Ierrech Keep at it. I have some readers that really love the work. The ranking is part fads. Things come and go, but if you can remain constant then that is good.
Why publish for free?
BabyTanuki Thanks for the encouragement!!!!
Though I do want to get contracted and have a change of career... lol... I do want to finish off this story first... gain the experience and finish this journey with my imaginary friends :smile:
Ierrech
Finished my review. I left it on your novel and am pasting it below. Wish I had more advice to give you on it, but I don't have much. Your writing is excellent in quality. You clearly don't lack ideas. Things I think you can improve on are:
1. Removing multiple perspectives for the early chapters.
2. Introduce less in the early chapters. Too much is going on and it's overwhelming. All in the time of a fight where not much plot development happens. Or at-least not much plot development understandable to the reader.
3. Thought of this one after posting my review. You may want to work on your story/plot pacing. I think your story/plot pacing is to slow for the chapters I read (first 7). I myself find this challenging as well. My 1st novel was arguably too slow paced. My 2nd novel was too fast paced in the beginning, though I think I got it just right after the first 10 chapters or so.
My review:
Note: I give 5 stars despite whatever I write below. This review is given as of 7 chapters.
Writing Quality 5/5: Excellent grammar, sentence structure, etc. I think this may be the first time I gave a 5/5 for writing quality on a review.
Updates: Don't know. New reader.
Story Development 3/5: It's not that the story isn't good. Because it is. It's just that I'm 7 chapters in and I still don't really know much of what's going on. What's the big goal?. The fight and backstory took 6 long chapters. There's just too much going on with little development. We're watching Sam. Just when I start to like her and develop a connection to the character, BAM! Now we're watching grandpa. Okay, let's follow that for a bit... oh. Now we're in a backstory. So much happening but so little being explained to the reader within that time.
Character Design 4.5/5: Characters are interesting and I like them. Especially Sam and grandpa. Could be a bit more descriptive on looks. Author is really good at describing fight scenes between characters.
World Background. Both 5/5 and 2.5/5: here's why. The world is interesting right from the beginning. Woah! We got magic, knights, and junk. Cool. Oh, we also have electronics such as cellphones. Oh, okay. Is it an Earth-like world? Oh, we've also got Gods and the characters are saying things that sound like Buddhist attacks to me... Yeah, I'm lost. I feel like the world has 5/5 potential. It reminds me a bit of Naruto because of the mix of tech and magic. But there's just too much going on too soon for me to absorb and process it all.
Advice for author. Note: These are my biased thoughts and may not necessarily be correct.
1. Drop the multiple perspectives at least in the beginning. We need time to get acquainted with MC and her world-view first. This has an extra benefit as well. If MC watches the beginning fight, then when Gramps and the bad guy are yelling out their weird Buddhist-sounding attacks then the MC can express confusion on having no idea what the hell is happening. Then the reader isn't lost. The reader is connecting with the MC because neither MC or reader knows what's happening. Also, now there's a reason for all or at least some of whats going on to be explained to her by grandpa after the fight is over.
2. Too much introduced too soon. Magic, Buddhist sounding attacks, knights, electricity, etc. This might get resolved by just getting rid of the multiple perspectives as mentioned earlier though.
Ierrech
Oh one more thing I forgot. Again, just my opinion, but I think your synopsis is way too long.
SnoozySloth Thanks!!! It's something I can't see/ feel myself when reading it I guess!
Gotta change it then; that's very helpful!
Ierrech
You're already fairly far in the story though. If it's going to make your future chapters confusing by doing a lot of editing then you may want to hold back. Perhaps keep it in mind when planning your next novel.
EldridSmith
Done. I left comments on your first three chapters with some suggestions and fixing a lot of grammar/sentence structure issues.
Review below:
Note: I give 5 stars regardless of what I write below. I wrote this review as of 7 chapters.
Writing Quality 3.5/5. This is the main area the novel suffers, though its still relatively easy to read. There are a lot of run-on sentences. Some poor sentence structuring. A lot of comma misuse. Still, I wouldn't let that turn you away from this novel, because it's a quick read that's easy to follow.
Updates: Dunno. New reader.
Story Development 4.5/5: We've got some interesting developments happening very quickly. It kept my interest, which is relatively rare for most novels these days. Minus half a point for unnecessary overuse of time-skips.
Character Design 4/5: What's the difference between Adrian and Eldrid except that one is lucky/athletic and one is fat? Their personalities and emotions need to be fleshed out more. They don't express themselves when things happen. No frowning, questioning, sarcasm, trembling/fear, etc. Despite that, I like both characters. But some potential is being wasted here.
World Background 5/5: I know what's happening. Things only get more interesting as you go with the introduction of Adrian's master.
Final thoughts: You're doing a good job. Your ideas and story pacing are both excellent. Work on grammar, sentence structure, and character emotions. Then your novel will soar in quality. I gave you some example comments in the first three chapters. I hope they help.
Ierrech
EldridSmith
You two may want to review each others novels. You both have almost exact opposite weaknesses and strengths.
In short, here is what I thought as a reader:
Lerrech:
Good:
- Excellent grammar and sentence structure (Seriously. Best I've seen.)
- Good character emotions, expressions, etc. EldridSmith, pay attention to Ierrech's fight scene between Sam and the hunter for a good combat scene. Then compare that to your fencing scene.
-Bad:
- Pacing is too slow and drawn out.
- Story Development is hard to follow because too much is happening despite the plot not moving forward.
EldridSmith
Good:
- Story Development. The pace is fast. So much happens in just a few chapters, but it isn't overwhelming to the reader at all. This novel held my interest due to the pacing and that the plot kept moving.
- World Background. I'm given quite a bit of information about the world without it diving into too much detail.
Bad:
- Grammar and sentence structure. It left a lot to be desired.
- Characters. I felt that they lack distinct emotions and personalities.
Ahhh that's so true... I am infected by 3 novels that I didn't realise I'm following....
-LoTR (it's so long because the story moves so slow! So many descriptions but nothing happens)
-Emperors domination
-Wheel of time
Yeah I've been reading @EldridSmith 's novel too. I think its gonna be a pretty big restructuring!
Ierrech
English authors often go heavy text with slow plot. It's what we're used to. Some authors can get away with it here, but its important to remember most readers are coming here for the easy to digest fast-paced books.
Also, a lot of authors make the big mistake of comparing themselves to LOTR or Harry Potter. The individual books in these collections are unusually long. Articles I've read online recommended that beginners plan their individual volumes to be between 70k and 120k words depending on the genre.
Actually, if you look up Harry Potter length, you'll notice each of the first 3 books are only around 70k to 120k words each. By the 4th book she was popular enough to do whatever she wanted. So the later books get ridiculously long like the LOTR books.
That's not to say an author has to follow these rules. But it's something to think about.
SnoozySloth I also thought I would write a book on 70-100th words, but the reality is cruel. Went to 126th, but the book does not want to end. :)
Maili
Just to make sure were on the same page, when I said book I was refering to volumes. For example, Harry Potter is 7 volumes.
Still, plenty of books will go longer. I'd be shocked if none of my volumes end up going past the average.
SnoozySloth yup... my problem.
Next novel I'll be going Korean style - super fast plot progression, the entire story can end in 80 chaps! Like "The Breakers" on wuxiaworld - that was pretty good!
- Edited
SnoozySloth Ironically my English teacher is reading this and had no complaints.
Though it does need work, to keep up my 1 a day schedule... not as feasible as I'd like.
By the way, what chapter did you read to?
EldridSmith
Hmm. May want to ask your English teacher to grammar check it like a graded paper. She may also not be used to stories, so might not do well at fixing the grammar in them. Many english teachers only ever grade essays and such. When I first started writing stories I had good grammar because I write tons of research papers and such for college. But my writing flow and character emotions left a lot to be desired.
SnoozySloth I think that's my problem too. 
Writing research papers was a lot different from writing stories.
SnoozySloth Fair point, thanks for the help.
Novel writing is basically linked to your imagination. If you can imagine something great, then its always a good idea to make it into a story if you can readers for it, regardless of you being paid or not.
The greatest hurdle one may face in writing is expressing their imagination. You might have some good idea and you can even imagine it with great vividness, but can you express it using your writings?
If yes, then write it, and don't rush your story. Make sure you write every supporting or bypassing character properly and give them personality. They are not there to just waste words, give them a strong purpose which supports overall story. Any supporting character who is not adding to our protagonist cause is filler character, try to avoid them.
For example, our protagonist wants to become the strongest person, but a supporting character wants to become a poet. If supporting character's dream helps protagonist cause somehow, then he is adding to the story, otherwise, he is there just for the sake of being there.
The protagonist must have a distinct goal. it doesn't have to the final goal as he can set new goals for himself in the middle of the current goal or after achieving the current goal.
These are the lessons I have learned in my time of writing a story.
My biggest mistake in my story was that I gave the protagonist a big powerup at the very beginning, but fortunately, I restricted his ability to use most of it.
I wrote my first novel a couple of weeks ago. It was a story that floated in my mind for a long time. And I wanted to make it happen so I decided to finally write it. The story at the beginning might seem rushed but it settles down after the first fifteen chapters( after getting powerup).
I was hoping some people might look at it and review it, so I can correct my mistakes and write a better story which I enjoy writing and others enjoy reading.
Death: A Shadow of Darkness
There might some grammatical mistakes here and there (such as the wrong comma), but I will correct them very soon.
SnoozySloth two things that I could fix without messing up the story and having a headache... moved the backstory to Aux Volume, added 1 chap to explain the driving force of why things happen... you're right, it'd be too much to try and fix it unless I did a full reboot.
And deleting/ reporting on inkstone is horrible!
SnoozySloth lynerparel Ierrech
OMG you have too much time on forum. Go write your novel. I mean trash chapters.