Webnovel Feedback Roasts For the Fearless

Tempokai

Overworked One
Joined
Nov 16, 2021
Messages
1,026
Points
153
Are you one of those brave souls who believe your manuscript is teetering on perfection but still wake up at 3 a.m. knowing deep down it’s a disaster? Good. You’re my favorite kind of writer. I’m here to roast your work—scorch it until the ashes look usable. Think of me as the Gordon Ramsay of prose, minus the condescension and fake praise. If your story’s dialogue sounds like two malfunctioning robots reciting a phrasebook, or your pacing moves like a snail overdosed on melatonin, I’ll say so. And you’ll thank me. (Eventually.)

I won’t pat your ego or whisper empty affirmations about how your “raw passion” is shining through. I’ll wield my critiques like a rusty spork and perform open-heart surgery on your prose—messy, necessary, and unforgettable. Don’t worry; you’ll survive. Growth always hurts. But so does realizing your novel reads like someone fell asleep on a keyboard.

If you think your manuscript is ready for tough love, I’ll give it to you straight—no sugar, no spoon. You’ll cry, sure, but you’ll also crawl out of the wreckage stronger. Because what doesn’t kill your manuscript will absolutely make it publishable.

Think you can handle it? Drop your link below. Let’s fix your words before they become tomorrow’s filler on this website.
 

Tempokai

Overworked One
Joined
Nov 16, 2021
Messages
1,026
Points
153
Didn't I do the both already? lol.
1734429056039.png

Oh no, I’d better go to work instead, lol. I'll wait.
 

CharlesEBrown

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 23, 2024
Messages
1,690
Points
113
I know I'm nowhere near perfect but probably not thick-skinned enough for your roasting... still, if you have a masochistic streak, I guess feel free to savage any one or two (doubt even you have the stomach for all four, or for the ones I have only on Royal Road or HoneyFeed):
Jack Diamond: Monster Hunter
(Book 1: Diamond in the Rough | Scribble Hub (Completed)
Book 2: Blood Diamond | Scribble Hub)
Strange Awakening | Scribble Hub
Between Worlds | Scribble Hub

Diamond in the Rough got a weirdly polite yet nasty review on Royal Road (summary: "By chapter four you caught the feel of a Noir fairly well. I didn't like it. And here are a list of grammar and spelling errors you made. 3 stars.)." My favorite review so far - not even sure which story it was attached to - was essentially: "Well, it is clear the author is not a professional writer, but the characters have a certain charm that makes it easy to read, despite the flaws."
 
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Paul_Tromba

Sleep deprived mess of a published author
Joined
Jan 29, 2020
Messages
5,007
Points
233
You knew this was coming. Just want to hear your thoughts if you haven't told me already.

 

Tempokai

Overworked One
Joined
Nov 16, 2021
Messages
1,026
Points
153
I read four chapters of this, and simply couldn't go on. Let me explain why:

First off, your synopsis. If I had a smallest denomination of my country's currency for every time I saw a webnovel synopsis this bland and vague, I’d have enough money to hire a ghostwriter, hell, even some tokens of LLM to rewrite yours. You promised me a murder, a conspiracy, and something supernatural, but what you delivered is so devoid of intrigue it makes tax law of my country sound like a thrill ride. What’s the hook? “Shortly after making detective”? That’s not a hook; that’s an HR memo. “Things outside of his imagination”? What, like coherent pacing? Specificity isn’t just a suggestion in a synopsis—it’s the entire point. You managed to sell absolutely nothing except the faint echo of a plot buried under clichés. If your synopsis was a pitch, it would’ve been thrown out faster than Jack Diamond’s career should’ve been.

Now, let’s talk about your ethos, or the glaring lack thereof. Noir (or just overall detective stories) is supposed to drip with moral decay, emotional weight, and a world so broken it’s almost poetic. But instead of ethos, your story just shrugs and hands us the "starter pack" for a detective cliché. We get cookie-cutter mobsters, a crime scene as generic as store-brand oatmeal, and a protagonist who isn’t walking the fine line between good and evil—he’s lounging on the sidelines of irrelevance. Jack Diamond is less “hard-boiled detective” and more “hardly trying.” Without ethos, your narrative is a lifeless stage set, and it shows. No tension. No weight. Just characters stumbling through poorly lit rooms, looking for meaning you forgot to write.

Without ethos, your logos afterwards is left flailing for survival. Your murder investigation is a joke, a shambling mess of obvious revelations passed off as brilliant deductions. The severed head being too perfect? Wow, Sherlock, did the tape outline give it away? The extra finger? A potentially game-changing detail tossed in with all the care of a grocery list. There’s no intrigue, no sense of puzzle pieces falling into place—just an endless parade of filler where Jack and his equally lifeless supporting cast meander around crime scenes like tourists with bad maps. Logos can’t survive when the plot is stagnant, and this story has the pacing of a geriatric snail.

But oh, the true murder of this narrative isn’t Linda—it’s pathos. Linda is a symbol, a cardboard cutout of a murder victim so generic she could’ve been printed on a sympathy card. You didn’t write her as a person; you wrote her as an excuse for Jack to show up and admire people’s legs. Her death isn’t a tragedy; it’s a plot coupon. Even her father’s reaction feels like he just found out his kid dented the car, not that she was brutalized in the back of a restaurant. “He looked as if I had just slapped him.” That’s your big emotional moment? That’s the line you’re hanging the grief of this family on? No one in this story reacts like a human being, let alone one processing grief or shock. Pathos isn’t just missing—it’s been dug up, autopsied, and abandoned on the slab.

And the pacing. Dear god, the pacing. Your chapters crawl along like they’re afraid to get to the point, stopping every other paragraph to admire Lamborghinis, dialogue tags, and Jack’s irrelevant musings. Chapter Two was mildly boring, due to lack of established ethos. Chapter Three is a full-on derailment, serving up a nostalgic coffee date between Jack and Carol that belongs in a different story entirely. You followed it up with Chapter Four, which dumps more characters into the mix without giving us any reason to care about them or the investigation. Morgan Price? Mauricio Mercotti? Carmine Gorman? Names thrown in like scraps at a dinner party where no one is paying attention. Instead of heightening the stakes, you spent two whole chapters doing worldbuilding no one asked for and forgot to actually make your world interesting.

And let’s not pretend the prose saves you. Your dialogue is a clunky exposition dump, your descriptions are skeletal in all the wrong places, and Jack’s internal monologues are the most cringe-worthy parts of all. It’s one thing for a noir protagonist to be flawed—it’s another for him to spend more time ogling legs than solving murders. You think Jack’s snark makes him likable, but it just makes him feel like a walking midlife crisis who’s out of his depth both professionally and narratively.

Here’s the hard truth: you don’t have a story here. You have the vague outline of one, padded with filler and propped up by clichés that would’ve been stale 30 years ago. You didn’t write a mystery—you wrote an excuse to play with tropes without understanding what makes them work. Your characters don’t live, your world doesn’t breathe, and your murder has no weight because you forgot to make Linda matter. You didn’t deliver noir, pulp, or webnovel-worthy entertainment. You delivered a plodding, disjointed series of scenes with no momentum, no stakes, and no soul.

And don’t even think about waving the "90s nostalgia" flag or claiming this is a "slow burn." Nostalgia isn’t a license to be lazy, and a slow burn only works if there’s a fire at the end of the fuse. You don’t get to say this is a first draft or an experiment—it’s published. It’s out there. You made the choice to release it, and with that choice comes responsibility. Readers checked out after Chapter Two because you didn’t give them a reason to stay. That’s not on them. That’s on you.

My verdict: your story doesn’t need an audience to "understand it." It needs you to rewrite it. Every critique this mess has earned is valid, and the only path forward is to sit down, accept that you fell short, and fix it. You have work to do—cutting the filler, humanizing your characters, building actual tension, and learning what pacing is. Start with establishing the ethos of the MC in the first chapter. Then, add context, tension, and then only murder. Until then, this isn’t a diamond in the rough. It’s just rough.
 

shawarma

New member
Joined
Jul 29, 2024
Messages
16
Points
3
I present you with an undercooked Windrake's Rogue, Chef Tempokai, ready for roasting.
 

A_N_O_N_Y_M

New member
Joined
Dec 1, 2024
Messages
12
Points
3
Are you one of those brave souls who believe your manuscript is teetering on perfection but still wake up at 3 a.m. knowing deep down it’s a disaster? Good. You’re my favorite kind of writer. I’m here to roast your work—scorch it until the ashes look usable. Think of me as the Gordon Ramsay of prose, minus the condescension and fake praise. If your story’s dialogue sounds like two malfunctioning robots reciting a phrasebook, or your pacing moves like a snail overdosed on melatonin, I’ll say so. And you’ll thank me. (Eventually.)

I won’t pat your ego or whisper empty affirmations about how your “raw passion” is shining through. I’ll wield my critiques like a rusty spork and perform open-heart surgery on your prose—messy, necessary, and unforgettable. Don’t worry; you’ll survive. Growth always hurts. But so does realizing your novel reads like someone fell asleep on a keyboard.

If you think your manuscript is ready for tough love, I’ll give it to you straight—no sugar, no spoon. You’ll cry, sure, but you’ll also crawl out of the wreckage stronger. Because what doesn’t kill your manuscript will absolutely make it publishable.

Think you can handle it? Drop your link below. Let’s fix your words before they become tomorrow’s filler on this website.

I got a review before, a guy thought it was AI after reading chapter 1, so all the best. If u do review it, please read more than one chapter, because the writing does improve, starting is a little hard.
More chaps on webnovel
 

Tempokai

Overworked One
Joined
Nov 16, 2021
Messages
1,026
Points
153
You knew this was coming. Just want to hear your thoughts if you haven't told me already.

Alright, buckle up, Paul—this is going to be a ride. I’ve trudged through your opening gambit, from the synopsis to Chapter 1, Part 2, and now I’m here, dripping with sweat because I'm procrastinating while an important banner needs to be printed, armed with a misplaced focus sharper than Lou’s apparent lack of survival instincts. Since time is short and procrastination isn’t on my side today (unlike you, who clearly found the time to drown me in wandering prose), I’m limiting this roast to what I’ve read. Consider this your intervention.

First, let’s talk about your synopsis. You’ve got a story with supernatural time travel, mysterious peacekeepers, and a protagonist named Lou Barrett—an everyman thrust into chaos. That’s already a concept with legs. But instead of giving it the sleek, compelling elevator pitch it deserves, your synopsis stumbles around with vague buzzwords and tired tropes like a Victorian drunk trying to find his hat. “Accidental time traveler”? Come on. That’s a descriptor we’ve all read a thousand times before, in 2000s at least. And who are these “supernatural peacekeepers”? Right now, they sound like ghostly mall cops. You need to stop hiding behind vagueness and deliver the goods.

Here’s the issue: a synopsis is supposed to sell your story. Right now, it feels like a placeholder text you scribbled down because “it’s just a synopsis; the story will sell itself.” It won’t. Give us specifics. Hook us with something unique about your story, not tired descriptions like “scattered mythological undertones.” Show us why your supernatural time travel tale is different from every other accidental hero story clogging the genre. And maybe—just maybe—give Lou a glimmer of personality in the synopsis. Right now, he’s just a faceless, unlucky bloke getting yanked around by time and fate.

Moving on to your prologue, because boy oh boy does this need some love. I’ll start with the good news: you’ve got atmosphere. The imagery of space, the disembodied voices, the infinite selves—it’s all creepy, surreal, and perfectly set up for a story dripping in existential dread. But that’s where the praise ends. You’re setting up a tone here, yes, but your execution is like trying to build a gothic cathedral out of marshmallows.

Let’s address your so-called antagonists. These spectres or time gods or whatever they are—the ones who are “bored” and “choosing a lucky bastard to wield their power”—come across like petulant children playing with action figures. They have no gravitas, no menace, no depth. Their dialogue sounds like someone trying to write cosmic beings but forgetting that these entities are supposed to make readers tremble with awe, not cringe. If these are the entities that kick off your story, they need to command attention. Right now, they’re undercutting their own role as harbingers of chaos.

And because these spectres lack ethos or gravitas, the entire prologue’s emotional weight collapses like a cheap IKEA shelf. Logos—the logic of this scene—is a dreamlike jumble, which could work if the emotional core (pathos) was solid. But Lou doesn’t react. He doesn’t question. He’s just there, standing passively as strange things happen to him. You can’t leave your protagonist—or your readers—adrift in surreal nonsense without some emotional anchor. It doesn’t need to be realism, but it does need something. Fear. Awe. Confusion. Anything but this detached monotone.

And let’s not ignore how rushed and overloaded this prologue feels. You’re throwing in mask creatures, infinite mirrors, river-haired children, and godlike beings in one go. These concepts are interesting, sure, but they’re competing for attention like toddlers in a ball pit. Slow down. Give us one or two focal points and let us soak in the horror and mystery before moving on to the next big idea. Make the prologue longer in words.

To be clear, the prologue isn’t bad—it’s just underperforming. It’s like a piano with a few keys out of tune: it has potential, but playing it as-is makes everyone wince. Rewrite it. Give your antagonists some gravitas. Let Lou feel something—anything—about his infinite selves and the surreal horror around him. Tighten the pacing, and for the love of all things literary, stop treating this like a checklist of “cool ideas.” Pick your moments and let them shine.

Now, Chapter 1, where things start to really wobble, even though the foundation is solid. Part 1 shows you’re capable of balancing ethos, logos, and pathos. You’ve painted a vivid picture of London, old and new, and the details are rich enough to immerse readers in Lou’s fish-out-of-water predicament. But here’s the problem: you’ve overcorrected. Every corner, every smell, every brick gets a description so thorough that it feels like you’re auditioning to write the London chapter of a travel guide. The pacing suffers immensely.

Look, you’re playing with realism, and that’s fine. Readers love immersive settings. But you’re not writing historical nonfiction—you’re writing a supernatural webnovel. Readers don’t need to know every nook and cranny of Whitechapel, they just need enough detail to conjure the illusion of realism. The rest? Let their imaginations fill in the blanks. Right now, your descriptions are padding the story, drowning the tension and forward momentum in sensory overload.

And then there’s Lou himself. While his bewilderment is understandable—it’s not every day you wake up in 1888—his reactions are so muted that it flattens the pathos. He’s bewildered, sure, but that’s it? No fear? No frustration? No sense of grief at the life he’s left behind or anger at the universe for doing this to him? Lou feels more like a neutral narrator than someone experiencing an existential crisis. And while I understand he’s meant to be a bit “unfazed,” it’s overdone to the point that it undercuts the emotional weight of the story.

Then there’s Chapter 1 – Part 2, where you veer into the realm of controlled chaos—and lose control entirely by the latter half. Things happen so quickly, and in such rapid succession, that neither Lou nor the reader has time to process anything. Burning coins, a vicious fight, mysterious dusting deaths, Ponytail Martial Arts Man dropping in from the roof, and Lou getting arrested—all crammed into a single sequence that feels like a frantic sprint.

Here’s the thing about chaos: it only works if it’s paced properly. Each chaotic moment needs room to breathe, both for Lou to react and for the readers to absorb the stakes. Instead, everything collides together in a way that feels overwhelming, not engaging. The supernatural dread you’re trying to build—burning coins, inexplicable deaths—needs to sink in. Lou’s disbelief, fear, or even curiosity should anchor these moments. Instead, the focus shifts to environment and action, leaving Lou’s emotional flatness to drag the scene down.

The pacing issues from Part 1 carry over here, but they’re exacerbated by the relentless bombardment of events. Without separation between these chaotic moments, the story feels rushed. Each key event—the woman’s attack, the supernatural properties of the coins, the fight, Ponytail Man’s deus ex martial-arts arrival—needs to stand on its own, with clear transitions between them. The moments should influence each other naturally, but they’re competing for attention right now, and it’s a mess.

On the technical side, the overall pacing of these chapters needs a lot of work. Both Part 1 and Part 2 linger too long on setting details and environmental descriptions while rushing through the emotional beats. Lou’s emotional flatness only makes this more apparent—because instead of focusing on his fear, confusion, or frustration, you’re describing cobblestones, fog, and smog for the third time. This isn’t about cutting out atmosphere entirely—it’s about prioritizing. What matters more: Lou grappling with his circumstances, or another reminder that London smells bad?

What does this story need to fix its opening? Tightened prose, clearer emotional stakes, and better pacing. For Part 1, trim the descriptions down to what’s necessary to establish the tone and immerse the reader. Let Lou react to his predicament in a way that deepens the emotional connection between him and the audience. For Part 2, break the chaos into digestible segments. Separate the burning coins from the brawl, the brawl from Ponytail Man’s entrance, and Ponytail Man from the cops. Between each chaotic event, give Lou (and the reader) a moment to breathe, reflect, and process what’s happening. Let the dread and mystery of the supernatural sink in before slamming into the next big moment.

To wrap this roast: you’ve got the bones of an intriguing webnovel opening, but right now it’s buried under layers of unfocused chaos, overdone descriptions, and a protagonist who seems to have replaced emotional depth with a shrug. It’s not a lost cause, far from it. The plot is great. But unless you’re ready to tighten your prose, reign in the chaos, and make Lou feel something, it’s going to be a slog for your readers. Fix this, and you’ll have a webnovel worth coming back to. Don’t, and it’ll be just another story that loses readers before the real adventure even begins.
 

Paul_Tromba

Sleep deprived mess of a published author
Joined
Jan 29, 2020
Messages
5,007
Points
233
Alright, buckle up, Paul—this is going to be a ride. I’ve trudged through your opening gambit, from the synopsis to Chapter 1, Part 2, and now I’m here, dripping with sweat because I'm procrastinating while an important banner needs to be printed, armed with a misplaced focus sharper than Lou’s apparent lack of survival instincts. Since time is short and procrastination isn’t on my side today (unlike you, who clearly found the time to drown me in wandering prose), I’m limiting this roast to what I’ve read. Consider this your intervention.

First, let’s talk about your synopsis. You’ve got a story with supernatural time travel, mysterious peacekeepers, and a protagonist named Lou Barrett—an everyman thrust into chaos. That’s already a concept with legs. But instead of giving it the sleek, compelling elevator pitch it deserves, your synopsis stumbles around with vague buzzwords and tired tropes like a Victorian drunk trying to find his hat. “Accidental time traveler”? Come on. That’s a descriptor we’ve all read a thousand times before, in 2000s at least. And who are these “supernatural peacekeepers”? Right now, they sound like ghostly mall cops. You need to stop hiding behind vagueness and deliver the goods.

Here’s the issue: a synopsis is supposed to sell your story. Right now, it feels like a placeholder text you scribbled down because “it’s just a synopsis; the story will sell itself.” It won’t. Give us specifics. Hook us with something unique about your story, not tired descriptions like “scattered mythological undertones.” Show us why your supernatural time travel tale is different from every other accidental hero story clogging the genre. And maybe—just maybe—give Lou a glimmer of personality in the synopsis. Right now, he’s just a faceless, unlucky bloke getting yanked around by time and fate.

Moving on to your prologue, because boy oh boy does this need some love. I’ll start with the good news: you’ve got atmosphere. The imagery of space, the disembodied voices, the infinite selves—it’s all creepy, surreal, and perfectly set up for a story dripping in existential dread. But that’s where the praise ends. You’re setting up a tone here, yes, but your execution is like trying to build a gothic cathedral out of marshmallows.

Let’s address your so-called antagonists. These spectres or time gods or whatever they are—the ones who are “bored” and “choosing a lucky bastard to wield their power”—come across like petulant children playing with action figures. They have no gravitas, no menace, no depth. Their dialogue sounds like someone trying to write cosmic beings but forgetting that these entities are supposed to make readers tremble with awe, not cringe. If these are the entities that kick off your story, they need to command attention. Right now, they’re undercutting their own role as harbingers of chaos.

And because these spectres lack ethos or gravitas, the entire prologue’s emotional weight collapses like a cheap IKEA shelf. Logos—the logic of this scene—is a dreamlike jumble, which could work if the emotional core (pathos) was solid. But Lou doesn’t react. He doesn’t question. He’s just there, standing passively as strange things happen to him. You can’t leave your protagonist—or your readers—adrift in surreal nonsense without some emotional anchor. It doesn’t need to be realism, but it does need something. Fear. Awe. Confusion. Anything but this detached monotone.

And let’s not ignore how rushed and overloaded this prologue feels. You’re throwing in mask creatures, infinite mirrors, river-haired children, and godlike beings in one go. These concepts are interesting, sure, but they’re competing for attention like toddlers in a ball pit. Slow down. Give us one or two focal points and let us soak in the horror and mystery before moving on to the next big idea. Make the prologue longer in words.

To be clear, the prologue isn’t bad—it’s just underperforming. It’s like a piano with a few keys out of tune: it has potential, but playing it as-is makes everyone wince. Rewrite it. Give your antagonists some gravitas. Let Lou feel something—anything—about his infinite selves and the surreal horror around him. Tighten the pacing, and for the love of all things literary, stop treating this like a checklist of “cool ideas.” Pick your moments and let them shine.

Now, Chapter 1, where things start to really wobble, even though the foundation is solid. Part 1 shows you’re capable of balancing ethos, logos, and pathos. You’ve painted a vivid picture of London, old and new, and the details are rich enough to immerse readers in Lou’s fish-out-of-water predicament. But here’s the problem: you’ve overcorrected. Every corner, every smell, every brick gets a description so thorough that it feels like you’re auditioning to write the London chapter of a travel guide. The pacing suffers immensely.

Look, you’re playing with realism, and that’s fine. Readers love immersive settings. But you’re not writing historical nonfiction—you’re writing a supernatural webnovel. Readers don’t need to know every nook and cranny of Whitechapel, they just need enough detail to conjure the illusion of realism. The rest? Let their imaginations fill in the blanks. Right now, your descriptions are padding the story, drowning the tension and forward momentum in sensory overload.

And then there’s Lou himself. While his bewilderment is understandable—it’s not every day you wake up in 1888—his reactions are so muted that it flattens the pathos. He’s bewildered, sure, but that’s it? No fear? No frustration? No sense of grief at the life he’s left behind or anger at the universe for doing this to him? Lou feels more like a neutral narrator than someone experiencing an existential crisis. And while I understand he’s meant to be a bit “unfazed,” it’s overdone to the point that it undercuts the emotional weight of the story.

Then there’s Chapter 1 – Part 2, where you veer into the realm of controlled chaos—and lose control entirely by the latter half. Things happen so quickly, and in such rapid succession, that neither Lou nor the reader has time to process anything. Burning coins, a vicious fight, mysterious dusting deaths, Ponytail Martial Arts Man dropping in from the roof, and Lou getting arrested—all crammed into a single sequence that feels like a frantic sprint.

Here’s the thing about chaos: it only works if it’s paced properly. Each chaotic moment needs room to breathe, both for Lou to react and for the readers to absorb the stakes. Instead, everything collides together in a way that feels overwhelming, not engaging. The supernatural dread you’re trying to build—burning coins, inexplicable deaths—needs to sink in. Lou’s disbelief, fear, or even curiosity should anchor these moments. Instead, the focus shifts to environment and action, leaving Lou’s emotional flatness to drag the scene down.

The pacing issues from Part 1 carry over here, but they’re exacerbated by the relentless bombardment of events. Without separation between these chaotic moments, the story feels rushed. Each key event—the woman’s attack, the supernatural properties of the coins, the fight, Ponytail Man’s deus ex martial-arts arrival—needs to stand on its own, with clear transitions between them. The moments should influence each other naturally, but they’re competing for attention right now, and it’s a mess.

On the technical side, the overall pacing of these chapters needs a lot of work. Both Part 1 and Part 2 linger too long on setting details and environmental descriptions while rushing through the emotional beats. Lou’s emotional flatness only makes this more apparent—because instead of focusing on his fear, confusion, or frustration, you’re describing cobblestones, fog, and smog for the third time. This isn’t about cutting out atmosphere entirely—it’s about prioritizing. What matters more: Lou grappling with his circumstances, or another reminder that London smells bad?

What does this story need to fix its opening? Tightened prose, clearer emotional stakes, and better pacing. For Part 1, trim the descriptions down to what’s necessary to establish the tone and immerse the reader. Let Lou react to his predicament in a way that deepens the emotional connection between him and the audience. For Part 2, break the chaos into digestible segments. Separate the burning coins from the brawl, the brawl from Ponytail Man’s entrance, and Ponytail Man from the cops. Between each chaotic event, give Lou (and the reader) a moment to breathe, reflect, and process what’s happening. Let the dread and mystery of the supernatural sink in before slamming into the next big moment.

To wrap this roast: you’ve got the bones of an intriguing webnovel opening, but right now it’s buried under layers of unfocused chaos, overdone descriptions, and a protagonist who seems to have replaced emotional depth with a shrug. It’s not a lost cause, far from it. The plot is great. But unless you’re ready to tighten your prose, reign in the chaos, and make Lou feel something, it’s going to be a slog for your readers. Fix this, and you’ll have a webnovel worth coming back to. Don’t, and it’ll be just another story that loses readers before the real adventure even begins.
Thank you! You have singlehandedly given me exactly what I have been asking for from review threads for years in the form of a roast. I now know what I need to work on next. I agree with all your statements, especially about the synopsys and prologue. I am not a very emotional writer and have been over focusing on descriptions due to my poor descriptive quality when I first started writing. I will try to work on my emotional writing next while working to correct the emotions of Lou and the pacing issue. Thank you again! :blob_sir: :blob_hug:
 
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Tempokai

Overworked One
Joined
Nov 16, 2021
Messages
1,026
Points
153
I think I'd like to take the plunge...!
Oh, SuperMushroom, where do I even begin roasting this? Even though you have a story here—possibly a good one—it's like you put a black cat in a black room and told your readers to "figure it out." This "thing" is held together by vibes, ambition, and a startling level lack of self-control. I mean, good job on the effort. If I didn't know any better, I would assume that you were making a point by challenging your readers to stop reading at Chapter 1, where I stopped. Not because of the story, but because it's TOO DAMN LONG.

Let’s talk about your synopsis first, because that’s where this train starts to derail. You’re did this very impressive thing do a great job at nailing ethos. Seriously, it’s solid. You’ve got the world-building, the thematic weight, and the deep sense of understanding over the genre and tropes. But, reading it feels like scrolling through a history book written by someone (who certainly has a neckbeard and maybe wears those ugly robes unironically) who loves the sound of their own expertise. But here’s the thing: this isn’t a college essay or a pitch for a Netflix docuseries. It’s a webnovel, and your synopsis should hook readers into the story, not bore them with overlaying context. Where’s the plot? Where’s the hook? Where is the main character who’s supposed to be leading this chaos into submission? You’ve got an emperor, some rebels, and a crumbling empire, but that’s all set dressing that we already know. You never actually invite us backstage to meet the cast of the story.

And then there’s the pathos—or rather, the complete absence of it. You seem to think that giving us a vague sense of the world’s chaos is enough to make us care, but spoiler alert: it’s not. Readers don’t care about systems and power structures unless they can feel how they affect people. Where’s the personal angle? Where’s the emotional hook that ties us and the MC to this world? It’s like trying to sell a wuxia movie based entirely on the backdrops without mentioning the characters who are supposed to bring it to life. You’ve got tags screaming “Female Protagonist” and “Antihero,” but you don’t actually show us who these people are or why we should care about them. Readers don’t want to hear about the world’s chaos—they want to feel it, even if it's a synopsis. It’s a textbook bait-and-switch, and honestly, if your synopsis were a car, it would be those cheap chinese EVs that's looks great, but starts to burn down once a stone (critical thinking) hits the underbelly of the synopsis.

Now, Chapter 1. Let me take a deep breath before I dive into this one because, my friend, you have truly outdone yourself in the category of “audacity” while squandering all the potential. Twenty-five thousand words. One chapter. You know, there’s a thin line between not thinking and intentionally putting the chapter as is. I opened your chapter expecting a quick read during my work procrastination break, but instead, I found myself staring into the abyss. And let me tell you, the abyss stared back, and it looked like a giant wall of text.

Let’s break this down. A 25,000-word chapter isn’t just long—it’s insultingly long. Webnovel readers aren’t here for a marathon; they’re here for a sprint. Dip into the story, read the 2000-3000 words, waste 15 minutes or less, and return back from the portal. We’re the kind of people who read during stolen moments at monotonous work, in bed before we fall asleep (because there's nothing on YT), or during bathroom breaks (don’t pretend you don’t know that’s true). What you’ve done here is drop a War-and-Peace-sized brick on a platform where readers expect snackable content. Do you think we’re all secretly looking to test our endurance? Because I promise you, we’re not. Some do, I don't deny that, but they're either jobless or have a lot of time in their hands. I’d rather wrestle the solvent printer than read 25,000 words in one sitting, and the printer would probably have better pacing despite it being clogged with dead ink.

And the worst part? The chapter didn’t even need to be this long. You’ve got a dozen scenes in there—tavern drama, massacres, martial arts showdowns, mysterious golden-haired women—that could have been spread across twelve separate chapters. You could’ve milked this thing for updates, engagement, and cliffhanger-induced dopamine hits, but instead, you went for the Kindle or Netflix way of "everything right now". I don’t know if this is a power move or just a misunderstanding of your audience, but either way, it’s exhausting.

Speaking of exhausting, let’s talk about the pacing. Or rather, the complete lack of it. There’s no rhythm, no rise and fall of tension—just one long, monotonous stream of Stuff Happening™ due to being a massive wall of text rather than bite pieced content. Readers don’t even get the satisfaction of knowing where one scene ends and another begins because it’s all blended together into this massive, shapeless blob. You’re drowning your story in its own ambition, and the pacing is just collateral damage. I see that you broke the chapters down after chapter one, why you didn't do it for the chapter 1?

Now, let’s sprinkle some technical issues into this roast because, oh boy, there’s plenty of seasoning to go around. First up, head-hopping. I don’t know if you’re trying to give us a cinematic view of the world or if you just got bored sticking to one perspective, but you’ve got so many POV shifts in this chapter that it feels like whiplash. We start with Wei Qing, then there’s the mysterious blonde, then Bai Guo and his uncle, then the Desolator of Life, and finally Deng Hong. That’s five POVs in one chapter. Five! You could've broke them down to each chapter, and it would be easier for you AND the readers. But no—you decided to just let it all spill out in one continuous stream. You’ve basically weaponized your text, and the casualties are your readers’ attention spans who rather watch another YT Shorts than to read it all.

Your story isn’t bad. It’s not groundbreaking, sure, but it’s got potential. Your writing is fine, your world-building is solid, and you clearly know your wuxia tropes. But all of that is buried under your complete disregard for how webnovel readers consume stories. You’re writing like this is a standalone epic novel for the 1990s wuxia literary crowd in Hong Kong, not an episodic webnovel for binge readers who either way would've consumed those 25k chapters if you broke them down correctly. And until you respect your audience enough to break this beast into manageable pieces, like you did with next chapters, you’re going to keep not keeping them reading.

So here’s my advice: break it down. Give us chapters that feel like chapters, not novellas. Introduce one or two POVs at a time (which naturally would've been done with breaking the chapters), let us breathe between scenes, and remember that your readers have lives outside of your story. Right now, your opening chapter is the literary equivalent of making someone search the black cat in a black room: painful, unnecessary, and likely to end in tears due to sustained cuts the cat had made.

Fix that, or I will continue to throw up my hands and go instead do printing rather than of dealing with your 25,000-word endurance test.
 
D

Deleted member 180663

Guest
As a masochistic person [ Redacted ]


And

Oneshot(it has a lot of mistakes):





















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If your curious then:https://www.scribblehub.com/series/1332627/what-will-you-do-when-you-know-the-world-is-ending/










































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Why....?
 

SuperMushroom

Member
Joined
Jul 29, 2024
Messages
28
Points
13
Oh, SuperMushroom, where do I even begin roasting this? Even though you have a story here—possibly a good one—it's like you put a black cat in a black room and told your readers to "figure it out." This "thing" is held together by vibes, ambition, and a startling level lack of self-control. I mean, good job on the effort. If I didn't know any better, I would assume that you were making a point by challenging your readers to stop reading at Chapter 1, where I stopped. Not because of the story, but because it's TOO DAMN LONG.

Let’s talk about your synopsis first, because that’s where this train starts to derail. You’re did this very impressive thing do a great job at nailing ethos. Seriously, it’s solid. You’ve got the world-building, the thematic weight, and the deep sense of understanding over the genre and tropes. But, reading it feels like scrolling through a history book written by someone (who certainly has a neckbeard and maybe wears those ugly robes unironically) who loves the sound of their own expertise. But here’s the thing: this isn’t a college essay or a pitch for a Netflix docuseries. It’s a webnovel, and your synopsis should hook readers into the story, not bore them with overlaying context. Where’s the plot? Where’s the hook? Where is the main character who’s supposed to be leading this chaos into submission? You’ve got an emperor, some rebels, and a crumbling empire, but that’s all set dressing that we already know. You never actually invite us backstage to meet the cast of the story.

And then there’s the pathos—or rather, the complete absence of it. You seem to think that giving us a vague sense of the world’s chaos is enough to make us care, but spoiler alert: it’s not. Readers don’t care about systems and power structures unless they can feel how they affect people. Where’s the personal angle? Where’s the emotional hook that ties us and the MC to this world? It’s like trying to sell a wuxia movie based entirely on the backdrops without mentioning the characters who are supposed to bring it to life. You’ve got tags screaming “Female Protagonist” and “Antihero,” but you don’t actually show us who these people are or why we should care about them. Readers don’t want to hear about the world’s chaos—they want to feel it, even if it's a synopsis. It’s a textbook bait-and-switch, and honestly, if your synopsis were a car, it would be those cheap chinese EVs that's looks great, but starts to burn down once a stone (critical thinking) hits the underbelly of the synopsis.

Now, Chapter 1. Let me take a deep breath before I dive into this one because, my friend, you have truly outdone yourself in the category of “audacity” while squandering all the potential. Twenty-five thousand words. One chapter. You know, there’s a thin line between not thinking and intentionally putting the chapter as is. I opened your chapter expecting a quick read during my work procrastination break, but instead, I found myself staring into the abyss. And let me tell you, the abyss stared back, and it looked like a giant wall of text.

Let’s break this down. A 25,000-word chapter isn’t just long—it’s insultingly long. Webnovel readers aren’t here for a marathon; they’re here for a sprint. Dip into the story, read the 2000-3000 words, waste 15 minutes or less, and return back from the portal. We’re the kind of people who read during stolen moments at monotonous work, in bed before we fall asleep (because there's nothing on YT), or during bathroom breaks (don’t pretend you don’t know that’s true). What you’ve done here is drop a War-and-Peace-sized brick on a platform where readers expect snackable content. Do you think we’re all secretly looking to test our endurance? Because I promise you, we’re not. Some do, I don't deny that, but they're either jobless or have a lot of time in their hands. I’d rather wrestle the solvent printer than read 25,000 words in one sitting, and the printer would probably have better pacing despite it being clogged with dead ink.

And the worst part? The chapter didn’t even need to be this long. You’ve got a dozen scenes in there—tavern drama, massacres, martial arts showdowns, mysterious golden-haired women—that could have been spread across twelve separate chapters. You could’ve milked this thing for updates, engagement, and cliffhanger-induced dopamine hits, but instead, you went for the Kindle or Netflix way of "everything right now". I don’t know if this is a power move or just a misunderstanding of your audience, but either way, it’s exhausting.

Speaking of exhausting, let’s talk about the pacing. Or rather, the complete lack of it. There’s no rhythm, no rise and fall of tension—just one long, monotonous stream of Stuff Happening™ due to being a massive wall of text rather than bite pieced content. Readers don’t even get the satisfaction of knowing where one scene ends and another begins because it’s all blended together into this massive, shapeless blob. You’re drowning your story in its own ambition, and the pacing is just collateral damage. I see that you broke the chapters down after chapter one, why you didn't do it for the chapter 1?

Now, let’s sprinkle some technical issues into this roast because, oh boy, there’s plenty of seasoning to go around. First up, head-hopping. I don’t know if you’re trying to give us a cinematic view of the world or if you just got bored sticking to one perspective, but you’ve got so many POV shifts in this chapter that it feels like whiplash. We start with Wei Qing, then there’s the mysterious blonde, then Bai Guo and his uncle, then the Desolator of Life, and finally Deng Hong. That’s five POVs in one chapter. Five! You could've broke them down to each chapter, and it would be easier for you AND the readers. But no—you decided to just let it all spill out in one continuous stream. You’ve basically weaponized your text, and the casualties are your readers’ attention spans who rather watch another YT Shorts than to read it all.

Your story isn’t bad. It’s not groundbreaking, sure, but it’s got potential. Your writing is fine, your world-building is solid, and you clearly know your wuxia tropes. But all of that is buried under your complete disregard for how webnovel readers consume stories. You’re writing like this is a standalone epic novel for the 1990s wuxia literary crowd in Hong Kong, not an episodic webnovel for binge readers who either way would've consumed those 25k chapters if you broke them down correctly. And until you respect your audience enough to break this beast into manageable pieces, like you did with next chapters, you’re going to keep not keeping them reading.

So here’s my advice: break it down. Give us chapters that feel like chapters, not novellas. Introduce one or two POVs at a time (which naturally would've been done with breaking the chapters), let us breathe between scenes, and remember that your readers have lives outside of your story. Right now, your opening chapter is the literary equivalent of making someone search the black cat in a black room: painful, unnecessary, and likely to end in tears due to sustained cuts the cat had made.

Fix that, or I will continue to throw up my hands and go instead do printing rather than of dealing with your 25,000-word endurance test.
Thanks for the feedback!

I figured the bigness of the first chapter would be a huge point of contention. I really should stop ignoring the 25k word elephant in the room...

I originally planned to release every chapter in that same girthy format, but what little feedback I could scrounge up upon initial release was about how overwhelming the word count was, so I broke the future chapters up into smaller pieces, and then into even smaller pieces until I arrived at what turned out to be the conventional 2k format.

My original intention was for this big old chunk to serve as a complete introduction to what the rest novel was going to be like, but I suppose that doesn't really work, especially not when I went ahead and splintered the subsequent chapters, so it just turned into a source of whiplash...

I wasn't really privvy to the posting norms at the time, but what scared me off from messing around with it after I had been made aware was that I actually ran an experiment on a couple of other web novel sites where I did break up the first chapter into 2k sized chunks, and it did horribly!!! I couldn't draw a single reader! So I thought it'd be best to just let sleeping dogs lie, since it was getting at least some eyes with the gigachapter...

If there are any meta tricks to breaking the existing chapter up that may not be immediately obvious, do let me know through whichever method is most convenient, here or through PMs! For example, do I just dump all the parts at once, or is there some merit to dragging it out, and if so, over how long? Stuff like that... I'd like to prevent myself from stepping on another rake.
 

AltairPolaris

New member
Joined
Nov 11, 2024
Messages
2
Points
3
Please roast mine! It may be hot garbage, but it's my hot garbage (gazes lovingly).

 
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