Fiona_Singer And just to add to my point, you have to realize that in a platform like WebNovel, there's an unsolvable contradiction about rating and reviewing, which plays out like this:

First most reviews a not-so-famous author would receive are from fellow authors, and they are themselves mainly not the contracted, front-page-promoted but somewhat experienced-in-this-field writers (typically, people like me :D). These group of people, in my point of view, are the only source of originality in literature on a highly commercial website like this, and you must painfully understand that though they are the only people here who you can get valuable advices from, they are also, in some sense, very self-centered and even feel arrogant to new writers like you in literature tastes. Which leads to an ironic scenario like this: those mass-produced commercial rubbish has a higher rating they don't deserve from their large fan base and their kind of maturity in quality--well, they are mass-produced and only a mature model of commodity can be put into massive production, while books with lesser audience and more originality crafted in a traditional way--no matter what quality--are harder critiqued by people with "a better and discerning taste" and thus have a lower rating than the former, which is apparantly unfair.

But you can't really blame these people. I always think writers should be more emotional (as I stated before), self-assertive and individualistic than a normal level, because well, they are writers, and if they don't have these characteristics they won't get into this path and continue on in the first place. Still, because I've personally been through too many unfair shxts that a non-mainstream but still stubborn-about-originality writer has been through, though I know I can't change anyone and have no rights to force anyone to accept my way, I always try to be gentle but HONEST in reviews, especially for niche works, or new writers with genuine passion about writing instead of the kind that can sacrifice anything for a contract. Even if I would have given them a lower rate--just like many people like me do--in my completely subjective taste, I always take the contradiction I mentioned above into consideration, trying to uncover the shining points first and list out the disadvantages and my suggestions, explaining why I believe they will improve writers' works, and never use words like "garbage" to describe their works, no matter how new and jerky they are.

I guess, again, it's because I've been through too many bxllshits in my writing career so I have a soft spot for anything with a beam of true love for writing and originality, because in this everything-is-fxxking-about-money world, love and originality are treated like trash whereas they are themselves already very fragile: sparks that will easily die out with a featherlight blow. Of course I know I will never be able to completely omit the elements of my "personal taste" in reviews (my pure hatred for mass-produced products is already a prejudice, objectively), but at least I will be proud to let the authors know that I'm aware of this, and I tried.

Ha, for WebNovel staff and contracted writers I'm probably a vicious, cynical bxtch, but what can I say, a bxtch can be caring, too∠( ᐛ 」∠)＿

Below are my reviews in order of time:

@JohnnyKbca https://www.webnovel.com/book/11167110406274305/Duality
I started from the beginning for about seven chapters and jumped to 17th chapter like the author requested, and it is indeed a huge improvement, so it seems you are a quick learner in right direction. Good for you XD

The writing is jerky--considering the author is still learning it's pretty understandable--but when reading it I don't really feel it's "bad", as in it hindered my understanding of the plots. Yes, it's bit plain, not quite enough of complexity and refinement, but it's simple and straightforward like you can understand it with a glance, making it effortless to read, which I would say may be a good thing to keep. In this part about writing style, I would suggest two things: 1. Try to get rid of some too oral or casual usage of language, for it might be acceptible for daily use, it won't be too proper for written form (I made that mistakes too sometimes XD); 2. Try to find your own style of writing, which means reading, writing and rewriting more to find a way to write that gives your work some personality. Doesn't have to be an eloquent one, just something you like and you feel like fitting your own characteristics.

The story development was pretty standard reincarnation and cultivation at first, but I'm glad the author chose to better it with a more mature writing style and a more meaningful theme for the novel. Character design, too. I started very curious and hoping, since it's the first black MC novel I read on this site, and little bit disappointed when it seemed to be an ordinary webnovel work, but now I'm picking up the hope again after Chpt 17 XD. Not that I assumed black people are just always full-of-anger, but uniqueness is fundamental to literature and the topic of colors will be an interesting place to start, especially considering how white/yellow-MC predominant this website is. I'd personally look forward to the author recreating the struggle of black people in a fantasized world XD.

@Mavislin11 https://www.webnovel.com/book/14083245205276005
The whole fiction gives me an impression of being an crystalized meteorite: otherworldly, mysterious, but also very hard and cold. The text is fairly well-versed and is given an hint of old-world English style, allowing it to perfectly blend into the story background, but not too much as in becoming a barrier to understand the plots.

And the world setting is beautifully unique, kind of reminds me old-school soft sci-fi works like Doctor Who, combining the futuristic, advanced element of races and planets from outerspace, and the wonderous, colourful element of magic and epics together. The author clearly devoted lots of time and energy into building up this vast, fantasy world, and the writing style depicted the world vividly.

However the characters and the story aren't so impressive, which is the part that gives me the "hard, cold" feeling. It's not that the design of the characters and the outline of the plots are bad--they can be quite good too if well processed--but the way author fleshes out the characters and narrates the plots are too abridged, to an extent that sometimes readers feel like the motivations of the actions of the character are too unclear, and the emotions are too thin.

I guess it's partly because it's written in a somewhat traditional English style so it's a little obscure--this is more or less inevitable if you are not using modern, plain language, and I suppose it's the writing style that the author feels comfortable with, so let's skip this part. The other reason may be that so far most of the main characters are not human and the real humans seem more secondary and a symbol of ignorance and bullying (well because they are indeed and it's worse in Dark Ages). But the thing is, according to the standard of a fair literature work, it has to be able to appeal to the readers, and unfortunately your readers are emotional, sensational, messy humans (In a perfect world we will have Martian readers), and quite to the contrary, to make the non-human characters alive you need to spend EXTRA EFFORTS on depicting their emotions and motives, because they don't think like humans, so it will be much harder for readers to sympathize with them, especially when they are somewhat unkind and indifferent in human perspectives, like your MC, and the author will have to try extra hard to guide the readers to understand their feelings.

From this angle I would strongly recommend the author to learn from Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles: the blood-sucking monsters are very captivating in her texts, and she is masterful in describing the non-human sensations. Read how she built up the character Claudia, who is in my opinion very simliar to your MC, will be very helpful: she lost all her human family at a young age and was left alone until being turned to a vampire, and although she appears like a dolly child she was much older, and she was taught to be a vicious hunter and ruthless drinker from a young age--She's no kinder to humans, but still readers, whether like her or not, can feel her thoughts and moods, and she is very much alive on Rice's paper(in a vampiric way, at least).

Not that if the author continued on like this, it would be bad, in general it's a very original and interesting work, and as the story unfolds and all the buried suspenses are uncovered, when people fully know the past and future of each character, we humans will understand why they did what they did, anyway. But still, if the author wanted to achieve a deeper sympathy between characters and readers where the latter would drop tears for the former, it's better to improve in this area.

@_Rain https://www.webnovel.com/book/13435760105800405
Never been big on any type of pure romance novels personally, but it's actually ok XD, simple, genuine, good start for a first work.

The writing needs lots of practice and polish, and some major mistakes like changing it from 3rd person pov to 1st person pov are going on and ALERT: that needs to disappear :D The author did pay a lot of attention to depict the details, though, very silky and feminine, already showing some personality in her writing style, which is a good thing--better than being correct but plain and boring, I think. And since it's based in real world it doesn't really weigh much on world settings, so we'll just skip that.

The shining part of this work is the realistic character design, as a college student when reading it I'm constantly reminded of people I know and what they are like, and even the tiniest emotions of these young, easily-affected are captured, if the author could better her touch and describe them in a more refined fashion, it would be one of the pure romances I'd click in and read--which are few and on the edge of extinction. Most of the romances I've glanced at either are stuffed with messy, cliche triangle/rectangle relationships and sex, so I'd hope the author focus seriously on just writing about this one major relationship and how they get to know each other, keep it--again like I said in the beginning--simple and genuine. :D

@Cynk_Napp https://www.webnovel.com/book/14258978606859905/Tangential
I don't really think I have anything to comment or say here, not at least in the conventional way. You don't "comment" on a child stumbles into a laboratory and piles all the burretts and pipettes and beakers up to a castle. You are facing a very raw, undecorated curiosity and creativity. Simply admire. That's enough.

But for both works of the author, I found it more interesting to peek at the personality its views and values about the subject of the book behind the curtain of the texts.

@marjzach2012 https://webnovel.com/book/13723808606034505
I feel like I'm torn between two parts of the book. For the first 5 chapters I genuinely love it and have no problem giving it all-5-stars, but then the whole book progressed into a quite strange direction and it feels like wearing a ill-fitting suit, and like I said in my review swap thread, I'm very much a picky readers who are accustomed to high-quality, classic literature, not web-novel stuff, thus the current rating, unfortunately :(

I guess the problem is that the writing style of the author is too distinctively light, cheerful and bouncing, and very fast-paced, so it is a perfect match for the first five chapters, where the story appears to be a classic modern romance comedy. In this part, the thoughts and emotions about marriage and relationship of a 30-year-old Filipino single woman are vividly portraited, and it greatly resonates with the readers, especially for asian girls like me :D. Whereas for women in western countries it might be harder to understand the huge pressure of late marriage, the nervousness and doubts before dating online should still be able to be felt by everyone. The characters, especially MC, are adorable in these five chapters, and everything is funny but also realistic, too. I actually had the exact same experience like MC (though I'm just a college student right now), probably except for the part of sexyness (I'm more of a hard-to-get cold beauty on the surface, according to the friend who started my Tinder account without my consent), so I couldn't help laughing while reading this.

But then the author chose to continue it in a tough, dramatic style, steering it towards tragedies/accidents/hardships, and trying to let MC become a strong, tough female lead. It's not a bad turn, if you turn your writing style into the same direction, too, but the author didn't, or failed at trying, and all the merits of her writing style I mentioned in the last paragraph became setbacks. For a tragic or difficult experience to be touching in a novel, you have to spend lots of words portraiting characters and narrating details, so that readers could fully resonate with the plots and feel what the characters feel. Instead, the author pushed the story forward in the same fashion as before, thus lacking lots of proper detail writing, progressing the story too quickly, and leaving the characters very empty--almost to a ridiculous degree, like Kevin. Though I understand in the whole outline of the story Kevin is objectively pretty much just a tool to get MC into Belgium legally and give her the house and money, but YOU CAN'T SERIOUSLY JUST DEPICT HIM THAT WAY IN THE TEXTS. To me, he just appeared so conveniently and died so conveniently, without enough flesh-out of his character and explanations of his motives. It's pretty cold-blooded, tbh.

So my suggestions are two: the first one, also the most recommended one, is to go back to the original romance comedy style, e.g.write about all types of people MC met in online dates and the funny stuff happened in the process, because I think this is the kind of story that fits the author's writing style best; the second, if the author is determined to write a conventional romance drama, then you have to practice and improve your writing.

Don't get frustrated (since you post it in my thread so I presume you are ready to stand critics) about this, it cannot be more common to make these mistakes if you are a beginner (I think so since it's your 1st novel here), especially when you are not writing in your mother language. Just read more and practice, and you will do better XD.

@Gourmet_DAO https://www.webnovel.com/book/13599217205409305/Magic-Farmer-Dara---2nd-Edition
I wouldn't really call this work a novel or fiction, but a documentary--even though the characters, the plots, the stage where it all happened are made up and semi-fictional, it is distinctively written in documental style, like someone is filming MC's career as a farmer for academic purpose: because you can read everything MC thought and every step he took as detailedly as possible, to the degree that you will know the exact weight of each agricultural product. It reminds me of the business cases I read in college: realistic, narrative records that take down all the information about how people start their business and make decisions that is useful in a business research sense. That's my general impression of this book, a business case about a farming enterprenuer in fictional world.

Which leads me to the problems. Obviously, you have to give credits to author's extraordinary knowledge of an amazingly wide range of subjects--It's rare and exciting, as a Chinese myself, to see someone who's so familiar with our culture. This requires a great amount of research, something that only someone with the spirit of old-time naturalists and a pure, noble curiosity can achieve. However, the core nature of novel--this form of literature work--is drama, theatricality, conflicts, suspense, which is something this book is lacking. The author focuses too much on presenting the details and knowledge in a way as realistic as possible, that he seems to forget he's writing a novel and telling a story to his readers, instead of making a research report to a group of scholars. And though I sense this may contradict with the author's ideology of writing, to make the story dramatic, theatrical, gripping, one has to rely on exaggeration and distortion, which means to some degree, to "disrespect" reality and knowledge. A novelist may omit something that does not serve a role in the plots and burden the pace of story progress, even if it's scientific and educational, and may add something that increases the intense of conflicts and the uniqueness of characters, even if it's totally meaningless in reality. The story always comes first.

Certainly, reality also plays a significant role in this, but its function--to use a metaphor of stage show scenario--is like the costumes and accessories the actors wear to make them look closer to the characters they play, the props, paintings and murals used on the background to give the audience a feeling of immersion, and actors' vivid, lively expressions and tunes to convince the viewers their emotions are real, so real that even the viewers will deeply sympathize with them, and cry or laugh. The status of reality in novels is always an honored guest in the house that makes the party cooler, but not the host, and that's the case even in realistic novels.

So what I am suggesting is that the author either changes his direction into a completely realistic, documentary area--e.g. it will be very interesting for me to read about how author himself travels into different countries and learn about all sorts of rare knowledge of local cultures and his thoughts of it; or tries harder on the "novel" part of the novel. I would recommend the first one much more personally, because I have the impression that the author has an evident researcher personality, so the first one would be a better fit for your nature XD

@veinglory https://www.webnovel.com/book/14240071106802505/The-Reluctant-Necromancer
A so surprisingly well-written novel that I don't really have much to say (considering usually how wordy I am in reviews, if the author has checked my reviews for others), because I don't really have any advice to give. You don't give advice to professional, really :D

The writing style is also unique--authentic, old-world English style(at least to my foreign eyes), beautifully matches the story background and the plots are progressing just in the right pace so far. Maybe a little bit difficult to read, and I saw some said you are skipping a lot, but to me I think it's more of a matter of personal taste, instead of a disadvantage or a problem needs to be fixed.

But at the same time I have to pity that this work, if the writer intends to publish it to win a contract, is a much better fit for paper media instead of internet. As a web novel writer with 6 years of experience in China, I'm fairly aware that on this kind of platform it's very hard to find a proper audience and gain the appreciation of editors it deserves for a work like this, because its fast-paced, leisure-focused, commercial nature.

Nevertheless it's still great work, one of the few books here I'd genuinely like to read after finishing my own novel simply because it's so good. Considering how picky I am, it's the highest compliment I could offer right now :D

P.S. Love the cover

Fiona_Singer Thank You!

(Sorry about missing this one, It's actually my 1st review here XD)
@Rxel https://www.webnovel.com/book/13967974605689305/Curse-the-Mainframe!
A very well written fiction in general, you can sense the maturity of writing quality from the texts, simple but great fun, completely compatible with the story itself without lagging the pace using excessive polish, something that can only be achieved by abundant reading and practice. There are some minor grammar mistakes but they are mainly out of overlooking (which I completely understand as a writer, believe me :<) and don't bother me at all.

And there's elements of originality, too, changing the usual MC for system fictions into a grumpy system who hates stupid transmigrants (which is extra funny XDDD and I completely feel the same about mainstream MCs, too), and the author know clearly how to build up the suspense to keep the readers curious. I won't say the world background, OCD and plots are so unique like they've never been seen and will not be able to be copied/applied by others, but there are plenty enough complexity and drama to support the story and make it enjoyable.

The only reason I'm not giving all-5 is probably very personal--just like System No.00290596, I'm not very good at dealing with kids, and until Chapter 08 not only the MC is still a 1-year-old (if I'm not mistaken), he's surrounded by kids, too >:( , kinda makes me worry how many chapters will I have to read to see him become a proper *****. Of course it doesn't mean the pace is too slow or these chapters are boring. Like I said, purely personal.

The first novel I encountered on this website that I intend to collect and read after finishing my own work (which is probably until forever XD). You can feel that the author was trying to make the story better, instead of stuffing it with disgusting, wanton cliches to appeal to some losers' vulgar tastes and childish fantasies(I'm not talking about guys like Xi Kai at all), and just for that, it's already better than 99% percent of the contracted books on the front page. Good job, Rxel XD.

Fiona_Singer
thank you very much.I so much appreciate your reviews for this is what I needed since its my first time to write here.

Wow

I have put a review in your book. Can you also review mine?

https://www.webnovel.com/book/11070379206248505/Legacy-of-Forgotten-Times

@Kasaix https://www.webnovel.com/book/11070379206248505/Legacy-of-Forgotten-Times
A very typical light-novel style work, somewhat reminded me of the Japanese anime RE:CREATERS but I don't think they are the same except for the part they are all about fictional characters trying to break the fourth wall and get in touch with their creators (Didn't watch the anime myself only heard about it so I'm not really sure).

There's a maturity and a degree of completion in author's writing style, so I assume the writer either read lots of light novels like the MC or practiced writing them for some time already, and the language is simple and very easy to read--though may lack some sort of characteristic/personality in there and seem a little plain, but it doesn't dampen much of the reading experience so it's not really a big problem, the writer may work on it if he wishes to better his writing than just "light-novel style". There are lots of casual and daily usage of language like abbreviation in the text, but in this case since it's a light novel whose MC and most characters are of young generations, this I would rather call a merit instead of a disadvantage, for it adds some realness from life into the fiction, same for the details of how otaku people like MC form up together in a club, organize those RP activities and interact with each other, showing that author is clearly someone in this circle.

As for advice I don't really have much to give, because clearly the author positioned his work to be a light novel and in this sense it is already rather well-written: the writing quality is above the standard, the plots are progressing in a very proper pace, the characters are presented...well not to say very vividly but in a very comic way. Though for people who are already very into Japanese light novel/manga/anime for a long time, the story, setting and characters won't be that original, but still because it's fairly written, it should still be enjoyable to read.

The only thing I could ask--besides double check some minor typing mistakes--is to step beyond the light novel circle and add something more unique and unseen into the work. It is only an impression I got intuitively from the text so not necessarily correct, but it seems that the author is the type of people who's very much in-in in one circle (or one type of circles) of hobbies and social contacts, and that kind of feature also reflects in the text--it seems to be created solely for the light novel circle and doesn't really show any intention of doing anything else.

Of course it's not a bad thing--it is something everyone has an "expertise" would do and only people who have some sort of "expertise" are interesting, but to stay in one place for too long will make it harder to think outside of the box and create something of fundamental originality.

P.S. A boy I'm having a crush in college right now is called Max XD

Fiona_Singer thank you for your input. I will try to improve on my writing to be more than just light novel style. And again sorry for the issue.

Kasaix Ah no big prob