No problem. Now the biggest question is, How are you going to change it? What are you going to change? How are you going to approach your work from now on?
- Edited
Honest feedback time.
Prologue
Your prologue is very... boring? Yeah. It's pretty boring. It's very long, especially for a prologue. Lots of information about something that... no one is invested in yet. Note: YET. Your prologue talks of the creation of the universe in great detail... which is pretty cool. To some people.
Your prologue doesn't introduce the characters or conflict in any suspenseful or interesting way. It introduces God and other gods, but doesn't introduce anything meaningful about it.
"Oh he created those gods b/c he needed some nanny."
"Oh those nannies are too old and too slow to change, so I'll need a new nanny"
"Oh. there may be a new way to get a new nanny. Lets put it on this porn-loving dude for some reason unknown to him"It's not a very strong start. Lots of fluff about creation of universe, Lots of "oh God's doing this just cuz..." Then a "random divinity to this random dude." It's like saying, "hey, read my story just because it's a story".
You got to develop it. You got to make your prologue GRAB someone's attention. Make them keep wanting to read. Don't be too technical. Don't introduce lots of ideas and concepts. The prologue isn't the place for this. Don't make it too long about the creation of the universe. It's boring and doesn't grab the reader's attention.
Take a look at this prologue:
"Whenever I see them talking to me, and whenever I see them walking away, I am reminded of my family,
on that night."I remember my mother whose lips were stained red. I remember my father, whose hands were by my side. And most clear of them all, I remember 'it'. Those eyes.
"Eyes of black, as endless as an abyss. Body of red, as deep as blood.
"'It' drew the blood out from my mother, through her mouth. 'It' ripped the arms off my father, and tossed them to my side.
"All the while, 'it' laughed. Hysterically, 'it' laughed until 'it' disappeared, As if 'it' was never there.
"And that was the night I turned 10."
That was a made up prologue of mine. Can you feel the difference between my prologue and yours? A prologue is a good place to provide some foreshadowing. It's a good place to introduce a major character (which you did, but in an not-very-interesting way). It's a good place to provide some info about the character's backstory. It's a good place to set the tone/mood for the rest of the story.
Here are some Pros to my prologue here: My made up prologue is vivid and evocative. I used shorter sentences and simple language to make it easier to understand. It's written in a way to make you, the reader, want to learn more about the child. What happened to the child after this event? What is 'it'? The contrast between the horror of the whole event, and then finding out that this was through the eyes of someone who just turned 10 makes it even more terrifying.
Here are some cons to my prologue: it's too short. I didn't go into the details of the family nor did we see how important this family is to the child. I didn't focus on the emotional state of the child before or after the event. The prologue is also too* descriptive, losing out on some audiences who don't like reading about gore and violence.
But hopefully you see where I'm going here. Your prologue isn't very interesting. I'm already bored reading it. That's not a good start as your story hasn't even started yet.
Lets get into the meat of your story's first chapter.
Chapter 2: Chapter 1
Your first chapter feel into the same pit as your prologue. You went on a long tangential depiction of who your main character is. Maybe this kind of narrative might work if you were narrating the start of a movie/tv show. Unfortunately, this is a novel, and the only voice we readers hear is the voice in our head. We get to decide how we read this, and this is reading out very bland. Like reading a resume/job experiences in paragraph format.
You went on a long exposition, detailing yada-yada-yada about how he came to the other world and how he can level up his system. All in a very bland and "info-dump" manner. That, again, is how you bore someone. Think of every day life. Think of something you're not very interested in. Then imagine an expert on this topic-you're-already-not-interested-in starts lecturing you about it like a 60-year-old-professor who is reading it straight out of a powerpoint slide. That's the kind of feel I'm getting reading your first chapter. There's no suspense. There's no conflict. Suspense drives your story forward, especially early on. I always recommend reading this up.
Things you can do to improve the first chapter is to rewrite it to where it starts with an action/conflict. For example, you can maybe instead start the story out like this:
"PERVERT!!!!"
A girl's scream could be heard from the river as a guy could be seen running away with a half-clad girl holding a stick chasing after him.
Here, we establish a source of conflict: A guy just got caught peeping at a girl by the river, and what will happen next?
Here, you have the opportunity to twist our understanding and make us recognize that while he indeed is a pervert, he also has a reason. You don't have to straight up tell us, "He has to look at 3 girls to level up", and you can do something like this:
"Yooosh! Alright! Man she looked good," the boy reminised. "Too bad her cups aren't fully matured yet. But with that, this makes girl number 3! I wonder what I will get from the system now that I've completed looking at three naked girls"
This would help grab the reader's attention a little bit better than a tirade of someone's life. You can also use dialogue to move the plot forward, assuming there's a plot.
The whole chapter is very narrative. Not like a story at all, but like a description of something. There's no emotion. No suspense. No conflict. Just "oh look, this happened. Oh look, something else happened." Truly, the only thing you have going for you in this chapter is, I wonder how this system is going to develop and maybe the "I wonder when the erotica starts". If I don't count the titles, I'm 2652 words into your story, and it's all backstory narration.
At this rate, I'm going to assume that you've lost most of the readers who reads and can contribute meaningfully, and now all you're left is :
a) those who are either too bored and can't find anything else to read so they're just reading a story just to read.
b) those who would read anything isekai
c) those who would read anything with a leveling system
d) those who wants to see where this pervert system would go.
e) those who are waiting for eroticaI could be wrong. But this may be why you're in this dilemma:
I have very little feedback from readers
Chapter 3: Chapter 2
At least there's something going on in this chapter now. There's movement. There's action. Unfortunately, it's very . . . for lack of a better word. . . unnatural. It's not very naturalistic and doesn't seem to be the action that many would do in the real world. There's no vivid language, no conflict. No suspense. Just... very lacking. I think I'm going to stop here. There's lots of "self rationalization" here that 'this naturally happen b/c of XYZ,". "Oh I happen to be here and this happen to happen. Thank goodness we have ABC reasons to explain it away".
Verdict:
Read until Chapter 3: Chapter 2.
Weak prologue. Weak chapter 1. All narrator's narration only. No scene. No action. No conflict. No drive. Things happen "just because". Not very interesting.
But wait, things don't get interesting until chapter XXX! Keep reading!
You didn't keep me interested until chapter XXX. When I'm reading you're story, I'm engaging in a contract of sorts. You keep me invested, and I'll keep investing my time into your book. It should be interesting from the get-go, from the very beginning.
Good luck friend.
Hobey-ho.TLDR:
Alright story. Decent action, but no suspense/plot build up. Everything really cut and dry. And I can't tell if you wanted the book to be focused about "going back and getting revenge", or "going back and living happily ever after".
Okay. Sorry, my thoughts are all over the place as I read this story. I'm going to stop pointing specifics here and point out the overall things I got from chapter 1:
- Your story is a bit... basic. I feel it's not very fleshed out. It feels like you're attempting to explain everything to me, the reader, as you present your story. Even the bad-guy-laugh-as-he-succeeds-in-killing-everyone and the oh-very-professional-killer-who-have-done-this-a-million-times seems forced. Its like you're telling me a lot of things about this dude, and tried to explain all the bad guy's motives in this story. In chapter 1.
The story in itself isn't very suspenseful. MC gets killed. Bad guy smiles over his victory and achieving his goal, which are clearly explain already. Then MC slips back in time and is freaked out by his sister who he happily reunites. What's the suspense here? What's driving the story? The MC isn't in jeopardy because he's clearly dead. The "I will never let go of this" was a good start, but nothing was built on it, leaving it fall kind of flat.
To quote this site
"Suspense happens in the stillness of your story, in the gaps between the action sequences, in the moments between the promise of something dreadful and its arrival."
What's the promise of this something dreadful that would arrive? In Game of Thrones, we have the promise of "Winter is coming" and "deaths". In Harry Potter, we have the promise of "a brighter future". What do you have here for your story?
A murder is not suspense. An abduction with the threat of a murder is.
If you want readers to emotionally distance themselves from the story, show one murder after another, after another, after another; but if you want to build tension, cut down on the violence and increase the readers’ apprehension about a future violent act.
The scariest stories often contain very little violence.
Sure thing. I'm going to do something a bit different though. I'm going to change your synopsis a bit, and you'll have to try to figure out what I did and why I did it. Keep in mind that I'm adjusting it before reading your story. So while the details are off, the core essence still remains:
New Synopsis:
Noah was loved and treasured by everyone in his life.
His parents, the richest people in the city, pampered him with gifts.
His two sisters showered him with compliments while his two brothers protected and sheltered him.
Even his husband whispered sweet nothings into his ears every time are together.But all that love... ended when he was 24. His mom and dad were shot in the head. His sisters' necks were slit wide open. His brothers? Electrocuted in the hot tub. And him? Beaten black and blue and left on the ground to bleed out internally. All for the love of money and power.
If he had one regret, it is that he didn't realize it sooner. How he wanted to change things. As his vision darkens, he thought to himself, 'I wish I had done things differently'.
And he died.
*BOOM*
Noah's vision returned to him as a jarring pain cut through under his right leg. The same leg that was sliced when he had an accident during horseback riding at 14. He no longer felt the bruises from the beating he took earlier. As he open his eyes, he saw blood flowing down his leg from a wound that was where his scars should have been and a horse running off into the distance. The same damn horse that was sold off 10 years ago after the accident.'Wait a minute. Where's the scar?' he thought to himself. 'Could it be...'
He looked at his hands. They were smaller. His six pack, gone. His arms, skinnier.
"Noah! Are you okay?" a petrified voice yelled out.
Noah reacted to the sound of the voice. He would never forget that voice. That was William's voice. It sounded higher than normal though. When Noah looked towards the voice, he saw him. Him. William. But William was a teenager. Not the big William he knew. William, his husband. William, his love. William, the very same man who murdered his whole family. William, the one who killed him. William.
Everything started clicking to place. This was when he first met William. When he was 14 and suffered from the horseback accident. He had traveled back in time.
Okay, ignore that. I was going to write a synopsis, but got carried away and wrote my own chapter 1 instead. Yikes. Sorry! I'm going to leave it there though, because I spent so much work on it, it'd be a shame to have it disappear forever.
Essentially, my original point was, your synopsis was very lacking in terms of show not tell.
Noah was the youngest child of the richest family in the city. For some reason, he got loved by everyone as if he was a treasure.
His parents said they love him.
His two sisters said they love him.
His two brothers said they love him.
For some reason. So you don't know the reason? Make up one. You're the author. By putting for some reason here, you're stating that "oh, he happened to be loved by everyone even though he doesn't seem to have deserved it". That doesn't make the reader want to root for him.
And everything in your synopsis is cut and dry. You spoiled everything. Plot, drive, motif, and... resolution.
As he succeeded, the fated one for him appeared in front of him changing a lot of things in his previous life and giving him a lot of happiness preventing his dark past life
So pray tell, what's to get us to read chapter 1? Everything was already given. He got killed by his husband, he goes back in time. He succeeded in getting revenge and saving everything that was lost. And in tern, got lots of happiness.
You told us that he is now living "happily ever after" already in the synopsis. Cool. Story's done. Next book time.
Leave some things hidden. Expose enough to generate interest. Don't give away everything.
Chapter 1
I will not let go of this
Frankly, I prefer the order of the wording to be:
I will not let this go
. Potatas Potatoes I guess.Work on speech tag punctuation:
"I will not let go of this", A young man
Work on describing things in a less confusing order, focusing on the important bits. How do you look "the same age" AND "younger" than him at the same time?
there were more than five men who looked the same age and younger than him
Here, is it important to know that they're about 24 or under? Maybe if so, you can phrase it like:
There were more than five men who looked to be in their early 20s, but none of the five were older than him.
Ambiguous:
He was already prepared to die when he heard his family had already left him alone
Was he ready to like, "kill himself"-prepared? Or did he know that "there's no chance I'm going to survive"-mentally prepared?
"I will never let go of this. Please, If I could get another chance, I am gonna make them pay for everything"
How does he speak when... he's already dead? How does tears continue flowing when his face was squished by a pillow? Pillow sheets often do a great job dabbing some of those tears away.
Awkward phrasing:
I am the best. Anyone could never get near me" --> No one could ever get near me
Initial impressions:
Sypnosis:
... When she was 8 years old, her family was killed by an unknown people and she was the only one who survived, she was enraged by her parents' death so she decided to take revenge on them.
Three things about the synopsis:
1st) a/an is always singular. People is NOT a singular word. So when you say "an unknown people", it's incorrect and awkward.
2nd) You have a super long run-on sentence. I've split the sentence into the [non-italic] half and the [italic] half. Split that up somehow.
3rd)
decided to take revenge on them
sounds a little.. off. She was ENRAGED, and "decided" is too calm of a word to fit with "enraged". Additionally, "to take revenge on them" doesn't sound right either. Something seems off here.I tried reading your chapter 1. Its a hard read. I'm reading a story, right? Not a screen play right?
"Yes.? what is it?" <- sitting in the chair with boredom gesture, waiting for her 30 seconds ago.
There's several ways to go about it, and you went with the most... non-storylike way ever. You could have told that she had been waiting for half a minute. You could have described the "boredom gesture".
"Shia! I got good news!"
Shia, who was twirling her hair in boredom from having to wait for the past half a minute, responded, "Yes? What is it?"
There are lots of incorrect punctuations used. Here are some examples:
Periods + Question/Exclamation marks"Shia.!~ I got good news.!"
"Yes.? what is it?"
"What.!?"Usage of tildes
~
makes it look like a text/chat messageIncorrect capitalizations of should-be names, at the beginning of the sentence, etc.
I was currently adopted by the duke of flowell and duchess flowell...
"Omg, who is she? she's so pretty like a cute fairy! her blonde hair and very bright sky blue eyes.!"Even text-short hand! OMG!
Incorrect word usage:
The Countess is angered about It and gritting her teeth.
Either go with "was gritting" or "gritted", etc.
TLDR:
- Very lackluster. No suspense build up. All "this is what happened to her, so pity her. But wait, she's OP".
- Everything is pretty cut and dry. Nothing to relate to, and the things presented seems pretty.. farfetched to believe in.
- Lots of grammatical mistakes. Punctuations, capitalizations, incorrect word usage, stage directions, etc.
Lots of areas needed to be worked on. Phrases needs to be varied, and sentence length needs to be varied also.
But most importantly, work on creating suspense. Look at this here.
I'm looking at the cover of your book. It doesn't sound very appealing.
The Alpha King AZRON KING, always upright and fair.
This is a sentence fragment. No verb to connect.
He leads his pack like his family due to which their pack Black Luna is the strongest in the world.
Due to is supposed to be used like "because of". I.e. "He was good at math due to his Asian genes". "He was a pervert due to his love for butts". Instead, how you use it is ambiguous, especially by adding the which there. It makes your sentence "choppy".
7 feet tall with midnight black hair along with striking silver orbs
Another sentence fragment. There's no verb here either. A proper English sentence requires two component: A subject and a verb. That's it.
I'm scared to continue on. Is the rest of the story going to be like this?
But alas, tread on I must. For science. For English.
*Pause* *reads chapter*
Okay. So I just kind of went through the chapter after the prologue. I didn't feel like I was reading a story. Instead, I felt like I was reading a... text message? A discord chat message?
There are some spelling mistakes, such as using
by
when you need to usebye
, and usingGARDIAN
instead ofGUARDIAN
.Mr.
is an abbreviation used for when it's accompanying a name.Mr. James Bond
.Mr. Jackson
. To use it as a word by itself, use the full spelling,mister
. There are also a few missing punctuations, like periods, here and there. The all caps on some word really affected the reading too. I get that you wanted to emphasize it, but less is more.Grammar aside, story-wise, it didn't make much sense.
I get that she's happy following the side of the beach. I get that she sees something that resembles a bear. But when one sees a bear by the beach... what's their first reaction?
What if it attacks me or kidnap me and gift me to its girlfriend .
? That doesn't sound very plausible.And then the injury on the hand? Going to a complete stranger and go all "let me fix that injury on this passed-out-gigantic fellow by the beach" in a dark corner? There aren't any lights there, and it's too late... I think girls, in general, are more situationally attuned to the environment due to the fear for their safety than guys are. Yet here we have Ms. Oblivious-but-caring who willingly walk up to a giant passed out guy with a cut on his hand to "bandage him quickly" in a location that's a set-up for kidnapping at best. I get that you intend on her being "simple" and "innocent", but this is... 8-year old simple and innocent. Not 19 year old.
Then we have the "Author and ML interview". It's hard enough trying to immerse in the story as is, with you constantly denoting "ML", "FL", and such, like it's stage directions. And now we have an "interview with the ML".
I'm not sure about you, but for me, when I read the story, I want to be immersed in it. The drive/motivation, the goal, the setbacks/challenges, the adversity, etc. And maybe in that order. Then maybe I'll like to learn more about them later.
Instead, what you did was you offered everyone first. The character, the info about them, etc. Why would I care about these... names and characters? I got nothing to relate to or sympathize with. The only premise you've established so far is "there's this girl who is supposed to be unbelievably naive, and then there's this Alpha wolf guy who is supposed to be... domineering?
2 chapters in, naive girl, tuff guy, several breaks in the story, grammatical error, punctuation issues, emojis and capitalized words. Nothing screams "Sit here and read and enjoy this story." It's more of a "enjoy this TikTok short" feel. Heck, even in the first chapter, he's hollering ANGEL to her. There's not much development going on. With this, you lose out on a lot of readers because you've thrown out a lot of suspense and buildup.
Here's some free tips, based on what I saw briefly.
Incorrect punctuation usage
Ughh...,
[...] stabbed in their back.No Harsya soldiers returned there, From there [...]Incorrect spacing after punctuations. Incorrect capitalizations.
I am Kogen Starlezia,15 years old Boy,
Incorrect word usage and incorrect grammatical sentence structure
This dream of being in hell is become [grammatically incorrect] a habit from my childhood as per [word usage] I remember.
Maybe the verb you were looking for there was
was
foris become
.As per
, on the other hand, need an object to reference. As per what?Lots of missing punctuations, capitalizations needed. Fragmented sentences. It's hard to read past all that to get to the actual meat of the story itself.
My recommendation: use google docs, and use the spell checker there to get rid of these simple mistakes.
- In Review swap
Review swap: give me that honest review
I don't have good news
Immediately, in the summary, we have some errors.
(Incomplete sentence) When one of the Supreme, Supreme 2 also known as the Lord of Heaven or Life made a blunder. (You ended your sentence here. When the Lord made a blunder.... what? What happened?)
(Wrong word usage) ...This is the story of a child who was born will bad luck ...
(Wrong word usage) ...The name does look appealing but things are not his they look.
Yikes. If the summary already have these sorts of errors, I can expect to find more in the story itself.
And I do:
(Wrong word usage) ... Another similar man was sitting on a chair. Accept the build of the man was pretty buffed...
Then you have incorrect punctuations being used in your story.
Call the God~.
You don't do
~.
That tilde~
is really out of place here. You're writing a novel, not a manga. And I don't think the tilde means as you think it means.Look, according to someone:
It’s hard to explain exactly, but when I see it, the tilde is most often used to convey a feeling of silliness, whimsy or flirtatiousness.
I.e., “I loved last night”
“Oh, I'm very sure about that”
“Just got back from the market”
“Nice banana”
... So when you go, "Call the God~"... are you flirtatiously flirting about calling God here? Are you being silly? Etc.
You also see it throughout the story, but this time, I'm goin to focus on interruptions, using the
--
.Send her in~. It is going to, --" (supreme 2)
It should be:
It is going to--
Just like that. No commas or anything after the
to
.You can also look up how to vary your usage of dialogue tags. It'll add value to your storytelling tremendously.
Okay, enough of the grammatical things. Some things to point out:
Supreme 1, Supreme 2, First and Second man. These are all very... how do you say it. Horrible names. It's a very basic way of identifying people. It didn't look like you have any thoughts thrown in when you did that. It's very on-the-nose, and makes your story very... lacking. Like you lacked the effort to name them.
If you wanted to keep them mysterious, you have to identify them by something, and then keep referring them by that identifying factor:
the man with the purple hat
,the man with the crooked nose
, etc.I liked how you tried to build suspense. Its a shame it's at the very beginning, and it's suspense by dialogue. Lots and lots of dialogue. I like how the guy's life is on the line... but so what? There's nothing for me to relate to. There's nothing there to resonate to. He's not interesting in any way. The only thing that attempts to get me hooked is "Something horrible happened and now the supreme being is throwing this soul into an experiment"... which isn't a very strong hook. Your whole chapter 1 ran like:
PersonA started off the scene with, "OMG this unspeakable thing just happened! PersonB! I must speak to the higherups about this!"
Then PersonB goes, "OMG OMG OMG, go right in!".
After PersonA tells PersonC...
PersonC responded with, "OMG How could this happen?"
PersonA: "The crime is on you. You'll be executed for this! But fret not, my lord! I have a solution for you!"
PersonC: "What is it?"
PersonA: "That mysterious experiment that was started yesterday~"
It's so much dialogue, but nothing is happening. I don't need to know the what/why right away. I want to be involved/engaged. But with the dialogues.... it's not happening.
Here's a resource on building suspense that I love referring to. Maybe you can incorporate some ideas into future novels?
Don't let me dishearten you though. I'm just trying to show you areas where you can improve your writing on. G'luck friend.
- In Review swap
- In Review swap
You know what really gets me, though @SenorSleep ? The lack of periods at the end of lots of paragraphs. It is like its hanging there, butt naked.
Hello LordYangStar,
I was reading Chapter 1 of your story, and the beginning is mostly... narration? Would be right to say that it gives the vibe of being narrated to? The same vibe that this would give:
In a land far far away, there lived a boy and a girl.
Very narration-like, very distant. Like someone is telling a tale.
You then go off to talk about elements and civilizations and such. Without hooking me into the story, you've already gone theological/philosophical/theoretical/whatever on me. I also disagreed with your analogy of
The elements were the puzzle of the universe
.The
puzzle
refers to the whole assembled piece. Theelements
would be akin to more like thepieces
of thepuzzles
. The building blocks of thatpuzzle
. Instead, you said the elements were the puzzle of the universe. You lost a point from me there already. Starting off with a theory (that I could already disagree with), and then continuing on trying to build on it. To present to you with an example:Americans are the hardest and smartest workers in the world. They...
See how you would find that hard to believe and then be more than likely to just gloss over the next few part of what I would say?
Then you lost another point for a lot of incomplete sentences. Fragmented sentences. Whatchamaycallit... a sentence fragment? A lot of incomplete sentences. To be a sentence, you need two vital information: a subject, and a verb.
For example, here, I'll cross out the prepositional phrases so you can see what your sentence looks like:
(In one)(of the countless areas)(of space)(with many elements)gathered(in one place).See? The only relevant grammatical parts here were 5 prepositional phrases, and 1 verb. No subject.
While I do get that you want to achieve some sort of effect with incomplete sentences like these ones...
Hovering tens of meters above the ground.
In the distance, more specifically, hundreds of kilometers from the creature.
Clearly indicating that this purple orb was made of strong poison!
With all the surrounding Abyssals Clones dead....they're still incomplete sentences and a slight annoyance to read. It's like opening an ice cream bucket/jar/can to find out that only the top half of it has ice cream while the bottom half is empty.
Next, you'll also have to revisit on how colons are used. They are not supposed to be used like how you did below:
Unlike the unkempt mountains: created from the corpses of these horrendous creatures.
...
The countless rocks that were floating quietly around him moved as if they were alive: and combined into five rock pillars with strange symbols!
...
The man smiled without showing any concern at the Abyssal Clone's surprise attack, with his ax as the center: he created in less than a second a gigantic semi-transparent elemental ax that swung down so fast that even the Abyssal Clone had no time to dodge!You could also look up how speech tags are punctuated, and stick to a certain style. The key here is to remain consistent.
"Oh? I see you're getting more serious already." The man said.
And for some reason, you mentioned "for some reason" twice. It stands out. It doesn't make sense. Don't state to the reader that "for some reason, this happened". Instead, show it. The readers will noticed that it happened for some reason already.
I'm a proponent of having your story start out filled with action. Make it immersive. Start the story off by "showing", not "telling".
Kind of like:
(Tell)(remove)
The elements were the puzzle of the universe. (Tell) Each element was essentially a vital part of every star, planet, comet, and even supermassive black hole.(Tell) None of the above would exist without its respective element.(remove)(Tell) In one of the countless areas of space with many elements gathered in one place. (Tell) Unlike other areas of the universe that only had one or two elements.(remove)(Tell) A civilization was having a life and death battle with a creature of illogical proportions that broke all the laws of physics.
(ADJUST: How can we portray this life+death battle with a creature of illogical proportions that is physically impossible?)(Tell) The home of this civilization was a giant planet that for some reason, was covered in a layer of dark clouds that released an ominous feeling.
(ADJUST: Instead of saying that it was covered in a layer of dark cloud, let's describe it instead?)(Tell) Even the light radiating from the orange star of this planetary system could barely penetrate this cloud layer.
(ADJUST: Instead of saying, lets describe?)(Tell) For some reason, the hideous creature that was as immense as a continent ten of millions of kilometers long had an anxious and annoyed expression.
(ADJUST: Show that the creature is annoyed/anxious. Say, a symptom of anxiousness/nervousness is darting eyes. Tapping fingers. Etc. Lets use something like that).(Tell) Its dozens of hollow eyes with red pupils had a bloody glow and extreme hunger.
(ADJUST: Don't be passive by describing it. Instead, maybe you can say something like, "it glowed". More active presence).This, and all the way until the
Bang!
, was mostly youtelling
me the story. That makes it very uninteresting.
I propose removing the narration and jumping straight to the story, and fill it with action. Using the proposed edit above, I drafted a sample keeping these adjustment notes in mind:
*ADJUST: How can we portray this life+death battle with a creature of illogical proportions that is physically impossible?)
(ADJUST: Instead of saying that it was covered in a layer of dark cloud, let's describe it instead?)
(ADJUST: Show that the creature is annoyed/anxious. Say, a symptom of anxiousness/nervousness is darting eyes. Tapping fingers. Etc. Lets use something like that).
(ADJUST: Don't be passive by describing it. Instead, maybe you can say something like, "it glowed". More active presence).*
A layer of dark cloud covered the entire sky. (this is an active sentence. The cloud is actively covering the sky). Even the rays of light from the orange star could barely penetrate this layer of cloud. (This is another active sentence. The RAYS penetrate the layer) The once-blue oceans were now stained as black as oil and the aura of death pervaded over these oceans. (To contrast, THIS is a passive sentence. The oceans were stained. You can indeed make it active by saying: "XXX stained the ocean" )
(Then we can describe the corpses. We want to paint an image, not just say, "there was a corpse there)
Corpses were strewn everywhere--so much that many mountains of them were formed. Corpses of terrifying-looking creatures with purple skins and tentacles laid throughout the land. Corpses of human-shaped beings in beautiful and elegant armor were scattered all around.more description to set up the scene if you wish
Now to describe about the nervousness
'Its' eyes darted around, constantly scanning the area. 'Its' chest tightened up as it attempted to breathe in. 'Its' newly sprouted tentacles were trembling. EtcAnd then, BANG, fight scene!
Show more things too! Like here:
The Abyssal Clone, with a scared expression, shot its poison orb!
How would a scared expression look like? What else would a person do when they're scared? What are the other accompanying actions/physiological reactions? Etc.
And then you can talk more about your elemental theory or such later on too, I guess, if you want.
The biggest takeaway is this: what exactly are you wanting the reader to ask by the end of this chapter? What is your hook and what are you intending to do to draw the readers in to your story?
So far, the information presented is a bit inconsistent.
Life and death battle of a civilization was taking place, but the fight ended after a few "bangs!" Monster of huge size, millions of km long, can be talked to as if it was right there by the people attacking it. And once they're that size, how do they crash into a mountain of corpse? How can a mountain of corpse be big enough for a monster of that size to crash into?
Then there was the description of "temperature instantly rose in the battlefield", and the "monologue" about the hero's sister using voice+fire element. But no signs/details of voice preluding this at all.
But all in all, it's a start. There was some suspense. Seems to be some OP characters already. So I'm guessing that the rest of the story is going to be on character development? Some mention of "hero", so I'm guessing there would be maybe some 'demon' along with this?
Thank you for tuning into my review. Hopefully it points some things out to you.
Yay, updates! Congrats on bettering yourself!
Midnight_Alpha I'm just gonna say I am female
Nice! I, too, will state that I'm male.
Can we kiss now?
J/k j/k.
Carciphones_02 Why are you making me questions my existence!!!???
Bruh. If that's enough to make you question your existence, let me find my How to
brainwash someoneMake New Friends manual! Give me a moment! :)I've had some major writer's block, and I need some suggestions on fixing it.
Well, I can tell you to just power through it and keep writing. It would probably work, but that will be addressing the symptom and not the issue. But before we delve in any further, from one paper:
Free writing, questions that stimulate thinking, encouragement, completing an outline before one writes, talking out-loud then writing down those thoughts, eliminating all distractions, and changing one’s surroundings are all solutions that could possibly help a student overcome writer’s block
First, I have to ask you: Why? Why do you think you have writer's block? Think back: Why didn't you have writer's block in the beginning and you do now? I can assure you, if you had writer's block in the very beginning, your stories would've never been written. And they're written now, so you made it through the beginning there.
So what's different between now and back then?
With my awesome psychic powers, I was able to glimpse at the alternate universes, and saw different many different
you
's. No worries, I'll tell it to you, free of charge. The first inter-parallel reading is free.The first you I saw posted on a blog that:
You no longer want to write.
There comes a time when you just don't want to write. It's not that you don't love it. It's just that it's time to let go. You loved it. It was great while it lasted. But now it's time to move on. There's nothing wrong with that. Its okay to trade the pen for the sword. Time to go hacking and slashing, as those dungeons aren't going to close themselves here. So you registered yourself to an Adventure's Guild and earned the nickname: The Once Author. Sadly, you died on the second dungeon because you scratched your arm on a slime-infested cave. You developed a bacterial infection, and died shortly afterwards. But its okay. You traded the pen for the sword. You followed your heart. You liked something, and you tried it. Lived fully, died young. #YOLO
The "second you" was crestfallen:
You're not good enough
You were scared. You didn't know whether you should do Plot A, or Plot B. Your readers wanted Plot C, but you feel you may disappoint them because you already were leaning towards Plot B. So you freeze. Like a deer in headlights. The moment between life and death of your story, you ... didn't choose. Your story stalled. You were afraid the readers didn't like where you were steering your story. You were afraid that you didn't have a good enough story. The sentence wasn't perfect enough. The plot wasn't developed enough. The dialogues were too crappy. So you hesitated. You dipped your quill onto the ink, but you never quilled your paper. Instead, you sat. And you waited.
Days turned into nights. The bills racked up. Seasons changed. Empires rose and fell. Yet the paper remained blank. 'But what if,' you thought to yourself, 'What if it's not good enough?' So you waited. But the world didn't.
'Aha!' Your eyes lit up. The moment was finally here: 'I've the perfect 7-word sentence to describe this next scene!'. You turned to dip your quill in ink, but the ink was long dried out. The paper was worn and torn from the slightest touch of your once-quill. So you scratched the 7 words on the next best thing in front of you. A tombstone:
Here stands Midnight Alpha, he who waited.
You chuckled at your creativity. "Get it? Stand?' You laughed maniacally.
Then, I encountered an interesting you:
You were... tired.
You've chewed up the story, the plot, the themes, and the drama. You breathed the conversational dialogues between your character and the side characters. You dreamed of scribbling down notes for your next plot. Your whole life was a constant... "story this, story that". You were just going through the motions, and you're tired. You needed rest. A break from all this. But your brain won't let you. But the more you focused, the less focus you had. What a conundrum. So you write. And kept writing. And then.. you just couldn't write anymore. It's just... too tiresome. That which you loved is now tiresome. Maybe this was why your abeula laughed at you when you told her that "You wanted to work with what you love. That way, you will no longer have to work a single day in your life!" She had laughed and scoffed at you. She had said to not do it. You remembered arguing back. 'She's just getting old and senile'.
But when "what you loved" and "what's bringing food to the table" became the same thing, you quickly learned that some of the things you do to bring food to the table isn't exactly what you loved---If you read this far, start off your reply with a <3 so I can confirm that you're actually reading---You wanted to use a three-act story structure to write about the love of a wife to her husband through all the little action she does for him every day, but your readers and publisher wanted you to write about a self-righteous cultivator who slaughters an entire clan because that clan "looked down on him and they stepped on his chicken last chapter." This is despite the fact that in the last 18 chapters, he annihilated 18 different clans, one in each chapter, "because, reasons." But if you don't write this, you'll have to choose between buying one-pound of beef for dinner, or skipping dinner tonight and lunch tomorrow.
So you wrote. You wrote what you loved. You wrote what you didn't. You wrote when you wanted to, and you wrote when you didn't want to. You wrote it all, from steamy A.I stories to Dr. Seuss's fan fiction. You wrote. And wrote. And now, you have burned out. You're tired and burned out.
It was too tragic. I couldn't keep watching that "you", so I moved on and found.. an unlucky you.
You're too busy.
Every time you wanted to write, you couldn't. In the back of your mind, a voice was nagging, 'The laundry's not started yet. Dishes are starting to fill up in the sink. The kid needs help with his homework. I should probably repair that fence ...' In an atmosphere and situation that set you up for failure, you... failed. It succeeded in making sure that you failed, and you failed gloriously. But that's okay. That's just in the writing department. You made a great parent and partner. You don't judge a car by its ability to cook scramble eggs. Today's just not the day. Once you retweaked the settings a bit, you'll likely excel in writing. And possibly cook slow-cook ribs with your car.
So go back and ask yourself. What changed from the beginning and now? A lot of technique to rid yourself of writer's block tends to address issues that you're facing now. If you need help, I have consulted with the cosmos, and they gave me this answer here. Do not berate or belittle this psychic searching technique. It is very powerful, and can do a lot of damage in the wrong hands. I've entrusted this to you, lost writer, in hopes that you can better use this ability to help yourself and others like you.
When asking for help, it typically fares better if you:
a) Make it as easy as possible for others to help you. Instead of this:
Cek the novel on my profile
It might've been better if you posted a link or something (idk what the rules/regulations are) so people can just insta-click it.
b) Know what exactly you want to improve on or what your concerns are. What made you think: "My story needs to be improved"? Generally vague questions can be answered with generally vague answers.
Q: Can someone help me improve my novel?
A: Yes
A: It sucks. Write a better story instead.
A: No.c) List out what things have you done to help yourself before asking for help here. Ie.:
I tried doing show not tell. I got rid of all the background fluff that's irrelevant to the first few chapters. I developed a plot-progression for the main character, etc.
Up to you. If you want to keep trying, go for it.
I generally stop by chapter 2 if I don't like the story so far.
- Edited
@Wulin_Jianghu So you're suggesting for me to use simpler words
Yes and no. You write for targeted audience. There's nothing wrong with introducing new words here and there to your target readers. Just note that each time they stumble upon a unknown word, their brain will pause/skip over that word momentarily, breaking whatever immersion they were in. The better question is, "What else is there to draw them back in after breaking that immersion?" Don't just say, "
Oh, its historical fiction! They'll love it!
" or "The plot is good!
". That's like asking someone to review your book, and all they say is, "The book is great!
". Like, what specifically is there in your book that's drawing them back after they're no longer immersed in your story?Wait, were they even immersed in your story to begin with? That's the bigger question.
I saw your post here a day or so ago, and wanted to try reading your story first before commenting. I gave it a try, and I found it lacking in some areas. I found it very hard to read chapter 1, and I eventually stopped reading at chapter 2. It was too narrative heavy on background. Your very first chapter is to draw readers in to your world. Check out this Chapter 1 checklist to have a good idea of what is expected for published-novels' chapter 1.
1) A History Lesson
First, I noticed was that your story was told like it's a narrative. Like some omnipotent being is giving these info. Or like you're detailing it out from a history book. I'm not sure about you or any other person, but when I read these kind of novels, it is usually because of "escape". I want to "take my mind off of everyday life" and "just live the life of the character in the novel". That's immersion.
Your storytelling methods don't allow any immersion. I don't get to live through the lens of any characters. Instead, what happens in my head when I started reading your chapter was:
I imagine a fight scene. Then an unknown speaker reads all this historical info. Then there's some speech. Then the speaker narrates some more. Then some more. Then some more speeches. Then more narration.
It's very passive, and doesn't involve the reader much. That's the best way I can put it. Here, take a look at these first two paragraphs you have. Keep in mind, the first sentence influences the impression readers have of your work:
In winter, King Ling of Chu led an army to besiege and conquer Xu State capital to prepare an invasion of Wu State. Everything was going well, and success seemed within his reach.
Who would have thought that while the foreign affair was going well, the domestic affair went wrong? In summer, King Ling received news that his third brother - Prince Zigan, launched a coup at the capital and took control of the Chu's government.
It's very... impersonal and distant. We're not a part of the action yet. I'm not saying it can't be done, but the rest of your two chapters carries the same tone and style. Very distant, impersonal, and is just feeding us news, with intermittent speeches in between. If we were to ignore/omit out the speeches, it reads like a classical history textbook, or a history lecture. I'm not here for class. I'm here to escape. The classroom lecture isn't my escape. Instead, I am given a history lesson.
Here's one example:
(Very narrative and Impersonal):
King Ling and is loyal troops managed to escape from the battle in Yuzhang, and they secretly marched back to Ying City - the capital of Chu.
Never he had anticipated that his youngest fifth brother - Prince Qiji led a band of troops to capture him while he was on his way back.
Prince Qiji brought ten thousand soldiers, while there were only around three thousand of soldiers from King Ling's side.
(possible direction of revision--be more personal with your narrative):
3,000 troops. 3,000. That was the number of people who managed to escape that fierce battle in Yuzhang. Yes, escape. King Ling sighed. His troop of loyal soldiers were beaten and they're now no better than a group of ragtag farmers. Only a third of them still had weapons, and the rest had lost them while fleeing. With no choice, King Ling had to retreat secretly back to Ying City, the capital of Chu. While King Ling was trying to figure out what went wrong, a general rushed over, breaking him from his train of thought.
"Your highness! Reporting! Our scouts ahead were all killed before the hill! The enemies are advancing towards us!"
Startled, the king yelled, "Pikemen to the front! Archers, string your bows! Group up!"
Without hesitation, King Ling ordered his men into a defensive formation. He knew his situation: after fighting a fierce battle, and marching all day and night non-stop, everyone was tired. He knew there's no escaping this battle. His enemies had planned well! They dictated what would happen back in Yuzhang, leading to his catastrophic loss. They knew he would retreat, and they even knew where he would head out to after the retreat! If King Ling had shared his battle plans with anyone, he would have suspected that there was a traitor among his troops. But alas, he didn't share his battle plans with anyone! Who amongst his enemies would know him so well? Back in the battle of Yuzhang, they even threw out two baits knowing that he wouldn't take it, and instead, used those baits as the main force to force him into this situation today? Who would--?
Forget it, King Ling thought, what happened already happened. I'll deal with this after the battle.
Once the troop assembled into their formation, the road was deathly quiet. Morale was low, but people still had faith. Maybe they can still run from this battle. Everyone looked on nervously.
Boom. Boom. Boom. The heavy sound of infantry footsteps thundered in tune with drum beats. The enemy infantry that came out of the valley was very disciplined. King Ling's eyes widened when he saw the flag that they were carrying: black and red banners with a dragon.
"Fifth brother," he murmured.
Everything made sense now. The loss back in Yuzhang. The easy retreat. And now the ambush. No one else but his fifth youngest brother, Prince Qiji, could've done this.
Tata. Tata. Tata. Horses were heard galloping from the sides, flanking King Ling's army.
The marching enemies seem endless, coming forth like an endless black stream spewing forth from the green valley. King Ling estimated that there were maybe ten thousand troops that the prince had brought out. Three thousand versus ten thousand.
Without the king saying a word, everyone knew that no one here was going to survive today. Prince Qiji had come to eliminate King Ling out of the competition for the throne.
2) Resonance
In your two chapters, I saw two-three figures do something. That's the best way I can describe it. it wasn't very attention catching, because their actions are... not very important to me (as the reader). Why do I care about these guy who I don't know anything about? I know they're royalty, and I know they're fighting a battle. But it's the same as "I know the white guy at the gas station is getting gas, and he's rich". So why would I care? You need to make your readers care about your characters for your readers to follow after your characters.
How would you make readers care? Pique their interests. Make it suspenseful. And the interested readers will willingly follow.
I recommend you taking a look at this site here, especially noteworthy are
Key CHARACTER conditions for reader suspense
, Part 5 and 6.After that, you can then consider ian-irvine's site here, Part A. Character. Both those sites are excellent resources in "how to create great suspenseful characters". If you have more time, I do recommend you reading all of it. This is what your story lacks right now: a meaningful character to resonate with your readers, and suspense.
In case you haven't opened any of those link, here's an excerpt from ian-irvine's site:
Readers read to lose themselves in the story and, hopefully, to become the hero through identification (see Cleaver, Immediate Fiction).
But before readers can identify with a character, he has to reveal his true inner self. Character is revealed most clearly through adversity and conflict, when the hero is desperate and has to give everything he has. When he’s forced to the limit, the reader will identify strongly with the hero. The reader’s hope that the hero will succeed, and fear that he will fail, creates rising suspense until the climax, where the hero’s goal or problem is resolved.
Your story, so far, doesn't do that. There's no resonance with the characters. And, as the reader, since I can't identify myself with them, they're just backstage characters doing... things. Which leads to a "dull" and "uninteresting" story that is "ladened with lots of facts and numbers".
3) Show and Tell
When you want the readers to quickly read through a part, you tell the story of what happens. When you want the reader to focus and be immerse in a scene, you show what happens. Plenty of resources out there for this section, and I don't think I need to expand more on this.
4) Have fun.
I know it's a historical fiction. I know you aim for it to be as historically accurate as possible. But quite frankly, without a dedicated team to help out with that, you'll be burning yourself out as you'll find yourself "checking to see if things are accurate" more often than "writing a story you want to share". Have fun, be steady, and don't burn yourself out.
5) Afterward:
After writing all this out, I went back and skimmed chapter 3. That chapter seems more personal and not very distant now. Which is great. But it started ... way too late. If not for writing this review, I would've never read past chapter 1. But skimming through, I still find the main character's motivation + drive very... lacking. Nothing strong, nothing to resonate.
One good thing, though, is that you have plenty of contents to write about. If you can turn these setting-descriptions into scenes, then that'd be great!
Hobey-Ho,
Good luck friend.P.S.
Found another resource that may be relevant