlier points changed in order to tell the story you want. Don't burn yourself out.

 

[KrisVFX]

well I brandnew to creating a novel and I have already made a single novel but I am just concern because I think I have many error creating it and I want to know your advice this is my novel pls check it and can you give me advice to improve it.
1st novel ;https://www.scribblehub.com/series/...sper-so-i-created-an-evil-organization/stats/

I haven't read your novel but you should consider putting a cover if you want more views...

 

[KiraMinoru]

While it's definitely true that 10K words into the story might be a little early to start thinking about a second draft, and you have more material to work with in your second draft the farther into the story you get, I would most certainly not say that you should just keep writing on with a failing project until you have "spent all of your creative juices." That's just a way to burn yourself out with the thankless and doomed task of writing a failing story.

You should make note as you are writing of all the points that you need to clean up in the earlier chapters, and I would say the point at which you should start on your 2nd draft is as soon as you are beginning to get the inkling that you are writing yourself into a corner and/or you NEED those earlier points changed in order to tell the story you want. Don't burn yourself out.

Going back to revise, readers quite literally give zero shits about, it’s only authors who give a crap about that stuff. The best way to kill your ability to keep writing is to continually switch between revising and progressing the story. Finish the damn story first before you worry about revising it otherwise you’ll never finish the damn thing. So what if it’s flawed? Flaws are actually much better for the growth of a story. Why? Because readers will go and point out those flaws which thus leads to engagement with your story. If the reader has nothing to point out or complain about, you’re not going to get that engagement with your story. When you’re just starting as an author and have no reader base, any sort of engagement is critical.

A failing project is only a failing project if you don’t understand your demographic. You could have the best story in the world, but if you present it to the wrong demographic it’s just going to be treated like a turd that nobody looks at.

 

[Lloyd]

Use grammarly.

 

[Jemini]

Going back to revise, readers quite literally give zero shits about, it’s only authors who give a crap about that stuff. The best way to kill your ability to keep writing is to continually switch between revising and progressing the story. Finish the damn story first before you worry about revising it otherwise you’ll never finish the damn thing. So what if it’s flawed? Flaws are actually much better for the growth of a story. Why? Because readers will go and point out those flaws which thus leads to engagement with your story. If the reader has nothing to point out or complain about, you’re not going to get that engagement with your story. When you’re just starting as an author and have no reader base, any sort of engagement is critical.

A failing project is only a failing project if you don’t understand your demographic. You could have the best story in the world, but if you present it to the wrong demographic it’s just going to be treated like a turd that nobody looks at.

You might want to re-read the comment I made. I specified 2 specific scenarios in which you need to re-write.

1. You are writing yourself into a corner. In other words, your story is about to die a natural death anyway.

2. You are in a position where you need an earlier point in the story completely changed in order to continue the story in the way you want. In other words, without a re-write, you are going to have to completely derail your story and jump the shark in order to keep writing without a re-write.

The two scenarios I laid out are scenarios that are going to kill your story if you tried to keep writing. So, your insistence on "just keep writing regardless of flaws" is a really short-sighted way to think about things.

Just look around right here on this site. Off hand, I would say around 90% of the stories on this site are unfinished and abandoned. Perhaps the writers might have kept going with a new version of the story if they'd had this advice back then. I'm willing to bet a pretty large minority among them stopped because they'd run into one of the 2 scenarios I specified above, and just didn't know how to continue their story and simply never considered the idea of re-writing their story.

I will challenge you on this one. I have 2 stories. "Second Life as the Sister of a Goddess," and "Key to the Void." The second of those 2 titles is a re-write of the first one. Try checking out what was happening in Sister of a Goddess, and then tell me how that thing had a viable future. Then, read Key to the Void and tell me it isn't a HUGE freaking improvement that solved most of the crippling problems that Sister of a Goddess had.

 

[KiraMinoru]

You might want to re-read the comment I made. I specified 2 specific scenarios in which you need to re-write.

1. You are writing yourself into a corner. In other words, your story is about to die a natural death anyway.

2. You are in a position where you need an earlier point in the story completely changed in order to continue the story in the way you want. In other words, without a re-write, you are going to have to completely derail your story and jump the shark in order to keep writing without a re-write.

The two scenarios I laid out are scenarios that are going to kill your story if you tried to keep writing. So, your insistence on "just keep writing regardless of flaws" is a really short-sighted way to think about things.

Just look around right here on this site. Off hand, I would say around 90% of the stories on this site are unfinished and abandoned. Perhaps the writers might have kept going with a new version of the story if they'd had this advice back then. I'm willing to bet a pretty large minority among them stopped because they'd run into one of the 2 scenarios I specified above, and just didn't know how to continue their story and simply never considered the idea of re-writing their story.

I will challenge you on this one. I have 2 stories. "Second Life as the Sister of a Goddess," and "Key to the Void." The second of those 2 titles is a re-write of the first one. Try checking out what was happening in Sister of a Goddess, and then tell me how that thing had a viable future. Then, read Key to the Void and tell me it isn't a HUGE freaking improvement that solved most of the crippling problems that Sister of a Goddess had.

I can say with certainty rather than running out of ideas being the direct cause of what kills most series for new writers, more often than not it’s rewriting and editing hell along with overthinking things that kills them off. Your advice might be more appropriate for someone who isn’t a new author just starting out.

You typically run out of ideas because you end up in a perpetual cycle of rewriting and editing, you end up doubting your own story because of all the technical crap and it begins to eat away at you and your confidence in your story, this in turn kills your drive to keep writing the story and halts all your progress.

Rewriting, editing, and proofreading are literally the most tedious and boring parts of the writing process for new writers which ends up killing their motivation. It’s all fun and games until you think you’ve reached the point where you feel you are obligated to do these things.

When you write too far into the story and you come back to edit one part, going back to continue writing from where you left off afterward typically ends up being exponentially harder than if you kept going from that point and left the rewrite for after the story is complete.

Don’t think too hard and overcomplicate things, just write when you feel like it, and when you don’t feel like it, stop and do something else you enjoy to rekindle your inspiration until you inevitably finish the story. If you no longer find enjoyment in writing that series, move on, don’t beat yourself up over it, and don’t force yourself. A lot of the time, the vast majority of web novel readers don’t care at all about whatever rewrite you think is better anyway.

This is just the nature of writing web novels, it’s not meant to be something professional. If people wanted something professional that has been revised to perfection, they’d read an actual published book, they wouldn’t be looking for junk food to read on scribblehub.

 

[Aouliuo]

Mhm. If I may add my take to the mix, none of this advice seems like something the OP could implement right now. Rather than fixing everything or continuing full throttle, I think they just simply don't know what they're doing. It's true that there are, objectively, no rules in writing, but you have to learn the rules before you can break them meaningfully.

The OP is at a stage where everything seems wrong, likely is in one form or another, and doesn't know what to do to fix it, from the little I saw upon taking a glance or two.

In other words, they don't know how or what to revise.

Continuing full throttle may be more in the vein of their needs, but I wouldn't recommend purely doing this either.

You need a combination of sorts: information, experience, and eventually, revision. Information can come in the form of all those writing seminars, how-to and not-to (arguably more important) from published authors, and grammatical structure from youtube alone. But a pure technical knowledge of language and how to form it isn't enough; it needs to be workable. That's where experience and actually writing comes in. No one can help with this but you can use the knowledge you gained as a jump off point to ease your way through the brambles.

If and once you've gotten the hang of navigating through them, even if not total mastery, that's where revision comes into play.

It will never be perfect because the brambles will always find a way to scratch you, but you'll be considerably less bloody.

@Enchant ->

TL;DR: Watch Jenna Moreci, Merphy Napier (see: Dear Authors playlist), and grammar videos in general. I find this one to be particularly helpful for grammar in fiction: Grammar Overview. Install Grammarly. From there, write. At a certain point, revise. Read a lot in between; learning is always better in context. You will get better, even if none of us become Hemmingways.

 

[Jemini]

I can say with certainty rather than running out of ideas being the direct cause of what kills most series for new writers, more often than not it’s rewriting and editing hell along with overthinking things that kills them off. Your advice might be more appropriate for someone who isn’t a new author just starting out.

I did not say "running out of ideas." I said "writing yourself into a corner." That is very different, and something that can happen very easily while you still have plenty of ideas. It can also happen almost anywhere in your writing process. And, your story will die quickly if you manage to write yourself into a corner, ongoing ideas or not.

Writing yourself into a corner refers to a situation where you have set up conditions where the only way to get your character out of the situation they are in is some kind of story-breaking deuse-ex-machina type ass-pull of a solution, something that would completely break the story. In other words, no proper in-lore solution exists for what the author put the character into. Making the protagonist too powerful to have them presented with a reasonable and engaging challenge is another form of writing them into a corner, as can setting up social situations that are too difficult to create a properly satisfying and plot-relevant outcome for.

There are several ways to write yourself into a corner, and if the story is going for the long-haul it can often be the case that the threads slowly tighten around you from a very early point in the story due to an earlier poorly conceived idea. This is a prime reason for a re-write being necessary, in order to fix something that would need dozens of chapters scrubbed from existence in order to solve for. Again, I speak from experience on this one. Look at "Sister of a Goddess" and "Key to the Void."

And if you are saying the re-writing process is what kills an author's ability to write, then it's only because they are not prepared for it or in the right mind-set. I am talking about conditions where continuing means the death of their story. Why are you not understanding that?

Again, over 90% of the stories on this site are dead. Meanwhile, less than 1% of the stories on this site are re-writes of previously existing stories by the same author. I think simple numbers sinks your theory.

As for edits, that's easy. Simply keep a schedule of editing 2 back chapters for each 1 chapter you write. I've been keeping that schedule myself for a while now.

You are essentially asking all writers to suck and not care that they suck. From where I'm sitting, it looks like you are making excuses for yourself here. In terms of what the OP is looking for, they are asking to improve their work. That would mean "continue writing and don't worry about the things you've already messed up on" is exactly the opposite of what they are looking for.

--------------

Anyway, @Enchant now, perhaps I should clarify my earlier suggestion on the matter of re-writes. One thing @KiraMinoru doesn't seem to really realize is that, what I'm REALLY saying here, is that you should consider whatever you are writing now as your trial run. In other words, yes, on the subject of what he's saying, it really is Ok to suck. The reason why it's Ok to suck is because the very best thing you can do with what you're writing now is to consider it a trial-run.

Use what you're writing now to polish up your skills, get down the basic ideas for what you want to write, and make note of all the places things go wrong. Don't even worry if anything makes sense. In fact, let loose and really have fun with things right now. Just explore and try every idea you can possibly think of, because all of this is just a trial run where you throw all your ideas out there and get a feel for what you're really trying to write.

Keep going until you finally have a very firm picture in your mind of what you want this story to look like. Once you finally have it figured out, that's when it's time to re-write it and solve for all those issues you were bothered about in your first run.

In other words, I would characterize @KiraMinoru's advice as "don't worry about sucking, the readers will eat up anything you throw at them anyway, not worth even trying." My advice is "it's Ok to suck, everyone sucks when they try for the first time. If you want to make a truly great work, keep going until you are ready to try again. There's always time for a re-do. So, with the re-do option available, stop worrying and, for the remainder of this attempt at least, feel free to suck even more."

That in mind, I have a rather peculiar motivational work to recommend that I came across.

Master of the Loop | Royal Road

Life in a fantastical world didn’t add up to everything Sylas thought it would be. There were no pretty ladies goading him, there were no overpowered items and abilities tossed his way, and there was no calm and peace. Instead, he was tossed directly into a hellhole some few hours before it was...

www.royalroad.com

It's a time-loop story. And, the reason I'm recommending it is because the lackadazical attitude the protagonist eventually starts taking for life is exactly the same mind-set that will serve an author the best in regards to whatever they are currently writing. This approach of "I can always do it over" is paramount to becoming a top-tier writer. Another key feature that he has that's also paramount is his approach of "if something's going wrong, I should gather as much information as I possibly can about why it's wrong. That way, I can do better the next time around."

So, yeah. The MC's attitude in this series can be applied SO WELL toward writing that I would definitely recommend.

 

[binarysoap]

I like how the vast majority of the commenters here haven't even read the goddamn story, and are arguing amongst each other.
Even more hilarious is when they want to prove their point by telling them to read their two stories when neither have even looked at OP's story

Anyways, at least you are self aware on this front, but your grammar is bad. It seems like Traineye pointed out quite a bit of the grammar stuff in the comments, which is a good starting point.
There might be more things to complain about, like your really short chapters (107 words for a first chapter is a bit... short), your dialogue in the format of (name)"quote", the description of your characters being sort of ham-fisted in the middle of a scene, but the grammar is probably the most important thing that you could work on.
Yes, ignore the advice of those people that didn't even read your story. Writing more drafts might help somewhat, but if you don't address the core problem of your story reads worse than MTL, most people won't even give your story a chance regardless of how good your ideas are.
Besides having people fix your grammar for you, you can use grammarly, like someone suggested, or you can polish your English skills.
Going with the bold assumption that English is not your first language, you can even write your story in your native language first and go from there. Maybe you can do that and use MTL to translate it to English. It might end up being more readable /j

I might seem a bit harsh, but you are on the right track. Keep asking for feedback, apply them, and most importantly, never stop writing.

 

[ElijahRyne]

well I brandnew to creating a novel and I have already made a single novel but I am just concern because I think I have many error creating it and I want to know your advice this is my novel pls check it and can you give me advice to improve it.
1st novel ;https://www.scribblehub.com/series/...sper-so-i-created-an-evil-organization/stats/

Listen to a reading of it, be that text to speech or yourself, and fix obvious mistakes.

 

[KoyukiMegumi]

Listen to a reading of it, be that text to speech or yourself, and fix obvious mistakes.

Always use a read aloud. To yourself, the chances of your brain tricking you are high.

 

[K5Rakitan]

 

[Enchant]

I like how the vast majority of the commenters here haven't even read the goddamn story, and are arguing amongst each other.
Even more hilarious is when they want to prove their point by telling them to read their two stories when neither have even looked at OP's story

Anyways, at least you are self aware on this front, but your grammar is bad. It seems like Traineye pointed out quite a bit of the grammar stuff in the comments, which is a good starting point.
There might be more things to complain about, like your really short chapters (107 words for a first chapter is a bit... short), your dialogue in the format of (name)"quote", the description of your characters being sort of ham-fisted in the middle of a scene, but the grammar is probably the most important thing that you could work on.
Yes, ignore the advice of those people that didn't even read your story. Writing more drafts might help somewhat, but if you don't address the core problem of your story reads worse than MTL, most people won't even give your story a chance regardless of how good your ideas are.
Besides having people fix your grammar for you, you can use grammarly, like someone suggested, or you can polish your English skills.
Going with the bold assumption that English is not your first language, you can even write your story in your native language first and go from there. Maybe you can do that and use MTL to translate it to English. It might end up being more readable /j

I might seem a bit harsh, but you are on the right track. Keep asking for feedback, apply them, and most importantly, never stop writing.

Thank you for the advice and your right English is not my first language that is why I am bad at it and yeah your comment and traineye comment is quite harsh but thanks to you for pointing it out

I did not say "running out of ideas." I said "writing yourself into a corner." That is very different, and something that can happen very easily while you still have plenty of ideas. It can also happen almost anywhere in your writing process. And, your story will die quickly if you manage to write yourself into a corner, ongoing ideas or not.

Writing yourself into a corner refers to a situation where you have set up conditions where the only way to get your character out of the situation they are in is some kind of story-breaking deuse-ex-machina type ass-pull of a solution, something that would completely break the story. In other words, no proper in-lore solution exists for what the author put the character into. Making the protagonist too powerful to have them presented with a reasonable and engaging challenge is another form of writing them into a corner, as can setting up social situations that are too difficult to create a properly satisfying and plot-relevant outcome for.

There are several ways to write yourself into a corner, and if the story is going for the long-haul it can often be the case that the threads slowly tighten around you from a very early point in the story due to an earlier poorly conceived idea. This is a prime reason for a re-write being necessary, in order to fix something that would need dozens of chapters scrubbed from existence in order to solve for. Again, I speak from experience on this one. Look at "Sister of a Goddess" and "Key to the Void."

And if you are saying the re-writing process is what kills an author's ability to write, then it's only because they are not prepared for it or in the right mind-set. I am talking about conditions where continuing means the death of their story. Why are you not understanding that?

Again, over 90% of the stories on this site are dead. Meanwhile, less than 1% of the stories on this site are re-writes of previously existing stories by the same author. I think simple numbers sinks your theory.

As for edits, that's easy. Simply keep a schedule of editing 2 back chapters for each 1 chapter you write. I've been keeping that schedule myself for a while now.

You are essentially asking all writers to suck and not care that they suck. From where I'm sitting, it looks like you are making excuses for yourself here. In terms of what the OP is looking for, they are asking to improve their work. That would mean "continue writing and don't worry about the things you've already messed up on" is exactly the opposite of what they are looking for.

--------------

Anyway, @Enchant now, perhaps I should clarify my earlier suggestion on the matter of re-writes. One thing @KiraMinoru doesn't seem to really realize is that, what I'm REALLY saying here, is that you should consider whatever you are writing now as your trial run. In other words, yes, on the subject of what he's saying, it really is Ok to suck. The reason why it's Ok to suck is because the very best thing you can do with what you're writing now is to consider it a trial-run.

Use what you're writing now to polish up your skills, get down the basic ideas for what you want to write, and make note of all the places things go wrong. Don't even worry if anything makes sense. In fact, let loose and really have fun with things right now. Just explore and try every idea you can possibly think of, because all of this is just a trial run where you throw all your ideas out there and get a feel for what you're really trying to write.

Keep going until you finally have a very firm picture in your mind of what you want this story to look like. Once you finally have it figured out, that's when it's time to re-write it and solve for all those issues you were bothered about in your first run.

In other words, I would characterize @KiraMinoru's advice as "don't worry about sucking, the readers will eat up anything you throw at them anyway, not worth even trying." My advice is "it's Ok to suck, everyone sucks when they try for the first time. If you want to make a truly great work, keep going until you are ready to try again. There's always time for a re-do. So, with the re-do option available, stop worrying and, for the remainder of this attempt at least, feel free to suck even more."

That in mind, I have a rather peculiar motivational work to recommend that I came across.

Master of the Loop | Royal Road

Life in a fantastical world didn’t add up to everything Sylas thought it would be. There were no pretty ladies goading him, there were no overpowered items and abilities tossed his way, and there was no calm and peace. Instead, he was tossed directly into a hellhole some few hours before it was...

www.royalroad.com

It's a time-loop story. And, the reason I'm recommending it is because the lackadazical attitude the protagonist eventually starts taking for life is exactly the same mind-set that will serve an author the best in regards to whatever they are currently writing. This approach of "I can always do it over" is paramount to becoming a top-tier writer. Another key feature that he has that's also paramount is his approach of "if something's going wrong, I should gather as much information as I possibly can about why it's wrong. That way, I can do better the next time around."

So, yeah. The MC's attitude in this series can be applied SO WELL toward writing that I would definitely recommend.

Thanks you for the advice jemini I looked at your novel your a famous author here thank you for the advice again