Dropped a review for you! I think you have really great pacing between action, description, and dialogue in your writing. Excited to read the next few chapters.
Please review mine if you have the time!
https://www.webnovel.com/book/12532976806786105/Memories-Blossoming-in-the-Jianghu
Dropped a review for you! Please review mine if you have the time!
https://www.webnovel.com/book/12532976806786105/Memories-Blossoming-in-the-Jianghu
SimmeringHours I have left a review for your book. The story is great!
Happy 2019 guys! 
Asteralles I wanted to write a good review but I read these 3 chapters and I have no opinion about this novel. It's too early to make judgments about the story. I am not the best person to judge writing quality and style. I am sure, there will be some senior writer to help you! Good luck! You can check out my novel but I don't force anyone. Reading and writing is freedom!
luoshenhua Thanks, pacing was one of the things I was actually worried about. I'm sure it's not perfect, but it's nice to hear something positive, as I always feel like I'm being long-winded about some parts and not descriptive enough about others. I dropped a review as well.
What I'd point out for you to fix:
1. You have a tendency of repeating the same word multiple times, try to rework your chapters to avoid that, as it can turn away a lot of readers. Look at it as an opportunity - this forces you to try out new words and sentence structures.
2. I would get rid of more than half of the auxiliary chapters, as they are and will ruin the story for a lot of people. Readers don't need a crutch like this, even if you added the chapters for the Phenomenal competition, I'd say it's best to just merge everything and try to spoil as little as possible.
3. Meld all of the auxiliary chapters, as they give the false impression of more released chapters than you actually have. That can be a reason for people not picking up your story, because they feel cheated.
@ASlyDrake Thank you for your review. I am working on improving quality. It's not easy as I have a very limited vocabulary and my grammar isn't good. My intention is to write and improve the story with time and come back to previous chapters and edit them. I know it's pretty unfair for readers that will read this story now and these that will read it after improvement. There will be no improvement if I stop writing because I will focus on other things like university and my personal life. Thank you very much :) I hope someday you will come back to my story and enjoy reading it.
ArcaneDragon Thank you for the review, I have given you one in return.
As far as my book:
What would you regard as a non-cliche way of dying in this subgenre? The VRMMORPG books that I have read mostly do one of these:
1. MC gets killed off by former friend and/or sworn.
2. MC suddenly wakes up in his past.
I might have missed something, but since I know these two as the standard method of dying, I chose to go for a slightly different way. As far as the second chance thing, yes he does get it, but as you can see, there are still differences as he can only live for himself, unlike characters in other books that either live for revenge or for their family, or both. I'd love to hear more from you about this, as your point of view could be very helpful :)
As far as 'transitioning from the event in game to another', I'm not exactly sure what you mean, same goes for 'concerned about the real life of MC'. Try to elaborate on these.
There are probably mistakes here and there, and I'd stake my life that I messed up a comma a few times, but hopefully it's good enough.
I don't have any plans of dropping this story, but it does depend on interest. If it makes you feel better - this novel currently has more people following it and reading each chapter than my previous story, which had a lot more chapters to garner attention.
As far as your novel:
You seem to know your weaknesses - grammar and punctuation are your main enemies. I'd suggest finding an editor, as well as putting in the time to better your English. I'd look around Reddit, as you can always find useful stuff for language learning there. If you put in half an hour a day into studying English, you will improve at frightening speeds, trust me.
Besides that, I'd say your work needs to be more descriptive and I'd love more detail on the characters, their clothes and surroundings, the world in general. It's important for some things to be 'shallow', and others to be 'deep' if you know what I mean :)
Edit: For vocabulary, I highly recommend using Anki to create your own 'decks' and using it daily. It has helped me remember a lot of words and information in the past and is overall a great tool if you put in the time to make it work for your needs. As far as editing previous chapters, be aware that old readers will never see them, unless they clear their cache (option is in Settings) or even reinstall the app altogether.
@SimmeringHours & @Hyowha - Would you two be interested in trading reviews? I've found your constructive criticism to be very thorough, which is something I'd like to exchange with both of you :)
ASlyDrake
I meant that it's cliche because it's one of the typical deaths of neet MC. I won't talk about Japanese novels when lame deaths of mc are normal. I can't give many examples but I read novel when FL died from heart attack and came back to the past. When I remember the name I will send this to you.
"concerned about the real life of MC"
I know in VRMMORPG genre gaming, as you said he is living for himself. So what is his ambition? I read many novels and in most of the MC has some background in real life too. I hope to see some action in real life. What's the point of becoming king in the game? Obviously to become rich in real life. I might misunderstand your story and I thought he will be nerd playing game and eating and then playing the game again.:D
I might come with these concerns too early because your story is at the beginning too. I will edit my review later if I am wrong to not mislead people haha!
A new shameless WN author has appeared :D
Link: https://www.webnovel.com/book/12466790606528905
Will gladly accept criticisms from you guys. Still a fresh story as it has just six chapters in it. Feel free to tag me if you want to swap reviews. :)
AkaGin I read the all current chapters and I felt like watching anime about school life. This is obviously not my kind of story hahaha. There might be some development of some kind of action in the future but the premise of Real fiction really kill my hope hahaha. You can leave a review of my story if you want.
ArcaneDragon Thank you very much for the review!
The plot of my story flows with the speed of a turtle, this I know. I'm trying to change my style. I used to write romance fanfic for a certain fandom and I developed a tendency to write things in details so readers don't feel like they're reading but watching scenes unfolding in front of them instead (this was what my readers told me in reviews). Hopefully I could adjust to webnovel style soon...
I also left a review on your story. I apologize if I sounded too harsh >.<"
Asteralles Thank you for your review. I should limit using time skips like "a few hours later" and so on. I tried to use online corrector to help me with punctuation and grammar. The free version of algorithms cannot replace a human editor. It's better to receive one harsh critique that will help you improve than live in a lie. I am trying to improve my writing and grammar. (Funny who am I lying too? saying word trying is like not doing anything. Although I am editing it, yet not researching any grammar rules and so on.)
O{}O
The slow-paced stories are ok too. You need release more chapters or you will leave readers for a long time in the middle of one event. Cliffhangers and so on. What's most important is to actually feel good about things that you do. If you make yourself write stories that are for a certain group of readers but you won't be satisfied by writing it. What's the point?
Good luck :) I hope you will find your way. Follow your heart hahaha! Typical lane of romance fiction I think!
Why don't kill your protagonist with lightning? He jumps in time to evade Truck-san. He heave a sigh of relief, but suddenly a lightning in a clear sunny day strike him!
It can be a good choice for a comedy.
Or if a drama/horror why not going with suicide? Just think of the "Others" with Nikole Kidman. She kill herself and her children, she is reborned/transmigrated/granted a 2nd chance and the the story unfolds.
ValentinaKhan 1000 ways how to kill your protagonist in 5 seconds! You have MC that needs to start over or you just don't like him/her. You are in right place. We have the right way to kill him/her! The funky disco way? Maybe classic truck-san? Ups Lightning- san? And many many more! Buy our special edition of 1000 ways how to kill your protagonist in 5 seconds and you will be struck by lightning absolutely for free! :D
Heres mine!
https://www.webnovel.com/book/12255288706164705/Aiming-to-be-the-Best-Magician-in-the-World!
#Shameless,
Just put an #ReviewSwap in review since I don't check forums at all.
ValentinaKhan I'm not really sure who Truck-san is supposed to be, I'm guessing it's some sort of reference to a Japanese light novel?
I do enjoy criticism, but in your case I don't view your review as such, since you just marked that I didn't go for action straight from the get go - which is cool, you like action, but that's not the way I wanted to build my world. Different people - different preferences.
Imparting a vivid scene to readers is something I enjoy myself as a reader, and while I'm not good at it, I prefer trying to do it, rather than writing a novel which focuses on endless dialogues and action 24/7.
As far as narrators go, the use of one or more than one narrator is as always a personal choice of the author - I have read many authors that can use one flawlessly and others that masterfully use multiple types. If a reader dislikes it, that's once again preference in most cases. I myself hate specific transitions between viewpoints and narrators, but some of my friends love them.
I do hope my writing will get better with time, but a 2/5 star rating and calling my work something that 'belongs to the trash bin' (it should actually be 'in', instead of 'to'?) seems a little harsh.
You're free to actually read forward and glance a bit further into the text, but as I have commented, there will be more info dumping and less action until I fully transmit the main character's situation properly.
If you were expecting a review swap, I'll decline giving you one for now, as I feel I would be negatively biased in a non-productive way.
ArcaneDragon Thanks for the review. I do feel that my story is kind of slow paced but things might change following the outline of the future chapters. Honestly, my outline is ahead of the currently released chapters and I try to improve my writing and plot. I should point out that my stoy is has a mix of different themes. Thus, the mood in chapters might be drastically different as it could be humorous or dramatic.
I've read through six chapters of your work and I immediately saw the need of improvement with grammar and punctuations. Although I can't say much about that since English is my second language. I haven't been really interested with eastern approach of story but this might change my point of view of the genre. Will be following your work from this point onwards.
One thing that we might share in common is the lack of text formatting (like Markdown which can be seen in translated WNs). I find it difficult to express the characters' thoughts with the limit of only using parenthesis and such.
AkaGin That's true but for now, I can only edit it myself. As I am a poor university student, I cannot hire a professional editor. I am trying to edit the chapters, while I learn something or someone pinpoints it. It's little inconvenient because reading my story today and month after can be an entirely different experience. I won't keep up 1ch/day and edit them too. However, I walk on this path and I not going to change it for now.
ArcaneDragon It takes me a lot of time to proofread and revise my chapters and I repeat them because I always miss errors here and there. I also don't have an editor but some people I know irl that are willing to read my work help me correct things here and there. Even communicating w/ readers can help.
AkaGin My readers are little shy I think. They don't comment and just read. As I see in statistics more than 60% is other. So they are random non-native speakers. I really want them to communicate with me in some way. Maybe with time they will break the ice and start commenting. 100 collections and none is commenting is painful. As for real life, none knows that I write the story and people around me are not best at English either.
I edited yesterday my 1 chapter. Quality didn't improve that much but I added more descriptions to the scenes. I try to minimize the amount of "time skip" like "an hour later", "after the moment" and it's pretty hard. hahaha
ASlyDrake
People often die in novels by being ran over by a truck, I think he was talking about that Gag?
I read your comment, and not your novel {Irony is not lost on me}
But it honestly drew me away from your novel, as a reader I want to read a cool story.
Not about a cool world. There is many people who enjoy world building, but you must remember.
The world is just the place the story takes place.
Perhaps you should use an action to advance the time.
For example I made a sword in my novel and it took 1 week.
my MC went from a house to an Inn telling the reader its night time.
I looked at your novel for kicks sense you said have so many collectors, you do not talk with the commentators that you have, it would not make sense for people to post. Give people a like or something.
ArcaneDragon I'd have to say, it also feel like I'm using excessive timeskips although it haven't appeared in my story (but will, a spoiler lol). But I don't think I can do much anything about it since my drafts are way ahead of what I have published and I honestly don't have any idea how to fix it and I don't think it will be necessary to minimize it in my case. All in all my writing style is still mediocre.
AkaGin There are many Chinese novels where writing is mediocre but the story is popular anyway. I cannot stand cliche plots but I made one myself in point of my story and I feel ashamed of myself. You know in wuxia novels it's the concept of extra lucky mc. You can call it, protagonist aura or plot armor. I did it in the first version of this story. I literally couldn't stand my own story and decided to rewrite it.
ArcaneDragon I'd admit that mine started as a cliche but I find ways to turn that cliche something that's not usually seen (at least with the range of my knowledge) and I started writing because I was so inspired by good anime and manga. Also, it seems that I don't see much of that approach that's why I decide d with that theme.
AkaGin Hi, I am in! you can read my novel here: https://www.webnovel.com/book/12575721605965905 and leave a review!
I will review your book.
Yeah
Thanks so much for the detailed suggestions! Definitely will be going through my chapters and editing haha
Since you took it so bad I removed the review.
But I took the liberty to make a more in-depth editing of the first three paragraphs of your work.
It's up to you how to take my advice to polish your writing skill.
Chapter 1: The Almighty Anura
Rain poured down incessantly over a dark and ominous valley that was nestled between two towering mountains. Through the drizzle, one could faintly make out a colorless wetland, [Starting with weather and ambient description is boring, start your story with a Bang! Or if you prefer “in medias res”] which most of the Origo players called the Bog of Despair. Whether this vast expanse of death and decay had ever had another name was unknown, as it had never been claimed by a kingdom, nor anyone else. [Infodump right here, and not even too clear. I know that Origo is an online game thanks to the synopsis but you don’t specify it here. It’s just confusing. This “Bog of Despair” is useful to the story? It’s a recurrent location? Or we are just introduced to this place once? Maybe you should just cut it out. In any case this is not the right way to describe it]
Under the splatter of the raindrops, a ragtag group of warriors and mages were trotting at a medium pace,[Trotting by definition is between walking and running, no need to specify “at a medium pace”. Medium in relation to what? Also, trotting is used mostly for horses, are they on horses?] unperturbed by the onslaught of water[Repetition of “Under the splatter of the raindrops. Cut it] that had soaked them to their bones. Their expressions were filled with exhaustion, [Show me they are exhausted and soaked, don’t tell me. How? Make them stumble and fall into the mud. Make them shake their mantles to remove the water. Make them gasp for air. Make me hear the heartbeat in their ears. If they are running on foot...or are they on horses? See the problem above.] as if they had been running like this for days. [Redundant simile, just show they are exhausted]
At a glance, the group consisted of nine people. Two female elf twins were at the forefront, acting as the group's vanguard. [Who’s speaking here? Casper the Friendly Ghost holding a camera and recording the scene for us? Third Person omniscient narrator died in the XIX century, surviving only in comedy and with the lazy authors] They were dressed in black leather clothes that clung to their bodies, each armed with a set of short blades. [Describe only what is useful to the story, do we need to know how they are dressed and armed? Do we need to know it now? If we are not going to need this information in the next paragraph (or worse, never), better cut it out.] Their eyes darted to and fro, as they scouted the area ahead for any danger.
Thanks for your review guys, i listened to what you said and tried to deepen my skills.
https://www.webnovel.com/book/12563156406920305/The-Universe-is-Innately-Just
Share with me your thoughts on the change i did!
ArcaneDragon would you like to exchange reviews with me?
fantasy_land would you like to exchange reviews with me?
Apophis9
Sure.. just give me your link!
Apophis9 I checked some chapters. The story seems promising. Magic and so on. You have some problems with grammar like me hahaha. Maybe your story is to fast paced sometimes. At least first 4 chapters make me think like this. I will try to read the more chapters and update review but my free time is running out and I need to write some chapters of my own story.
ValentinaKhan Let's call it quits for now and settle for not interacting with one another. Some of what you pointed out is indeed useful, other parts are what I'd define as your personal opinion. My chapters do need some editing, having gone through none so far, but I don't feel like this discussion is going to be constructive in any way. Have a pleasant day.
Bro, reading through your amendments. I am of the opinion that many aspiring writers can definitely gain a helpful perspective from trying to decipher your analysis. I believe many writers value such things.
That said, I have an overriding fear of recommending my own novel for your tender review. I have nothing against the substance of your review, the packaging gives me the ecstatic highs though.
Just something to consider. *Wears thick armor, helmet, greaves and round shield.
Apophis9
Done.
Hope you can get onto mine when you have time
https://dynamic.webnovel.com/book/12186924305054405
