Yet another free feedback thread.

TheIcMan

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Good day to you. Before I start with the feedback, I would mention that English is my second language. I stopped reading after finishing all the available chapters. The current last chapter is Chapter 1 – Light of the Lower Moon.

I'm not a furry, which means there is no chance that I will continue reading your novel. Though the quality is okay. Overall it's easy to read, and I like the way you write, but not by a lot. 60% like and 40% dislike. Too many descriptions of action to my taste, but maybe it's because it's the first chapter, I don't know.

There are some weird phrases.
They recovered from their surprise and tried to crawl out of it, but the hole only dug deeper into the ground. Weird second part.

She had been sprinting through this area not long ago, but she could properly take in the sight now. Again, weird second part.

The crooked and dark buildings behind them seemed as if they would fall apart at any minute, but yet they stood tall. But yet. I think it's a typo? If you wrote it intentionally don't do it anymore. One 'yet' is enough.

The people trudging around varied in nearly all ways, but a majority of the people here wore rags over their furred coats. A useless repetition of the word people. You can rewrite the sentence a bit and make it look better.

Trys shoved her glasses down on the table. Shoved the glasses down?

None other fit the title of Elder than the Dragon before her. Either misplaced words, a typo, or you forgot to write a word.

Apart from those sentences, I didn't notice any glaring mistakes, typos, or weird phrases. As I said before, overall, it's easy to read and comprehend which I rate high. Now that it's easy to read, I want a higher quality. More appropriate descriptions, add small details, a bit more non-weird metaphors, fewer descriptions of action, add slightly more exposition\thoughts, work on and improve the paragraphing, and make the text more smooth. I can't give advice on all the things I mentioned for two reasons. I would have to rewrite chunks of your novels and I'm a shit author, so chances are I wouldn't be able to show a good example. The second reason, I provide feedback as a reader. Rewriting is not something I do; I only state my likes and dislikes.

About the story itself. You gave way too many names and terms. That's a downside, in my opinion. There is no gradual learning of what is happening, and why I should care. Whenever I see such a novel, I want to drop it immediately. Because I constantly feel like I miss parts of the story.

A somewhat subjective dislike is the opening scene. A GANG with knives stole... apples... I might be the only one who is perplexed by the logic of this event, so I won't dwell on it for too long.

Another subjective dislike is the way you ended the chapter. I felt like it was not a proper cliffhanger. It felt more like you cut off a part of the chapter, which isn't a cliffhanger. A cliffhanger is something that urges you to learn what happens next. But in your case, I questioned myself why you ended it like that.

That's probably it. As usual, I didn't rate your story. But if I had to, 3 stars. I don't have a lot to say, sorry. If you have some specific questions, I might answer them but don't expect much.
Yooo thanks!!
That's the kinda stuff I wanted to hear. And I'm not a furry either lmao, but it's fun to do different stuff.
The exposition/thoughts thing is the main one I've worried about since like... ever, so that's good to hear that I'm still not doing too well on that front. And the name-dumping's also another thing, so I'll take that into consideration. I'll see what I want to do with that after writing everything for this part.
 

Navtz

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Yo, this seems fun.
If it's still going can you gut me as well?
Leaving the review here is fine, link!
 

ElijahRyne

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I want to cement my fame as a rude person and, if possible, aim to become the rudest person on the SH forum. How can I do this? By offering free reviews and bashing everyone's works.

Okay, so I decided to do a free review thread as I'm seeking something to read, I'm seeking inspiration, and looking to steal ideas from other authors. I won't sugarcoat my words, and I won't use most technical terms other reviewers might use. English is my second language, and I'm a shit author, but what does it mean to you? It means that I will review your stories based on my feelings rather than technicalities, and I will do it as a reader, not as an author.

The rules are simple. You post a link to your story, you state where you would like to receive the review\feedback, this thread, or PM, and I read your story. After I read as much as I can, I will reply to you.

I won't read three genres; GL(girls love\yuri), BL(boys love\yaoi), and GB(gender bender).
Could you do this? This thread is fine for the revie/feedback.
 

Caivy

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Honestly, I have been working as a freelancer for about a year now, and since the pandemic hit I have been reading web novels, and light novels for a while now. It's only this week that am started to dabble in the field of creating things instead of just enjoying them. (that's why I like coding so much). Anyway, these are my first two chapters looking for some good feedback and criticism.

PS. Am not a native English speaker as you can tell and my grammar situation is just a mess. Most of the time I just use feeling with grammar instead of knowing what am doing. :blob_shock:

Supreme Magus in Another World
 

SailusGebel

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Yo, this seems fun.
If it's still going can you gut me as well?
Leaving the review here is fine, link!
Good day to you. Before I start with the feedback, I would mention that English is my second language. I stopped reading after finishing Chapter 4 – Prologue, End and skimming through Chapter 5.

What can I say? The characters are bad, the worldbuilding is bad, the way you write is bad, your paragraphing is bad, the grammar is bad, and the descriptions are lacking\absent. There is almost nothing to the story, and I haven't noticed any upsides.

Let me elaborate on everything step by step. I will start with the most important thing that affects everything else in one way or another. The way you write. By this, I mean how you phrase your sentence, your choice of words to use, what idioms you use, what kind of metaphors you come up with, and so on. You can also probably add the grammar to this list, mostly punctuation and your choice of tenses.

Let's further break this down. The most simple thing to mention would be your tenses. They constantly shift, and I'm not sure(I'm a shit author and blah-blah), but I think there were more than a couple of times when you used an outright wrong tense.

Punctuation. I fuck up punctuation as well, and I don't remember half of the rules. Yet even when I'm like this, I see that your sentences simply don't make any sense with the current punctuation. Let me show you a couple of examples.

From what I learned only there, could a military ship house the family of its captain. What? With the current comma, it doesn't make any sense.

The first time was a strange experience, but not unpleasant in the least since my mind doesn't care about it, as my body can't get aroused by seeing her breasts. Again, wrong punctuation makes it hard to comprehend what is written here.

Finally today while Anna was thinking about what to let me watch there was immense progress in knowing which world or universe is this, or in simple terms, I recognized a word. Same as the example above.

Your tendency to write long sentences combined with bad punctuation results in hard-to-understand sentences.

Now, something that is a bit harder to explain is your choice of words and the way you phrase your sentences. I will show you a couple of examples, but I won't mention punctuation. Instead, I will try to explain why your choice of words or your phrasing is wrong.

I prayed that day for me to not be a villain, disappointingly I didn't get a trophy. The first part of the sentence isn't connected to the second part logically. Because of this, this sentence looks weird.

There were some high-ranking looking guys visiting, the type of guys you would think say "Those measly commoners getting in the way of my plan" in some dark room. There are useless words here and wrong tenses. Also, you can cut this sentence into two. As it is right now, it looks weird and clunky.

Once I breath the translucent vapor my mind goes blank, I start to feel relaxed and internally content like the feeling of peace and serenity. You can once again split this sentence into several ones. As it is right now, it's outright incomprehensible. What does "feel content like the feeling of peace" means? Even when you put a comma there, it is still incomprehensible.

Like how the empire was divided in dukes ruling over planets and the union had been made from the government of other planets bonding together against the empire's expansion. Divided in dukes? Maybe divided into dukedoms? But even if you change dukes into dukedoms, the way you structured\worded\phrased that sentence is still going to be wrong\weird. It's incomprehensible gibberish because, yet again, two parts of the sentence aren't connected properly.

A mistake and a typo that I noticed.
I truly need to thank the hard work of fans in compiling a guide for that. I can't remember your name but you live in my heart. FanS yet one name?

“You won't pilot anything tenka-sama No capitalization of the name.

Now, let's talk about your lack of descriptions. Let me show you an example once again.

My “father” is a big, muscular man with reptile eyes in a white suit with blonde hair and beard, a scar running down his left eye. This isn't a description. This is a temporary note used in a first draft before you write an actual description and edit it. All of your descriptions are either like that or completely absent. Why does it matter? Well, it helps me, a reader, to visualize the scene, and as it's a first-person POV it helps me in understanding the character of a person whose POV is used. And what I wrote right here is only the tip of the iceberg.

The problems above also result in bad paragraphing. Your paragraphs are usually one-sentence long, which isn't that on its own. Why they are one-sentence long matters. And they are like that for all the wrong reasons. Apart from the things I mentioned above, you also like to split one scene into different paragraphs, which makes it harder to read and overall looks not as pleasant.

Another problem. From what I've seen, you don't end your chapters properly. The endings of chapters 1 and 3 are bad. They don't look like cliffhangers or an end of the chapter; it looks like you cut off a piece of the chapter. The ending of chapters 2 and 4 is a bit better, but they don't invoke a desire to learn what's going to happen. A couple of plain endings.

Worldbuilding and why it's bad. Your text is too clunky, convoluted, and sometimes completely incomprehensible. Because of that, I simply can't understand things. It's not me who should tear through gibberish and try to understand something. You should help me understand things as an author. It's not about you tricking me or making subtle foreshadowing. It's about shitty grammar. The way you implemented that worldbuilding is also bad, and I will explain why in the second section.

Characters. These are not characters; they are plot devices without any personality. They don't feel remotely believable, and it has nothing to do with your story being fiction. The amount of info I get from the text is close to nothing, which forces me to use my own logic. But it's not even the worst thing.

Useless thoughts for a one year old, but my birthday should be soon. This is the worst thing, your MC. You use a first-person POV, yet MC doesn't have any personality AT ALL. MC doesn't act like a kid, MC doesn't act his age, MC doesn't have any emotions, and MC acts like an indifferent narrator from a novel that uses a third-person POV. But here's the catch, your novel isn't third-person. There are no thoughts, no observations, he doesn't describe things he had never seen, he doesn't show any emotions, he simply exists and narrates plot and worldbuilding, in a bad way. Some stories might have emotionless narrators, or maybe you wanted to create a mystery, or something else. It doesn't matter because, in your case, it looks like a mistake.

The highlighted sentence that I copied from your text. Like, what is even the purpose of that sentence? Because MC isn't one-year-old. That one sentence contradicts almost everything you write. Like how he tried to use some kind of power and hid it. He said that it's not something a kid would do and proceeds to do it anyway. Why the hell he didn't say that it's now what a one-year-old should do?

I remember getting all achievements in a game yesterday, eating and going to sleep right after, nothing strange happened up to that point and currently I’m being held by a big man up in the air, my body seems to be the size of a baby.

In fact, I am a baby, a newborn, an infant, a grain of man, a bloody toddler, an adult fetus…

Calm down, me.


No emotions, no thoughts, no descriptions, no body movements, no sounds, nothing. He simply narrates the plot, does an exposition while being in a vacuum, then he proceeds to apparently rant and tries to calm down, all while SHOWING NO EMOTIONS. What the hell is that? God damn, why the hell does he need to calm down if his emotional spectrum is of a wooden plank?

And all of your text is like that.

I started to rush not waiting for his response and he came after me.

After a small scolding we were walking down to the central room.
Why scolding? What happened? I didn't cut anything as I copied those two PARAGRAPHS from the text. Nothing, just a random scolding of someone or something over something.

I didn't think to speak, was this serious? Did I just get ejected to space by my father? What's up with that brute mass of oddly assorted meat pump and oily rugged hair. Was this a new way of playing devised by the gorillas of his kind? As his son I would like a formal notice sent around before its implementation. I literally don't understand a single thing from this paragraph. BUT when I tried, I noticed that this is apparently MC's emotions at the moment when he doesn't even know whether he is going to live or die. Can you see emotions here? Me neither.

It's like MC is always in a vacuum, he doesn't hear, he doesn't feel anything through touch, he doesn't see. All he does is tell us worldbuilding and how a game works. And all his interactions are also like that. There is a nanny-like figure? How is he going to interact with her? He won't. There will be a couple of sentences, a weird gaming session that feels like MC plays it alone in a vacuum, and that's it.

And all of the things I wrote are combined, they are mixed together. Even if you say that MC is emotionless, first of all, he cried when he lost, secondly, your story doesn't have this tag, thirdly, you failed to explain this in the text. Even if you explain why MC acts like that, it will be useless. Because everything should be in the text.

Right now, your story looks like a first draft. It's hard to comprehend, and there is almost nothing in it.

As usual, I didn't rate your story. But if I had to, 1.5 stars.
 

Navtz

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@SailusGebel Ouch, my guts.
Thanks for the feedback, seems like I need to rewrite everything and study a little more for others to enjoy my story.
You pointed out some things I did on purpose and didn't even consider as a problem as well.
I'll slowly work on that then and thanks again sir!
 

SailusGebel

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@SailusGebel Ouch, my guts.
Thanks for the feedback, seems like I need to rewrite everything and study a little more for others to enjoy my story.
You pointed out some things I did on purpose and didn't even consider as a problem as well.
I'll slowly work on that then and thanks again sir!
Before doing any major changes, ask others. I don't know which threads with free feedback are currently active, but there are a couple, I think. Find them yourself. People in other feedback threads would be a lot more helpful than me. They might guide you a bit or show you a direction on how to improve. I can't do it. I can only state my likes\dislikes.
 

SailusGebel

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Could you do this? This thread is fine for the revie/feedback.
Good day to you. Before I start with the feedback, I would mention that English is my second language. I stopped reading after finishing Chapter 3 – Magic and a Friend?!

Sorry, I can't say much about your novel as it's not my cup of tea. I don't like the way you write at all, but I can't define why. It's not that the quality is atrocious or it's incomprehensible, but I do find it boring. With that out of the way, let me tell you what I noticed and can say about your novel.

First of all, I fucking hate large spaces between paragraphs. In chapter one, everything was fine, but then you decided to break it. Maybe it's only me, but this thing genuinely makes it hard to read. My eyes wander all the time.

The second thing is bloody. Bloody doesn't feel like a non-human protagonist. It acts and thinks way too much like a human. Either you skipped the proper build-up to make this change believable, or it's because of your writing. Either way, Bloody feels way too much like a human. Like, I get it that it got the memories, and it likes humans now, and so on. But even before gaining human memories, Bloody acted way too much like a human. Sorry, I can't phrase it well enough.

You had one typo.
If it does, then I have just left Gen for nothing.
One day, while I was watching a human called Gue, I saw something strange.
Is it Gue or Gen?

Chapter 3 felt way too info-dumpy.

And that's pretty much it. I have nothing else to say. As usual, I didn't rate your story. But if I had to, 2.75 stars.
 

RaLo

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Hello! If you have time, please...

 

SailusGebel

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If you don't mind here is my book https://www.scribblehub.com/series/569252/life-in-prodosia/ If possible try reading past the first fight scene and tell me what you think, and btw just because I'm a new writer doesn't mean I can't take some critiques.
Good day to you. Before I start with the feedback, I would mention that English is my second language. I stopped reading after skimming through Chapters 0 and 1 and glanced at the rest.

I don't want to be rude, but I don't want to sugarcoat my words either. You wrote yourself that writing is a relaxation tool, so I don't quite get why you want to get better. Anyway, if you want to get better, you should ask other authors how to write, read guides, and so on.

Currently, your story is nothing. Like, literally nothing, there is nothing in your text, there is no story. There isn't even a synopsis. There are only constant repetitions, bad paragraphing, bad grammar, and descriptions of movements. If you take away every depiction of MC's movements, all I'm left with is MAYBE 200 words of a story in each chapter.

To show you examples of what is wrong, I need to read your text in-depth and rewrite it. First of all, it's not what I do in this thread. Secondly, I won't be able to help you as I'm a shit author. Ask others if you want to improve.
 

Zenkarn

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Hey SailusGebel,

I'd love a review for my story The Garbage Gladiator if you have the time. Thanks for doing this for everyone.
 

SailusGebel

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Honestly, I have been working as a freelancer for about a year now, and since the pandemic hit I have been reading web novels, and light novels for a while now. It's only this week that am started to dabble in the field of creating things instead of just enjoying them. (that's why I like coding so much). Anyway, these are my first two chapters looking for some good feedback and criticism.

PS. Am not a native English speaker as you can tell and my grammar situation is just a mess. Most of the time I just use feeling with grammar instead of knowing what am doing. :blob_shock:

Supreme Magus in Another World
Tell me where you would like to get your feedback, here or PM.
Hello! If you have time, please...

Tell me where you would like to get your feedback, here or PM.
Hey, can you do Meanest Mob, it's in my signature
First of all, tell me where you would like to get your feedback, here or PM. Secondly, there is a rule to post a link to your story. Usually, I read novels on my phone, and I can't see signatures on my phone.
Hey SailusGebel,

I'd love a review for my story The Garbage Gladiator if you have the time. Thanks for doing this for everyone.
First of all, tell me where you would like to get your feedback, here or PM. Secondly, there is a rule to post a link to your story. Usually, I read novels on my phone, and I can't see signatures on my phone.
 

Zenkarn

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Tell me where you would like to get your feedback, here or PM.

Tell me where you would like to get your feedback, here or PM.

First of all, tell me where you would like to get your feedback, here or PM. Secondly, there is a rule to post a link to your story. Usually, I read novels on my phone, and I can't see signatures on my phone.

First of all, tell me where you would like to get your feedback, here or PM. Secondly, there is a rule to post a link to your story. Usually, I read novels on my phone, and I can't see signatures on my phone.
That's what I get for posting in between work! *Whoops*

Feedback here would be fine,

Hopefully that link works. Sorry about that.
Thanks again.
 

SailusGebel

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Hello! If you have time, please...

Good day to you. Before I start with the feedback, I would mention that English is my second language. I stopped reading after finishing Prologue: A Tiger in Distress.

It's a disjointed mess.

There are a lot of useless sentences, sentences that need a follow-up; for example, you ask a question, so you need to write an answer, but you end up changing the topic, and so on. It's very messy and hard to comprehend.

An example is a paragraph that starts with the following sentence. He was now the 17th President of the Philippines. Just look at the two sentences that come after this one.

State leaders would probably say yes if someone asked if they were busy.

But now he sat in a lavishly decorated chair, sitting side by side with his wife, Marie.


How the hell are those three sentences connected?

The way you write is repetitive. I actually didn't notice that much of words repetitions, but the way you structure the sentences repeats time and time again. Here's an example.

Limited are our guns, ammos, and bombs. The highlighted part is SAID by someone, yet the same structure was used for other characters, for the narrator's voice, and so on. This means that everyone talks the same, even the narrator.

The combination of the two points I mentioned above might result in this. The birthday celebrant and her husband seemed to be in a hurry. After they passed the stupefied crowds, they explained the situation. They passed, they explained. What?

Examples of badly phrased sentences that are weird and\or hard to understand.

Many critics of his scowled when they heard such a party. What?

Just then, the sprawling cities of Metro Manila came into their view. There were 17 cities. What?

His father had always stressed how disappointed at him for his dull-wittedness. What?

Perhaps this happens because of your bad grammar or inattention. I don't know. I just know that there are a lot of sentences like the above ones.

A couple of typos.
all the types of foods that everyone wanted . typo?

We import most of our energy to China. Maybe import FROM China?

The prologue felt way too info-dumpy. The thing is, everything you wrote there was already in the synopsis. You can obviously repeat it, but you should strive to achieve something with your repetition. Like building personalities of your characters or some other things. What I've read was an info dump that repeats your synopsis.

And lastly, two kinda logical mistakes.
“Mr. president, I agree with secretary Lorenz. If this is another world, we should gather information about it. They can be a potential trading partner. Well, first of all, all those secretaries, ministers, presidents, politicians, bodyguards, all those people accepted that they are in a different world WAY too quickly. It feels like the whole isekai is just a passing thought. Secondly, a proposition to look for a potential trading partner is COMPLETELY out of place.

She was the national security advisor, Claire Carnas. And not only that proposition is out of place, someone who isn't an economist talks about economy. :blob_unsure:

As usual, I didn't rate your story. But if I had to, 2 stars.
 

USA

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I want to cement my fame as a rude person and, if possible, aim to become the rudest person on the SH forum. How can I do this? By offering free reviews and bashing everyone's works.

Okay, so I decided to do a free review thread as I'm seeking something to read, I'm seeking inspiration, and looking to steal ideas from other authors. I won't sugarcoat my words, and I won't use most technical terms other reviewers might use. English is my second language, and I'm a shit author, but what does it mean to you? It means that I will review your stories based on my feelings rather than technicalities, and I will do it as a reader, not as an author.

The rules are simple. You post a link to your story, you state where you would like to receive the review\feedback, this thread, or PM, and I read your story. After I read as much as I can, I will reply to you.

I won't read three genres; GL(girls love\yuri), BL(boys love\yaoi), and GB(gender bender).
Here:
It's good, I promise. :blob_melt:
 

SailusGebel

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Here:
It's good, I promise. :blob_melt:
Tell me where you would like to get your feedback, here or PM.
 
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