Cobyboy Hello friend!, let us first talk about the main issue which I talked about at the start of this thread, Text-walls. It was a good read learning about the history of the team members during the first chapter but reading the names and their achievements basically made me have some headache, as you are the author I would point this out first and even write an entire paragraph on why I excluded everything except this during the first chapter but before I even began let us go through the summary of the greatness of chapter 1 [Got me hyped!]

Spoiler Summary of chapter 1

  • We have met the team, each member has his greatness and each has his weakness
  • Modern type story [+1] Nothing complicated and all planned out
  • Young protagonist (based on the gaming world) and old team members
  • Reference usage of [The King's Avatar] made me happy
  • Benefits of being young and having a quick reaction speed make the protagonist great
  • The cliffhanger? well placed!

Text wall +/-

  • Characters introduced [+]
  • Why they hated the protagonist [+]
  • Age and description of the team [+]
  • Too much information to process in the long term [-]
  • Side characters are given more than they deserve [-]
  • Skipping through the description as I felt it was too much [-]

Let us keep it there as I really can't explain it further without reading the next few chapters. Where do I begin with the story itself, the idea is amazing as it involves game elements. We can go through this by breaking up the second chapter and going through the summary again! (Might have to start doing this normally :) )

Spoiler chapter 2

  • Transmigration is a plot twist, and that caught me off guard
  • Occupying another body with the owner of the body still there? You deserve a medal
  • Cultivation world with 24 races, humans being the weakest among them
  • Those side characters I mentioned for some reason failed to disappear (Tch) I smell a conspiracy
  • Smart Protagonist that obtained a body of another race

Let us conclude the final 2 chapters into two parts, Retribution which mean the villains have been decided from the beginning of the story (Turns out those idiots became too powerful for their own good) and it also made the story a bit restorative (Instead of having a weak mc we are given an mc that can stand up to his own). This creates a balance between both sides and that is the most important thing in any novel.

For Definition of Retribution and Restorative :

  • Retributive justice is a theory of justice that holds that the best response to a crime is a punishment proportional to the offense, inflicted because the offender deserves the punishment. Prevention of future crimes (deterrence) or rehabilitation of the offender is not considered in determining such punishments.
  • Restorative justice is an approach to justice that personalizes the crime by having the victims and the offenders mediate a restitution agreement to the satisfaction of each, as well as involving the community.

Do not think about it too much as this is mostly academic materials, it's just the idea I had when I was reading the first two chapters. Wrote too much again sorry about that :cry: Good luck and keep up the good work

    DKQ Hey man, any chance you'd check out my novel? I'm pretty happy with it, but the synopsis always has me cringing and I just can't make it better without giving out too many spoilers. My readers seem to like the story as I have received very little criticism, I just think that the synopsis doesn't make a lot of people interested in checking it out. The novel is:

    https://www.webnovel.com/book/10344815206012705/Cultivating-Civilization

    • DKQ replied to this.

      DKQ thank you for you review XD im glad you've read it.... I'm actually planning to make it less confusing in the next chapter, probably a better understanding of what Caia really is... Sorry it was confusing XD Actually I placed it in the wrong genre and it is considered as a mystery/thriller genre... I will try my best to make it up till fifty chapter XD

        thesleepywriter lol same with me. I just want to tries to give some explain and character way of thinking at beginning. I already said on my review at start my story will kinda full of monologue but will change be better after that. But yeah there someone fine eith that and someone no. And after I start the plot someone complains again I didn't put my mc and ml together in my ch. LoL.

        Then someone give me bad review cuz they just read some of my ch like prologue, ch 1 and 3 said my grammar worse. Thay didn't even bother find out I said it from start my English not really good but I still learning. and the real readers notic that. They know my grammar messy and I found someone to help me fix it and now it more batter that before. But the haters didn't care...

        Sometimes no matter what u do you, all u works will be like trash in someone eyes.

          DKQ Thank you so much for that thorough explanation <3 I'm loving every single suggestion you gave, thank you so much :)

            Kulha This is a true gem! Got addicted from the first chapter and forgot about the forums, first, let us talk about small mistakes such as commas and full stops, you seem to end sentences really fast such as the first chapter paragraph one, try to work on that because it can get annoying after 10 chapters. Let us begin with the summary of the first two chapters without going further (More people will be asking and I am sure I won't be able to answer them all if it stacks to a hundred)

            Spoiler summary Chapter 1-2

            • Ex-Soldier Protagonist (We are talking about modern world military which is a +)
            • Unfilial son and grandson (That pissed me off during the first chapter)
            • World war 3 explained in chapter 2 but barely any details on how it happened
            • Dying to a fish was the most hilarious thing I have seen +++
            • His History caught me off-guard yet it was well-planned which I love!

            I will keep the summary short as I need to discuss several mistakes which I talked about in this thread but before we start that I commend you for this great gem which is not only unique but also built up from a solid foundation where the protagonist died in his old age, had a family, bad love-life, went through a war and became a veteran. This is good planning because now you can allow the protagonist fight whenever he wants and he won't be bad at it, social skills would be great in the future, army-building elements can also be used, cybersecurity could be used if the terms are understood such as ways to protect yourself from entities that are harmful to you by drafting plans beyond the realm information level and using it against them. Let us go through the common mistakes you have and this is based on me being the reader.

            Tidy your paragraphs and sentences, Sometimes it is great to read this masterpiece but a phrase after another with a few actions done making you create a football team with the paragraph lines. (If you have several dialogues you should try to keep them in one instance instead of a few tens of them which might lead you to go back and forth with useless dialogue such as 49.95 money part which is... really?.

            Talking is too much, the male protagonist talks to his inner-self (us) and to others (in the novel) too much, to the point where I really wanted to slap him for going through the limit, chapter 1 is ok, chapter 2 is ok but if this continues where will you as an author be able to write action scenes? think about it.

            Finally is your length of the chapters, I went through 10 chapters and I felt bad for you as most the times a chapter should be 1000 words no less and no more. That should be your focus, you want to write more? then go for the volume plan and make each volume 15 chapters with 5k words each chapter. [Your first chapter 1.5k +, second 1.6k+ and so on]

            This is a summary based on a reader point of view and mistakes seen by me, anything I have said gives no reason for others to judge someone else works, this review is set to help and not hurt anyone, thank you and good luck with your work Max!

              DKQ Thanks for the feedback man, I'm glad you liked it! I'm planning to do a large edit once I finish the first volume and this will help a lot. I get what you mean with the dialogue, I try to use it to flesh out the characters (the money thing shows that Jack doesn't have much cash, but I get what you're saying and will reflect on it).

              English isn't my first language so I try to keep the grammar up to par, but I know that it will never be able to reach something that a professional editor would work on.

              I got used to writing 2k+ chapters now, don't know if I could shorten it, or how my readers would look at it, but I will try to make things more succinct.

              There isn't much action the beginning chapters because I'm trying to flesh out things more, my plan is to have a lot of action once the MC grows up so now I'm world building. I'm trying to think up ways to add more action all the time.

              Once more, thanks for your feedback man, it will help a lot. I hope you continue to enjoy my novel in your free time. If you get any more feedback please do post it in the comments, I read them all a few times a day.

              • DKQ replied to this.

                Newbelist For some reason I liked this one a lot, unique and has a flavor of gladiators, started off with a modern world where the male protagonist was just that depressed dude who didn't care for the world yet had filial pity to his mother. What makes confused is that the mother, I am a 100% sure she knew he was going to the future (People from his time were called ancients, from my guess we can conclude the world was either invaded by foreign monsters and that led to humanity survival which also returned the empire system within the world)

                Summary (Spoiler)

                • Modern-day > Future
                • Normal life > Life With System
                • Depressed protagonist
                • Smart Protagonist
                • System Novel
                • 1.4-1.5k words
                • Smooth entry to the novel
                • Little mistakes found in chapter 1 and 2 but it is readable

                Let us start with the mistakes on the first chapter, this will be something new that I will be doing in the future but it will be a more viable proof to the mistakes I have seen and how to fix it If i was in your place:-

                Your writing:
                "Alexander, are you awake? If you are, then prepare your things for the camp. And after that, come downstairs and eat breakfast," a shout from below broke through his headphones, despite the volume being max.

                My Writing:
                "Alexader, wake up!" A shout came from below, passing through his headphones "If you are awake then prepare yourself and your luggage for the upcoming camp !"

                Simple, clean and much more readable than a clump of information all at once. Probably the most common mistake I have seen in this novel (the 2 chapters) is this. Do not edit it out but fix it on the third chapter, also no idioms, advanced English phrases which will express the emotions of the male protagonist for example:

                Your writing:
                With his vision blurry, he wasn't able to move around much. He blinked a few times and then his red eyes looked around, scanned the surroundings and let out a sigh of relief.

                My Writing:
                While his vision was blurry and he was grief-stricken, he was Ambivalent about everything around him. Blinking a few times while looking around the surrounding, after a brief moment he let out a sigh of relief.

                This will need some work but the more you write, the more you learn which is a great thing. Good luck with the rest of the novel, it has been a great read so far :).

                  Kulha No worries, I am actually planning to catch up to chapter 40 tonight, hate it when I get addicted to reading sometimes. It is a great novel and I love it so far, do not think too much about my review as I am barely considered worthy of reviewing anything other than academic papers.

                  Sorahana ... Ok let us begin with the biggest mistake of all~ Universal mistake, Text-wall of information! Where is the nice chapter 1? We needed a formal introduction to the story where point 1 will be developed on point 0 (introduction) and ends at 1 (Chapter 1) long. We are talking about a clean yet simplified amazing start to any novel, the first chapter plays the crucial role in the foundational structure of the novel. Let us discuss the summary first and then we can begin with the other mistakes

                  Summary spoiler

                  • 2 people of the same coin
                  • Useless side and a genius side
                  • Medieval era
                  • Rivals already appeared?
                  • Usage of first and third person view smartly
                  • Jun family being targeted by more than 1 enemy
                  • Female protagonist

                  First we can discuss the common mistakes which are the chapter titles (let us ignore the text wall part for a moment here and discuss why it titles gave a bad taste), "Imperial Party" [1]-[3]", "Test" [1]-[3], this keeps going and this stops me from reading, if your style is slow paced stories then this is perfect but from what I can understand we will be going through several wars in here and several action scenes, As an author can you handle that? It is very tough and this mistake will make you keep things longer than usual.

                  Mistakes can be seen during the first chapters but from what I read later on everything got fixed, I applaud you for that as it made me happy finding someone improves on their mistakes. The only thing that holds you back is the lack of proper phrasing and words such as: "What's the use of it?" Lin San mock it a bit. [Chapter 3] that sounds bad, right? Improving can also be done on researching materials and wording that helps the author out produce a masterpiece, google scholar can help out and any site that can improve your phrasing too.

                  Good luck with this amazing novel hopefully you can improve much more than now and become someone great later on!

                    KCChakry Interesting stories, not my type of genre but I can point out some common mistakes, first is the Lines oh yes, chapter 1 that __________ even if you want to show a different scene that is a big no-no because I read with Font size 20 which makes the lines appear on 2 lines. To fix this I would recommend (Not now but the future novel you will write) to first make the character alive, a character that has his/her own voice and someone that can be easily identified without having to go through the first chapter first few paragraphs. summarizing is not my fort in this genre again, barely read this types before and I have 0 experience with it which leads me to go through the mistakes immediately!

                    Your writing
                    "Hey, Cousin." The guy with Buzz cut smiled at one of the guys, who gave him a curt nod.
                    "Hey, this is my friend-" The 'Cousin' prepared to introduce but was cut off by his eager and excited friend.
                    "Who cares? Tell me, what's going on here?" The 'Friend' asked, trying to look past the wall of students standing in the classroom. "Where is the guy who challenged Mrs. Abernathy?"

                    No need to 'identify' cousin and 'friend' more than three times, it gets a bit annoying (Refer to other translated novels, notice how characters are identified simply? Let me give you an example of what I mean:

                    "Run my love! The monster is right behind us" The male ape said

                    "Awa..aa he looks handsome! " While blushing, she stopped running with the male ape and turned around to face the monster before getting caught

                    A naked 3 feet tall human full of muscles who was running after the couple apes caught up and caught the female ape tightly before he screamed with rage: "MACHO UNDERWEAR, GIVE BACK!"

                    Here I created three things, Identified the enemy, created their personalities and made them look idiotic. On the other hand, we have the main protagonist, Macho, from reading that he is a muscle-head who is a strong yet stupid idiot.

                    https://www.wikihow.com/Create-Good-Personalities-for-Your-Characters

                    Also, there seems to be a problem of starting a new paragraph, not sure if this is a long-term issue with your novel but it can affect the total overall rating of the novel because it starts off as a mistake which will grow bigger in the long-run. Let us go back to the basics, when will it be good to start a new paragraph? How do we start it? where will the story end up after this paragraph? Common mistakes such as this are normal and the best way to become a well-known novel writer is to fix your own mistakes.

                    Paragraph (When to begin and end)

                    • Location (Point a to b)
                    • Time (After a thousand years of cultivation)
                    • Different Speech
                    • A simple change of topic
                    • introduction of something or someone new

                    That was long, I apologize for this long reply :smile: as I said I never liked that genre but I can help out with the common stuff, hope it helped and good luck with your novel!

                      DKQ Thank you for your reply, I'm glad to know my mistakes early on. I will check more wording and phrasing. English is not my first language, but I will try to make the grammar better. Your suggestion really helped, thank you very much! :)

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