"demanded / asked / warned." In reality, "said" is the only dialog tag considered normal, then comes "ask" but even then it's at most 10% usage. You're using ask for 3000% of your questions. You should use "said" because it flows better even if it's a question. Use "ask" for the variety and/or when two chars are talking even then you can just use "said".
Just a suggestion.
Edit: That's just putting it simply. It's a tad bit more complicated than that.
Jo_J I just used 1984 as an example for starting one's novel. I didn't want to get too deep into the story for the reasons that you mentioned. I feel that anyone can learn from great authors, and 1984 was the first thing that came to mind when I was trying to think of an example of a good first impression.
Epyonnn
Big brother is watching you... 
Yoan_Roturier
I think asked flow just well as said... Moreover I kinda feel unnatural using said with any questions...
silent_walker
Humm, think of it this way.
When your reader reads your dialogs, She/he's more interested in what's written in between your brackets than what's outside of it. So, by using one common tag "said" most of the times, it'll become (it already is) some kind of code (subconsciously).
Therefore, when they'll read your tags in between dialogs they'll just binge through it like it's nothing. HOWEVER, if you use other tags they'll have to take the time to ANALYSE the tag. That's the real reason behind using said most of the time. It's because it's simple, talks best to almost everyone, and flows really well in our trains of thought. In the end, it's just to enhance your readability.
@silent_walker I've read the first chapter of your book, and unfortunately, it doesn't grab my attention and make me want to read more. I'll explain why:
1)
You said in your synopsis that that novel is 99% error-free. I presumed that this was just an exaggeration, but your second paragraph had quite a few mistakes.
"Two figures wandered on a dark mountain slope. With quiet and rhythmic pace."
The first sentence is fine, but the second one is incomplete. You also forgot to put a particle before quiet. I assume that this is supposed to be your writing style, but you can't get away with choppy incomplete sentences. It will run smoother if you wrote it as, "Two figures wandered on a dark mountain slope, moving at a quiet and rhythmic pace." This is just a personal suggestion, and you can write your novel however you want.
Next part:
"The one leading was a middle-aged man in a black cloak with a tall and burly figure, behind him was a scrawny man."
This sentence is a comma splice because "...behind him was a scrawny man." is its own separate sentence. An easy fix is just to separate both phrases into their sentences, or you can place "and" before "behind." Additionally, "a middle-aged man in a black cloak with a tall and burly figure" uses too many conjunctions and prepositions in a single clause. A good rule is to keep at most two conjunctions and/or prepositions in one clause and separate the other parts with commas.
Next part:
"It was unknown if the leading man was fair-skinned or not in this sight blinding darkness."
I believe you forgot to put a dash between sight and blinding.
Next part:
"But his blazing red hair was more than enough to recognise him."
Generally, you shouldn't start sentences with "but." Of course, there are exceptions, and "but" can be a stylistic choice. Still, doing that in the middle of this paragraph breaks the flow of the prose, making it harder to read. I suggest combining this sentence with the previous one. Next part:
"He appeared to be well versed in this slope unlike the other one— following him."
You forgot a dash before "well" and "versed," and the em dash after one is unnecessary. You can rewrite that portion of the sentence as "...unlike the other one who was following him." Another piece of advice is that you should keep pronouns, such as "he," to a minimum. Try coming up with different ways to describe characters, as it will add more variety to your sentence structure.
Now, all that stuff was just the second paragraph, and there are way more mistakes later on. A useful tip to improve prose is to read your sentence out loud to see if it flows smoothly. If you find yourself speaking choppily, or you find yourself repeating certain words multiple times, then consider revising the draft.
I'm not an editor, so I won't go through the rest of your novel to suggest fixes. I just felt the urge to break down your second paragraph because you claimed that your novel was 99% error-free.
That was a long write-up, so I'll put the second part of my critique on another post.
Yoan_Roturier
I know that... But I think asked goes into that as well... In one of the writing session of Brandon Sanderson or someone else in don't remember said to use said and asked for 95% of the time...
Thanks anyways....
silent_walker To clarify a little bit on Yoan's explanation about you overusing "said," it's mainly a stylistic choice. Personally, I didn't see many issues with what you did, but for readers, "said" essentially becomes an invisible word, since it just passes through their brain without much thought. It keeps the dialogue more smooth, as Yoan pointed out. But still, I think that specialized dialogue tags can enhance a character's personality when used correctly.
On the other hand, to give a prime example about why you should mostly stick with said, here's a quote by J.K. Rowling in the Half-Blood Prince:
"'Snape!' ejaculated Slughorn, who looked the most shaken, pale and sweating."
Yeah...sometimes it's better to stick with "said."
silent_walker Brandon Sanderson has great lectures on YouTube. I've listened to them a few times, and he's just such an entertaining teacher.
The percentage I gave you aren't random—apart from the 3000%. It's editorial knowledge. They have certain percentages to look out for. If the works they edit go beyond those percentages, they will ask for a rewrite.
Examples:
- Dialog tags with adverbs: around 10%
- Glue index: 40%
- Passive voice: 50%
- Etc.
Brandon Sanderson doesn't talk much about those stuff. He talks mainly about how to plan, plot, characterize. It's normal that you never heard that guy say it haha. He has great online seminars by the way, I really liked them.
Epyonnn
Ah well, thanks for that hahaha. Kinda had a hard time explaining it.
Epyonnn
First of all, I know I have issues with punctuation... I'm working on that....(this mostly cause someone called me a comma freak as I use excessive fraction sentences joining them with commas. So I tried to use simple sentences there.)
And 1% mistakes means I have about 15 mistakes in 1500 words, I don't how many you found. As far as I'm reckoned most of the mistakes aren't mistake actually but a bit unnatural with clarity like the one with emdash and you can use 'quiet and rhythm pace' without any article.
But I would look into that, and fixed the issues you showed. Thank you for that.
By the way, you can look into my letter chapters I think it's better written than the first few ones as I'm improving each day I think.
But more than that I want your opinion on the likability of the characters, tones and pacing as you know even with few typos the story would work but not without good characters...
Thanks again.
@silent_walker Alright, here's the second part of my critique:
2)
Your novel starts off by dropping us into an unknown world with two characters talking. At first, I was intrigued, but their conversation became quite boring. You also mentioned multiple unknown terms without giving exposition. It's alright to do this in the beginning, but at the end of the chapter, I was left bored and a little confused. I had questions in my head, but I really didn't care about getting them answered.
Here's why:
There's no tension in the beginning. Starting off with a fight scene isn't something that's necessary, but this is always a suggestion if you want to hook the reader's attention. If you don't feel that an action scene would fit at the beginning of your story, at least make sure to create a certain mystery. The mystery doesn't have to be large, but it has to make the reader want to see more. In the end, I didn't care about the main characters and what they will do.
I feel that "Tower of God" does an excellent job at creating a situation where the reader wants to see more. Even though the art at the beginning was ridiculously scuffed, I found myself scrolling further and further down the chapters. Why? I'll give a quick breakdown of chapter 1 (assuming you've read the manhua or watched the anime):
Immediately, Bam loses Rachel, someone important to his life.
Why is she going away? You'll find out later in the story.
What is the Tower, who is Bam, and how did he randomly just teleport? You'll find out later in the story.
Who is this creepy alien guy with a staff? You'll find out later in the story.
How is Bam gonna defeat that massive monster? You'll find out later in the story.
I hope you see where I'm going with this. The author manages to tie in crucial plot questions with the main character, leaving the readers curious as to what will happen later on. The first chapter doesn't have a single fight, mainly only being a conversation between Bam and the Tester.
This concludes my quick critique of your first chapter.
Epyonnn I agree with that as I said before I used said on most occasion apart from the specific actions.
silent_walker Mistakes are subjective when it comes to writing, but in my opinion, a mistake is something that takes the reader out of the immersion. As for your specific critique requests, I'll be sure to read some more, and then I'll give my opinions. For now, I just gave my impressions of your first chapter. Remember to always take my word with a grain of salt, because I'm not always right, and your plans for the story may greatly differ from my suggestions.
Yoan_Roturier well I watched all of them... It did improve my writing a lot.
And I always try to cut down redundant words if I sees but I'm still learning so there will be few. But I didn't put words just to make the word count... I've seen a lot of authors in WN do that even a few of the successful ones.
Epyonnn fu*k this is I've been afraid of... I tried to make the thing a a bit mysterious from the prologue and show the tone of the book. But it looks like it failed.
Did I go too deep into it? Or is it a bit confusing?
By the way those characters were not the main characters, they wouldn't even appear until the middle of the books. They are the big fishes.
Can you give me any advice to cut or add something the prologue is quite important to the plot.
silent_walker My mistake by assuming it was the first chapter. I didn't notice that it was the prologue.
Here's the thing with prologues: they follow a few different rules from first chapters.
The main purpose of a prologue is to provide necessary information that is important for the rest of the story. Just so that I don't have to destroy my fingers by typing out another full essay, here's a good video explaining how to write a good prologue:
If you watch that video, it should cover most of the questions you have.
Epyonnn no you're right about the errors with the writing... I should redo another edit of the prologue as its the first...
As for your other opinions it did hurt a bit to be honest... Maybe I'm a bit sensitive person.
