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Eighth Book: My Reincarnated Inamorata!

Writing Quality: Below Average
Story Development: Below Average
Character Design: Below Average
World Background: Below Average
Stability of Updates: Above Average* --- I suggest uploading one chapter a day so that you have less of a period where there are no updates. I noticed you updated several in one day. Perhaps this was for the contest that I'm guessing this story was for(?), but I'm pretty sure you met the qualifying criteria. So there's no reason to upload 8 chapters all on Feb 11 but have no more updates up to now, Feb 20th. This is an updating recommendation in order to cater to how readers like to read on this site. They like consistency.

Prologue---
"A girl ran behind a boy with a big bag of cookies." This isn't the best way to start a story as it's not gripping enough. It's too simple and mundane, not a great hook. Instead, I'd combine the two scenes into one. The boy and the girl have to separate (the second scene), and the boy thinks back to the previous scene when she had fallen and he piggybacked her. He thinks about how he loves her, but that fate had its way of separating them. These thoughts of him are better suited for this second scene because it's more conducive in this context and swiftly gets to the conflict of their separation.

Additionally, I caution with love at first sight for very young kids. Even if he's mature, at 7 years old, I don't believe a child has that clear and strong of the concept of romantic love. You can still keep "love at first sight" but depict it in a child's point of view that's very innocent and naive, like the fondness for a dear playmate.

"She tripped off with her tiny legs letting the mother earth to eat her favourite cookies." Turn this into: "She tripped over her tiny legs, causing her favourite cookies to tumble to the ground." Saying Mother Earth is a little awkward for this simple falling context, so I don't recommend including it for this sentence. Besides that, I can clearly tell that English either isn't your first language, or you're still learning grammar and punctuation as these kinds of sentences are prevalent in your writing.

Overall, this first prologue is definitely rough around the edges. In fact, I'd cut parts of it and incorporate the important act of separation as a flashback thought/reflection either in chapter one or later. I don't believe you particularly need this short prologue. Just jump right into the story.

The actual first chapter is much more interesting and serves as a better starter than the prologue. It gives enough mystery (she's reincarnated? what body is she in now? what happened to her in the past) and action (she's being strangled) to intrigue the reader enough to continue reading. Onto the next scene, cool, she has her own high-tech lair, that's a little different, nice. Now the questions are answered to the reader about what happened to her old body and how her new body fits into this new timeline. The fact that her cousins recognized her and knew she's reincarnated at the start of the story is an interesting twist to the usual trope. Instead of the FL being the solo revenge act, she starts with two helpers.

Continuing onto the proceeding chapters, she wants to use her husband for achieving her revenge. Your overall plot and conflict that you set up is so far good. It's what I expected from this genre story but executed in a slightly unexpected, different way. I stopped at chapter 7 because I felt that was enough to get to my overall conclusion for this story. This review is mainly for evaluating the start of your story, including how you set up the plot and introduce the characters.

Firstly, the basic plot and conflict so far is good. But the pacing feels rushed along with the romantic conflict, that's why I deemed the story "development" as below average. Mia wants to use Xian for her revenge, but she worries about falling for him because she thinks he's a typical CEO that will cheat on her and not really love her. We as the readers know this isn't true (so far based on his inner thoughts presented). I do feel like Xian is too perfect. He's good-looking, successful, loving, and understanding. Even with Mia's supposed amnesia and slip-up's in her acting, he doesn't seem to be all that suspicious. Thus, both Mia's wariness of Xian, and Xian's lovingness and consideration feels all a bit contrived/forced for the sake of the story. I suggest slowing it down a bit and add some realism to it. Make Xian more aloof and suspicious to what's exactly happening. Also, I don't understand why he was choking her before? That seems rather inconsistent with how the rest of his character was portrayed. If he's faking it though, you need to accentuate this point better. And for Mia, she doesn't need to be so aware/scared of falling in love with him, or thinking of him fondly. Technically, he's a stranger. So except for her acting, it makes more sense to think of him as a stranger before she starts developing any nagging emotions for him.

In conclusion, you have a good story idea going. But it's a little more than a skeleton at this point. I think you can flesh it out with more world and visual details, and introspective and realistic thoughts and actions of the characters. Additionally, grammar is a weak point of the story, so brush up on correct syntax and punctuation in order to make it flow better. I also recommend not using so many question marks and exclamations in narration. This makes the story feel very amateurish. Those ending punctuations ought to be for more significant and dramatic moments or questions. Instead, rework your sentences to properly end with a period. This will make your writing feel more "professional" and "serious."

Good work, and good luck!

Ninth Book: A Serenade for the Innocent

Writing Quality: Above Average
Update Stability: Great
Story Development: Above Average
Character Design: Average
World Background: Above Average

Good grammar, few typos and errors overall. It might be due to you rewriting the first story though. While the writing is technically/grammatically sound, and there’s a relatively good range of vocabulary used, the prose and style feels lacking. But it lacks not because there’s not enough “stuff,” but because there’s too much. Surprisingly, for once, it feels like there’s too much self-introspection in the first person narrative. This connects a bit with the character design portion. The first story describes Margaux from her point of view too much. There’s paragraphs of how she views herself as above everyone else and being annoyed that she’s interested in a guy like John/being beaten in “popularity” and “fame” compared to her Student President Status. Even though I find her character generally unlikable, I don’t detract just because she’s not my cup of tea. In fact, there are moments when she’s quite relatable. In regards to writing her, I just simply feel like a lot could be cut about her without losing anything essential; in fact, it would make those details about her less redundant and more impactful overall. There’s also another aspect of the writing that feels off (not off as in wrong, but in that something’s missing which could elevate it to Great). The suspense and horror is generally well done, but again, due to over-focusing, like with her character, it also feels dragged out when it could be condensed to deliver a sharp more frightening impact. In short, the timing is off due to the length of the writing descriptions.

More specially on character design. I was on the fence about average or above average. I settled on the former because I realized it’s about design, not depiction. The latter I touched upon in the above section in relation to writing style, while the former is about the strength, originality, and memorableness of the characters. Margaux has a strong, clear character, but it’s too generic. This might be due to the excess of details describing her and her every thought, but her whole character boils down to haughty af. I say this a little jokingly, lightheartedly. Most don’t delve into and focus on such characters, so that view was refreshing. However, the inner struggle she had wasn’t strong enough, which is why I deem her a relatively weak character. She falls too squarely into one category when it would’ve nice to give her more dimension, perhaps elaborate more on her conflicted feelings when John died. That’s the part I looked most forward to, what kind of psychological or emotional struggle would she have when he died after “meddling” with him. But instead of this being dwelled upon in the length that the previous descriptions of her character were, this crucial bit, the climax really, was lacking. This also includes how she went “crazy” when the “monster” chasing John came after her. I would’ve loved more on that.

And touching lightly on John, I found him a bit more interesting, he seemed more promising with more potential, but instead he was just diminished to a simple scared prey. I understand this is the horror part, of being reduced to such a state, but it made him ultimately forgetful.

Onto the plot and world background specifically, here you shined the most. It’s not common to see horror genres on here, so it was cool to see how went about creating suspense and mystery. With that said, as mentioned before, the “timing was lacking” to make the scariness even more chilling and the “monsters” more intriguing.

In conclusion, I think you’re a good writer with good ideas, they just need to be refined to the next level by cutting some parts harshly out while diving more into others. The horror feelings and depictions are promising, but needs quite a bit of polishing.

While I mostly focused on the first story in writing this review, I also read the second story, and the same critiques are consistent from the first story.

You’re going down a cool, unique road. Continuing writing and refining, good luck!

Can you give my novel a review?
This is my novel.
Title: The ascendance of the "Emperor of Darkness"
Link: https://www.webnovel.com/book/16205041106295805/The-Ascendance-of-the-%22Emperor-of-Darkness%22

Eleventh Book: The Stolen Princess and the Blind Prince

Update Stability: Average

I based this partially on the rate you were updating before the hiatus which was very good, but since it’s been 16 days since the last one and you likely won’t be consistently updating for a while, I had to rate just average. (But obviously, this isn’t a big deal and isn’t really part of your technical writing abilities. Authors get busy with life after all.)

Writing Quality and World Background: Both Above Average

Few errors, overall general good use of grammar. There was a sentence I set aside somewhere that I was going to use to explain one little quirk of your writing that could be improved for clarity. Alas, I can’t find it, but I can still explain. It’s the use of commas. If I recall correctly, you once said you knew you have problems with abusing commas, and in some cases, that’s true. But actually, I mostly found that you needed to adjust how you used them as in some cases you needed to add commas for clarity in more complex sentences with particle inserts.

Now with style and details, this is in first person, so I don’t expect much stylistic flexing as the voice should be of the narrator. So I think the complexity of the writing, meaning readability (such as the likert scale), is fine; it’s appropriate for first person. Most people don’t “think” super descriptively but rather “speak” more ordinarily in their mind.

With that said, that doesn’t mean they speak briefly in their minds either. That’s why I’m always encouraging writers choosing first person to really dive into the characters with more of their thoughts and feelings. The writing doesn’t have to complex, but it should lean on depth and a tad more length. The MC’s reaction to something shocking, for example, should be not be said in just a line or two, but several lines perhaps interspersed in different spaces of an entire scene. With your particular MC, I like how she phrases things in a bit of a sassy way, but unfortunately, it doesn’t shine through enough because her thoughts are often one liner responses to events that occur, like oh, that’s funny and moving on. If you lingered more and divulged into her amusement and conflicts, it would greatly make her come more alive. Currently, she’s a bit weak in the demonstration of her personality, making her sassiness almost feel forced just for the sake of a cool, quirky character rather than natural and real.

Character Design and Story Development: Both Average

And so, that leads us into character and plot. I was impressed by you fleshing out the minor characters, my particular favorite was the driver at the beginning. You were able to bring out his character and background in few lines, but they were very effective and natural. The MC’s maids’ on the other hand feel like a contrived duo that makes me think of the enthusiastic maids of other historical romances.

As for the ML’s personality, that too was lacking, perhaps because we see little about him and his thoughts, feelings, and motives for why he’s a bandit and how he’s so skilled as a blind man. I don’t dislike him. But he’s forgettable, something that a ML shouldn’t be. I’d dare say to even dive into the cliches of making him more mysterious if he’s a rebel of sorts for playing bandit and doing other “non-princely” activities. But that aside, I’d like to hear more of his story, what compels and interests him and why.

His group, as somewhat minor characters, fall into the middle of the spectrum of strong and weak characters found in this story. Due to the long fight scene, we got to see quite a lot of them in proportion to the FL and ML. While it’s okay to delve into side characters, the focus should always be on the main ones at least at the beginning of the story once you’ve established them and the story’s main conflicts. Once the FL/MC enters the castle, she’s also scrapped in place of the ML and his gang for a very long bar fight of sorts. Fighting and action in a romance story is fine—(hit 4k character review limit)

(continued in a comment)
—I love it when it exists in romance stories actually—but, given that they have a clear purpose. And this for this fight, I see none. It felt like a long insert that didn’t quite belong to the story. It felt disconnected. However, I do note that there aren’t many chapters and they’re generally quite short, so it’s early into the story and these chapters could very well serve a purpose that’s not immediately clear.

With that said, the fight itself was sloppy. While some bits were amusing or entertaining, I had no idea who was where and doing what and why people joined or started, what the problem was, why the assassin targeted them, etc. I have some loose ideas, but it’s not organized enough for me to follow with a satisfactory degree of comprehension. And with how it ended, it confused me even more as it then jumped right back to the princess MC, a very jarring transition.

I see the hints of the assassin being some antagonist by someone who wants to disrupt the royal family and castle, for her to kill someone, and then the MC being contacted by someone shady about her fiancé. But overall, it feels contrived, too sudden without any proper build up of the forces at stake, and the factions and their conflicting interests. That’s why I felt a lack of solid footing or connection to the events at play.

Tying this back to the writing, I believe sticking with the MC/FL’s perspective is best. Jumping around to the ML’s view and then even his gang which are secondary characters adds to the confusion and disconnect of the characters we’re just starting to know and the plot that’s just beginning. If you want to show the ML’s perspective, that’s fine, I just suggest showing it at a later point once the FL has settled down with the plot starting or under way, and we’ve grasped her personality and situation better. However, no side/secondary character perspectives as they make the story too messy. Again the focus should be on the main characters, especially in a romance, and we can learn enough about them from the main characters’ narrative about them. Interestingly, I found that was the reason why the driver came off to me as more well-presented than the other characters. The method of sharing their personality and thoughts leads to different expectations. Tell me in their first person perspective, and I expect a lot of deep diving. If none, the view feels unnecessary.

To wrap up, you can write. You can definitely write with good grammar and vocabulary. You have good ideas, humor, and emotion too, but they just need to be brought out much more. At this point, it feels more like a skim, leaving me unsatisfied and wanting more. Slow down the pace and show a little more. Add more meat to the introspections and exploration of the settings and plots.

I hope this helps! I went a little deeper and more nit-picky with a more blunt approach than usual because I believe this’ll serve you better as feedback. Like I told you before, I have to read more chapters with better written stories that don’t require me to point out as many basics of writing and storytelling. In these types of stories like yours, I can talk more about the details of character and plot for instance. And you know where to find me if you want to ask questions. ;)