Tempokai
Overworked One
- Joined
- Nov 16, 2021
- Messages
- 1,026
- Points
- 153
Let me start this roast with a lament—a lament for the two chapters of your webnovel I read, only to stop, not because the plot thickened but because my patience thinned. Only two chapters, alongside with synopsis. That’s all it took for me to realize I was staring at the piece that screams "I read dozen webnovels, sure I can write one!", only failing at it. The synopsis showed me intrigue, espionage, and magical academia. What I got instead was endless talking heads, dialogue tags squatting like Muscovite gopniks where emotions should be, and a story so soaked in tell, tell, and tell that my subconscious writer brain started protesting: “Where’s the show, buddy?!”I present you with an undercooked Windrake's Rogue, Chef Tempokai, ready for roasting.
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Windrake’s Rogue
Most first-day-of-school checklists don't include stumbling upon an assassination plot. Trey’s life in the rural village of Lovarn was simple, if not a little lackluster. But then his enigmatic mentor throws them both into an adventure that promises more excitement than he can handle...www.scribblehub.com
Let’s start with your synopsis, that haphazard little text that seems to have been written at 3 a.m. after binge-watching Harry Potter and Mission Impossible. You had one job, ONE JOB: hook the reader, establish ethos, and give us a taste of what readers are getting into. Instead, you gave me a vague, throwaway question like “How does one infiltrate the most elite magical academy in the realm?” Gee, I don’t know. Are we actually going to find out? Because based on the first two chapters, your story has all the “infiltration” of a 5 yo trying to sneak cookies while loudly announcing, “I’m not doing anything!” And what’s with “hidden agendas, alluring temptresses, and suspicious professors”? Is this a spy thriller, a harem fantasy, or a generic YA magical academy drama? Sure, they're all the tags that the average webnovel reader would be interested, but there's no proper delivery of it, hidden in tags. Your synopsis promises everything and delivers nothing, crumbling like cheap Chinese plastic toy the second I ask, “But what’s at stake? Why should I care about this Trey guy?” Spoiler: I shouldn’t.
Oh, Chapter 1. The rookie mistakes here hit me like a brick labeled “Amateur Hour.” Overexplaining? Check. Dialogue tags doing all the heavy lifting instead of proper descriptions of show? Check. A total lack of ethos, logos, and pathos working together like in a proper story? Triple check. You threw me into this tense discussion between retired professor that screams Snape and the some mage masquerading as oracle that screams Gandalf, two characters I don’t know or care about, yelling about Woman They Liked Most (trademarked), a person I also don’t know or care about. If ethos is supposed to make me believe in the credibility of your characters and world, then Chapter 1 stumbled so hard it broke its own leg. You gave ethos to Marvin—a mentor figure—and not the actual MC, Trey, who we don’t even meet until later. It's like bad prologue that is completely sidelined once the "actual" story begins.
But the biggest betrayal of Chapter 1 isn’t the rookie mistakes—it’s how the entire chapter undercuts your own synopsis. You said this story is about MC infiltrating Academy, but what I got was mentor flouncing off to his cozy retirement cottage after a melodramatic argument with his ex-bestie, oracle. Where’s MC? Where’s the academy? Where’s the emotional hook that should make me care about anything? If this is a setup, it’s one that feels like a bait-and-switch. I came for infiltration and intrigue, not a retirement drama and a clunky thunderstorm metaphor signaling Marvin’s angst.
Then we get to Chapter 2, and oh boy, if Chapter 1 is a stumble, this one’s a full-on faceplant into the void. Ethos? Squandered harder than your lunch money on the resident witch of this forum. Marvin and Trey are supposed to be on a covert mission, but their spy game is weaker than the two drunk guys IRL doing a robbery. Fake names like “Henrick” and “Pudge” are introduced for secrecy, only for Marvin to blow Trey’s cover mid-fight by yelling his real name like he's stupid and doesn't follow the spy cred, which is one of the oldest creds out there, even in fantasy world. Information is a king. And let’s not forget how they casually drop personal details while insisting they’re undercover. You’re writing spies, not a middle school gossip circle. Either commit to the subterfuge or don’t bother pretending. Even parody spy thrillers have better spying activities than here.
Pacing? It’s like you’re tried to sabotage yourself knowingly, and succeeded at that. The chapter starts strong in the tavern, setting the stage with some decent atmosphere, but the moment the dwarf pair opens their mouths, the story stops. Jakko, bless his little heart, supposed to be shady artifact dealer, but instead, he comes across as two dimensional character who is offended at small things. His sudden leap to “you’re a spy!” feels less like a logical escalation and more like you realized, “Oh crap, I need a fight scene here.” It’s forced, clunky, and utterly unearned. Logos dies right here, at this moment.
And speaking of fights, can we talk about how boring Trey is during what should be his big moment? This kid, barely 18, kills two people—his first kills, mind you—and we get zero emotional fallout. No hesitation, no reflection, just “stabby stab-stab, let’s move on”, with poker face. Trey is supposedly the protagonist, yet he’s treated like Marvin’s sidekick (which he is), reacting to everything instead of driving the story. Even his humor is bland, overshadowed by Marvin’s endless snark. If Trey is MC, as you insist, then where’s his humanity? Because right now, he’s a cardboard cutout with “main character” scrawled on it in crayon.
Now, let’s talk technical issues, because if there’s one thing this story is consistent about, it’s being technically a mess. Usually when the beginning is bad, I can extrapolate that the following chapters have the same issue too. Your overreliance on dialogue tags is killing the flow. Every conversation reads like a tennis match with commentary: “he said, she exclaimed, he retorted, she countered.” Dialogue should reveal character and advance the plot, but yours just pads the word count with endless, repetitive chatter. You could cut it in half with show. And don’t get me started on the tell, don’t show epidemic. You tell me Trey is nervous, Marvin is clever, and Jakko is dangerous, but you rarely show it through action or subtext. It’s like you don’t trust your readers to figure anything out, so you hammer every point home with a hammer called tell.
The pacing and emotional hooks are equally disastrous. Chapter 1 drags because you keep rehashing the same points about Elena and Grimmault without adding depth or stakes. Chapter 2 fares no better, with endless exposition about Windrake’s Soul Inquiry and Marvin’s years of secrecy. By the time the fight rolls around, I’m too numbed by all the talking to care. Where’s the emotional hook? Trey’s supposed to be an apprentice stepping into a dangerous new world, but the story gives me no reason to root for him. His “mentor,” Marvin, hogs the spotlight, leaving Trey in the shadows to stand there like a robot following the "mentor".
Here’s the thing: your idea isn’t bad. A non-mage infiltrating a magical academy to uncover secrets? That’s solid groundwork. But your execution screams “amateur” in the worst possible ways. It’s like you got so excited about the concept that you forgot to actually build a story around it. You’re relying on tropes—grizzled mentor, plucky apprentice, shady artifact dealers—without adding any depth or originality. The result is a story that feels generic, clunky, and devoid of the spark that makes readers fall in love with a world and its characters.
In the end, this webnovel isn’t a failure of ideas; it’s a failure of craft. You have the tools to tell a good story, but you’re wielding them like someone who just wandered into the writing scene for the first time. Stop telling me what’s happening, start showing me why it matters, and for the love of all things tropefied, let Trey actually be the protagonist. Until then, your opening chapters is less “Windrake’s Rogue” and more “Amateur Hour at the Academy.” Good luck, you’re gonna need it, A LOT.