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Yashima099

Honest review #2
Title: Didn’t I say make me famous in my next life?
Author: Yashima099
Chapters read: until the latest update (chap 3)

Reading notes (Those are my notes. Might not make sense but I still wanted to leave it here):

Past tense and present tense confusing

Heart warming dialogs intent. But counteract by bad grammar and turns of phrases.

Punctuation issues

Overuse of capital letters

Volume 0 Character sheet. Bad for mystery

Huge description paragraph. No purpose.

Flow problem

Story: Hum too soon to judge. But it took you three chapters to get to the point where he revives. A tad too much to my opinion. A bit slow.

World building: At this stage, I really can’t judge. It’s too early. If I’ve read 10 or so chaps then maybe, I would be able to. But I saw some inspiration from Greek and other mythological gods. Sounds interesting so far.

Character design: They look alright and distinct from one another. However, according to your Volume 0 I can say that you put some thought into it. But, you do have the same issue as Honest Review #1. I don’t know where trend to make character sheets or reveal your characters in an annex doc come from. I think it’s really weird. It chases away the mystery of the story and even the characters. Your sheets were particularly detailed. Too detailed to my opinion. Writing serves as the thread linking your story to your readers mind. However, if the thread is to thick it won’t enter the holes by which they enter readers mind. If it’s too small it will sever. Okay, all that chinese quote thing to say, don’t be too descriptive about characters. I’ve once read a guy with perfect english and descriptions. But what a bore his story was. It was like he could describe a guy taking a single step forward with 2000 words. Sounds boring right? Anyway, just don’t take away your readers imagination.

Writing quality: My favorite, because I hate it as much as you probably do. Okay, prepare yourself, fasten your seatbelt, wear an armor, etc. Ready? Okay. It took me out of the story. I don’t know how the people the comment sections did, but I sure had a hard time. In chapter 1, I tried my best to stay focus, chapter 2, my mind started to waver, chapter 3 it was already elsewhere. I left you some paragraph comments to point out some of them. But here’s the gist of it:
- Punctuation: You should check out punctuation rules online. Maybe you’re trying to give your story a certain style with specific punctuation. I get it. But if you don’t master the basics, it won’t be believable. To me, it wasn’t. Another point, careful with your paragraphs. The bigger they are the harder they fall. It hurts eyes. Break those up.

• Wording and weird turn of phrases: Hum, not much that can be done in that regard. Just read and write.

• The Flow: What I call the flow, don’t know if others call it like this (maybe idk), is not some shenanigan about a secret liquid flowing through your texts. It’s much more simple: It’s when the next sentence doesn’t match the previous one. When I say matching, it doesn’t necessarly have to contain the same subject. But it does have to be linked in some way. Imagine your every sentence as pieces of a single road. A perfect flow is a flat road on which you can easily walk. A bad flow is a rocky road stuffed with crevaces, holes and what not.

Here’s a little bonus to help you improving your writing quality.

Dialog correction example: Exctract from chapter 1.

Original: “Ever since your dad left, my life becomes so empty, gloom and confusing, but then you always bring light to my loneliest day, keep me warm with your hugs and keep my mind straight whenever you’re near me, Luca, you became my life. But since then, you became independent and always took care of me. I love you so much son.”

Suggestion:

“Your dad’s departure left me empty… alone. Life turned gloomy, confusing even. But you…” She smiled warmly, “you’ve always shone like a little sun, brightening up my life day after day, chasing away the loneliness and confusion. You became my everything. And even when you gained your independence, you still took care of me. For that, and many more reasons, my son, I love you.”

Stuff like this, not my best but I don’t have enough stamina for more. Also, don’t consider using it for your novel. It’ll be too different from what you wrote before and won’t benefit your flow. That’s it for now. Cya amigo.

Jo_J are you able to see the chapter notes I’m leaving? Just want to make sure before I move on to the second chapter. Those are just immediate things that can be corrected. I will still give an overall review on here as well; just wanna make sure that the additional stuff is making it’s way to you

@Jo_J Please remember that all critiques are done with love It is all personal opinion, and completely up to you to decide what to do with. Ignore it, or use it: it’s up to you.

Synopsis: Personally, I find it a bit lacking. I like that it explains what type of story you’re about to read, but it has no real details about the book’s plot(names, characters’ connections, etc..). I do like that it tells you that it pertains to the editorial world of a male magazine business, but having ‘betrayal’ on there twice is a bit redundant. I would switch one of them out with either ‘deception’, or ‘treachery’.(my thesaurus is my best friend)

Story Plot: it’s hard to comment on because I only read the first three chapters, but what I gleaned from them is that the narcissistic editor had invited the new chief editor over for dinner. He has the flashback of their first meeting, but that was it. So far so good, but I would also introduce/tease the forementioned betrayal. Something like: ‘the dinner was just the first step to his intricate plot..’ Just as a hook at the end of the first chapter.

World building: You are doing very well with this so far. The food descriptions, clothes, etc.. Are all described very well. I would suggest adding room descriptions, but that usually depends on the amount of time that the characters will be spending in each room, per scene. If they’re going to be spending a lot of time at his place or the office, describe things like window sizes, wall and/or color/texture, table arrangements, amount of light in the room, etc.. This will help the readers better picture the scenes in their mind’s eye.

Technicals: I didn’t see any misspellings, but there are a lot of sentence structure errors like running sentences, punctuation errors, and past/present mixups. What helps me is to read the sentence out loud. If you have to take a breath while saying the sentence, then there should be a comma, semicolon, or a colon. Depending on the length of the pause or emphasis you want within the sentence, or if there is a specific point being made within the sentence. Also, be careful about your wordage. I had left a comment about using ‘vast’ instead of ‘enormous’, but here’s another example:

In(I think) chapter two you had called the FM’s skin ‘silky’ when they had first met. You need to say ‘silky-looking’ since he hadn’t actually touched her yet.

Overall: It’s an interesting story, but it needs a hook to carry the reader into the next chapter. There were also unnecessary things at the start of some sentences like ‘besides’. Starting sentences like that is meant to connect/extend large thoughts or details together. Overall I think your book has great potential, especially here on Webnovel(once some editing is done). I hope you found this helpful. I apologize if anything sounded mean; I swear it wasn’t meant to It’s difficult to be delicate online

Jo_J would you like me to post it on the book reviews? Or keep it here? It was for Anemones.

I don’t use InkStone either. I do all my writing through the app. I think that the comments should show in the:
Profile > Inbox > Chapter Comments.(on the app)

They won’t show in the chapters themselves, but you should see a copy of them all in there. You’ll at least see the chapter and paragraph that the issue was in, then decide what to do yourself.

Thank you for the kind words