Webnovel.Forum

Most: when building an idea in my mind
Least: actually writing the idea down
Most: when reading, what I wrote in the past and thinking about the idea it represents

@Wen_Yue

Wild Crimson Rose:
-reading status: ch.10
-Genre: Eastern Fantasy with a touch Historical I guess
-Spoilers contained

So first of the points I liked. It was well written (although you should watch your punctuation more carefully) and had some good descriptions to it. I also liked the setting and the Idea behind the novel. Even though those are only two sentences, they take up a big part of my opinion.

On to the criticism; Even though, it was well written and had beautiful descriptions, I found myself only scanning over some. The habit of excessive use of them seemed kind of pointless to me in some situations. What played into that was also the slow story development. Which in itself is not bad at all, but it highlights this negative point.
Furthermore the Characters are well thought out in their Foundation. The only downside I saw here was that the depth of their Characters was hindered by the good Foundation. Some Characters only live of one or mostly two traits. What helps at this point can already be a clear thought process about how every character should be.
And the last point I wanted to talk about was the Plot twist. First of all what do I understand and want from a good plot twist. A plot twist is the change of perspective (one sees the whole story in), done by only a minimal amount of information.
So what you did was to do some really beautiful preparation of it. I myself didn’t expect it (partly because it came so early on, but even so well done). Furthermore the Perspective you get on after is highly interesting and increases the overall tension. The thing I didn’t like about it was basically the execution. The Perspective before and after are total opposites, which makes a transition between them hard af. Furthermore the comparison between those two points of view in relation to their connection seems utterly illogical (why not force him? Why can a mere manager threaten her father but she as the master cant? And finally how the fuq can that all be done by a way to young girl and especially stay hidden? Furthermore I keep on questioning if she wants to stay “undercover” after or not because her behaviour in public is way too obvious.) I mean maybe you are going to solve some of the problems later on, but to pull off a satisfactory reasoning is hella hard.

Over all I did like the novel a bit, because it had a fresh idea and some writing that I could read fluently without cringing. But besides that, there is still unused potential left.

@all Ok so I found a novel I am reading atm (The Hunger from Alma Katsu). So I wanted to inform you that this thread is On Hold for the time I am reading the novel. I am sorry, but I just wanted to talk about it so you guys don’t think I dropped the thread.

KillerHemboy

Yeah I also wanted to do that. Sorry I didn’t till now

TheAdventurer

Assassination System: reading status: chapter 10
Woah now this was a change. This is the top 25 original novel and what can I say it definitely deserves the spot. It is your typical system novel with a quality only slightly below that of Webnovels contracted works. On the other side this makes pointing out general flaws pretty hard for me, because they are more in the detail. Following that, I know this review is not going to help the author improve as much, as it could help others (or at least I hope my reviews did lol). Because of that, I would offer the author the service of going over around 4 specific chapters and edit/comment them, so I can actually help him. If you are interested in that contact me personally on the discord channel please.

With that out of the way let’s get started with my review. The good points of this novel are the writing style, which is starting to make readers actually feel the story that is told a bit. Plot wise, there is a well-done problem and direction given to the MC, the character of your novel are a bit more than only shallow extras to the plot, and the world building can compare with your average cultivation world.

On the negative side of things I can say that you are very inconsistent. Some parts are done extremely well and others are not exactly bad, but not good either.
First of your writing style is mostly beyond just the fundamentals, but you still have a problem of expressing exactly and clear what you mean at some times. Many times your mode of expression only gives a shrouded idea of what you mean to your readers.
Negative things within the plot aspect are first of all your characters. Although they are more than only slaves to the plot, their character can still be done more through-out and in-depth.

Secondly the clichés are also strong in your novel. Although they don’t dictate it, they are still not given an overly unique twist.
Thirdly the Plot armour is strong in your novel. The System is extremely overpowered since the beginning, with a way to scary potential to grow. Even though everybody likes overpowered Characters, which go through life at ease, there is a border that limits the fun factor of reading a novel. And I am sorry to break it to you, but you are near that border. To give you an example for this:
“ [MC being deadly wounded and has only 5 more minutes before he dies, I think] Focusing his gaze, Dan scanned the area around him, particularly near the tree roots, and there, a tree about five meters away from him, a Blood Coagulating Grass [Medicine that can make him survive] calmly swayed along with the air.” – At least don’t make it five meters come on…
And lastly although your novel is realistic enough, for readers to get absorbed in it, you still have some minor paradoxes within. Examples for this are the way he handles his wound, a crossbow arrow that can nearly behead someone, the reason why he stepped into that forest that night in the first place (btw if you say analysing the plants, I am going to ask myself, how he knew exactly what plants that can help him survive are growing in that forest) or that he knows exactly what to order at a food stall he never been before.

Over all this is a solidly good read for people searching for a System novel.

DeJeL

ohh you mean what I said about the cousin (I though sister lol), but bruh this is a classic hyperbole…

DeJeL

What in this world! Oh... Wait a minute. It's another world. Reading status: chapter 5
I didn’t want to do this review, because I really like your poems and didn’t want to hurt your feelings. Still when you insist on me doing this… I think I owe you an honest review.

Let’s start off with the good things. Your sentences are mostly grammatically correct, one could see that you improved slightly (and when I say slightly I mean slightly) later on and work with an ok idea.
Other than that, I can only say throw that shit (at least chapters 1-3, the rest can be saved with a shitload of work) in the garbage bin and write it anew. It is not like your ideas are exceptional bad (not implying that they are good though), but the realization was done so terrible, that every single sentence started to trigger me and over time I just hoped for your characters to stfu. With that being said, I don’t want to become your usual hater, who doesn’t give a reason as to why I dislike your story, but rather offer some constructive criticism, but ohh boy this is going to be a long list.

So, first I am going to talk about your mode of writing and later come to the plot.
I can’t even say your mode of expression is solid. You use the simplest of sentences and one can be happy that you at least didn’t completely forget to use adjectives. I don’t really know how I can give you advice about that other than: start writing and stop stating facts.
Next up is one of your biggest flaws, that makes finding mistakes in your style of writing extremely difficult; your narrative perspective. As the saying goes, everybody starts small. I would highly recommend you to take that saying to heart. You try to fly without having wings jet. You mix past and present tense at a whim, without caring how or why you do it. Furthermore you have the perspectives of 3-4 people in your story, when even professional authors are scared to use more than one perspective. Why exactly did you think you could pull that stunt of? And lastly your characters are and let me quote this one:” narrating themselves in real time” … While maybe (and I am totally not sure if) this could be possible to pull off, when combined with your writing skills it just adds on to the mess, those chapters are. There are four basic narrative perspectives: 1. Third Person Omniscient Narrator; 2. Third Person Objective Narrator; 3. Third Person Selective Narrator, and 4. First Person Narrator. I am guessing you wanted to go for the First Person Narrator, so I would recommend doing a classic First Person, before going into more complex (unique) stuff or changing the narrative perspective.
Another thing is, even when you write down how a character’s name is pronounced and you do this with every new character. Furthermore every character is not pronounced how it’s written; people start to don’t care anymore, how they are pronounced, because it’s a hassle.
And lastly, just stop with the bullshit that you call “Point of View: Harrold Shew”. It is just annoying and makes it hard to read. Although the idea behind it is a good one, there is a very thin line between it making the novel better and it becoming the most annoying part of the novel and as I said before, you are not ready jet to use something that hard.

So now I will come to the plot. First of all, (and I know it gets annoying, but I can’t stress this enough) you have plot developments that are simply too unrealistic. I don’t think you will believe me when I say this, because I told that nearly everyone, but here are some examples of things that triggered me.
“[…], I quickly stood to apply the force towards my legs. I don’t see the red light. I hear a city-bus´s horn, so I look.” – Besides the terrible “I this/I that”, how the fuck can one “not see” a red-light when crossing a street? If he ignored it, because he was late, ok I take that. If he was distracted and didn’t see it, ok I take that. But he just “didn’t see the red light”, like come on…
“[he meets the god/goddess or angel of the world for the first time]”[…], my name is Seraphine, and I am what you´d likely call either a goddess or an angel.” I immediately ask “Is the bible true?” “ - … Do I even have to comment on this? A person (doesn’t matter who) who just experienced a near death situation and is magically saved by something weird has no better first question than “Is the bible true?”… really?
“[after she answers his question about the bible that is btw totally irrelevant for the storyline] I reply “OK, so what now?” “– sigh… Do you really think that if any human when meeting god would be calm enough, feeling safe enough and most of all have the balls to ask “Ok, so what now?” (Btw he also interrupts the god a sentence later).
“And though she didn't mean it, it happened. One day they were walking along the road and out of nowhere he just vanished, then directly after that a bullet whizzed right past her. So thinking he might have gotten shot by a gun with a silencer on it, she looked down, then behind her, but nothing. She started to panic and search for him. Then she remembered, "Oh! I can just call him." – Just remember… A FN BULLET WHIZZED RIGHT PAST HER!!! She is totally calm and not caring about who shot the bullet or if maybe her life is in danger and looks around?!? And as if nothing happened tried to call him? I mean am I weird for finding that bullshit?
I could name hundreds of more examples, but I think you get the point.

The second thing is your characters plot armour. Although I am not even sure if you can call it armour, when it doesn’t even protect him from something. It is more like literally anything goes in his favour. Not talking about bad things happening to the MC, not even a single neutral thing happens in this novel. A goddess kisses his ass, when he get to the new world he lands in the castle of the king the first person that he meets recognizes him as the son of the king, his girlfriend is magical genius and they are happy together since chapter one, and obviously they come to the world with a age under 18 so the blessing everybody gets when they turn 18 also applies to them (btw I could bet he gets some kind of stupid void magic that only 2% of the population has and while getting magic stuff as blessing is nearly unheard of). Furthermore I can tell you by now, that if a hero named Judas doesn’t kill the king or his girlfriend I would be a bit irritated, because using such a prejudiced name without playing with the prejudice is just a case of bad naming.
Thirdly, a normal transmigration story has the MC usually at least struggling to get to know this new world or has to deal with poor circumstances etc. There is literally no direction of this novel, and even if u say it is slice of life or romance (romance would be weird on second thought, because they are happily together since chapter one) they still have at least a direction to go and don’t just aimlessly describe peoples life.

The 4. Point I have to talk about is the paste of your story development. You rush the plot within the first chapters so hard, that even Usain Bolt can’t keep up with you. The Plot that you fitted in 2 or 3 chapters can easily be done in double that amount.
5. Your Plot is predictable as fuck. While this is no bad aspect if you are going for slice of life/romance, it is also no strong point.
6. Why exactly did you describe his daily life on earth to that extend, if the MC´s biggest wish (another bs aspect) is to transmigrate to another world with his girlfriend? It has literally no meaning for the Development of the story and the MC doesn’t even think back to his time on earth and lives happy in the new world, even though he loved his family that much (ohh look it’s another bs thing). You even tried to indicate a plot twist about plot that is spoilered through the synopsis… Like why?
And lastly, I mean who am I to judge people, but just keep in mind that if you are writing a Incest romance where the MC wants to f his cousin (furthermore his little, 6 YEAR OLD SISTER, is romantically in love with him… ) that this is a major turn-off for the majority of the people out there.
Over all, yeah… I was pretty hopeful till the middle of chapter one and lets just not talk about what happened after.

DeJeL

Do you really want me to review your novel? Because I rather not..

KillerHemboy

I’m glad you liked my review even though I ranted a lot.
1) The sad thing is I can’t really help you with that. There is no right way to give your story emotions, because writing is art and art has no boundaries. Some people write down their own emotion, others can make you feel like a spectator or some are good at focusing on the human desires and focus on them. Figuring out how you personally can do it or want to do it is a process and no quick step to take. I think a lot of experimenting with different alternatives is a possible option that can help you finding your way of writing (it is not the only one tho).
2) To elaborate on my review, I wanted to say that I felt like some human emotions are visible in the way your system speaks. While this is ok if you want to go for a AI like thing, you should think about it again when going for a technical device.
6) Painting a view is not bad itself; just think about the Harmony within the story. For example the “happy Slums” you talked about. I know what you want to say, namely that poor people are most of the time more happy/forgiving/generous than rich people, but the way you described it made the Slums itself feel like a fun place to be in (unless you really wanted to say exactly that the slums area fun place to be, then I am sorry for misunderstanding). Either way it needs more explanation, to paint a clear picture of what you had in mind.

KillerHemboy

Haha I am sorry but I just finished your second story, just because you said it doesn’t have the beginner mistakes you did make in your first novel and it had fewer chapters. So now my opinion would be a more qualified one, when seen in relation to the whole novel. I hope you’re not too mad at me. :D Even so I can give you a bit of hope, because I have decided to continue this thread even after the first 5 recommendations. Nevertheless I am not going to pump out reviews like I did before and rather have a slower paste, so I don’t know jet, when I will come back to your first novel.
With no further ado, let’s get into this (World Domination System: reading status, chapter 10)

So as you can see, I actually did read a full 10 chapters of your novel, which is the maximum number I set up for this thread. From this it follows that I actually did enjoy reading your novel quite a bit (, besides it haveing relatively short chapters). I can say that, if the other authors I checked out till now were rank 0 authors (with Rabbinik being close to rank 1), you are a true rank 1 author. Your mode of expression has a good foundation and even exceeds a simple foundation by a bit. You are the first one I read, who actually tried to implement metaphors and other stylistic Devices (even though they still have a lot of potential). Your sentences are well build, with no major flaws. Your storyline also has some unique traits (I personally liked the idea of the beginning experiment) and nothing that overly triggered me. With that being said my review is going to be a more in-depth one, than the ones I did before.

So now to the things I still see more potential in. I am going to do this in two parts, first about your writing style and second about your Plot.
In regards of the writing style, I can say that overall with the foundation you build, it should now be time to focus on transforming the foundation you have into a personal and unique Style of writing, that represents yourself. With that being said, I still have to address some flaws, which are obstacles in the way of doing this. Firstly, you don’t focus on the emotion within your story and rather prioritize the word flow (I know I am being philosophical at times, but otherwise I have a hard time describing my feelings while reading your novels xD). I think a good way of improving here would be, thinking about what u want the readers to feel and what stylistic devices and specific words can induce that feeling. In close connection to the first aspect is the second one I want to address. It is your System (and don’t worry I will come back to that point plot wise too xD). You already did a great job with using short simple sentences, when it converses with Daneel. This implements a difference to a Conversation between two human beings. But this difference is only shallow. You should decide on, whether you want to make a “human-like” System, that is similar to an AI or if you want the System to only be some kind of technical Device. With what I read, you use both sides, which give the System a shallow and irritating feel to it. And lastly, (this is really minor and seldom in your story, but it is a personal pet peeve of mine) you repeat facts, where the repetition is useless and doesn’t help with the story progression, world building or anything else.

So now coming to the second part, the plot, the first thing I have to say is… your System. Even though a system is a theme and not a bad thing to use at all, it still only gives a very small spectrum of possibilities. So to maximize the potential a System holds, you have to embrace the unique traits you give it, rather than focusing on the general idea of a system (in your story for example the loan, fighting aid or experiment). It could be that you do exactly this in the later parts of the story and only use the first chapters as an introduction, but I can’t judge this (you have to know it yourself).
The second thing, I want to speak about and that is a really major aspect in creating a realistic reading experience is your starting point of anything. While reading your novel I had the intuition that your string of thoughts when creating your novel started from another novel (or multiple novels). While this can help in the beginning it becomes a huge burden later on. Your starting point for any idea in any novel HAS TO BE the REAL World EVERYTIME (btw this is also the reason, why I personally think good fantasy is the hardest genre to write). That doesn’t mean your novel should always be related to the real world. No, but it should still be relatable for the reader and your reader are (sadly) only from Earth.
Another thing I have to talk about is the goal or problem your MC has to deal with. I am going to guess there is one in the later chapters (and you only have what they call a “slow start”). You have to make sure the goal/problem the MC has to deal with is always visible and the MC is always struggling to get to a solution. Otherwise it gets easy to lose the tension of the story.
The last things I will rant about are unreasonable plot developments. For a better understanding of what I mean, let me give you some examples for what I mean with unreasonable plot developments. Those are System rewards, that are way higher than the difficulty of the mission or the huge hospitality found in Slums with no explanation (you need one because again, reality is different) or the Parents caring about the bloody cloths of daneel, but when they know their son is unharmed they don’t care anymore why the fuck he has bloody cloths. Those should either be explained every time or not included at all, because they remind the reader of the irreality of the novel and make it less relatable.

Over all I still enjoyed myself quite a bit while reading your story and had a really fun time reviewing, so keep up the good work.

Ruruci

Edea Chronicle: Hero Summoning Conspiracy: Reading status chapter 5

Warning
This is going to be a very subjective and negative review. I am sorry for not giving you any better comment, but I truly disliked your story very much (some would call me hater).
Warning end.

As per usual starting first with the positive things, the execution of your novel is fine and I didn’t notice any flaws that overly triggered me (But tbh from some point on I didn’t really care anymore).
Sadly that’s about it for positive things I can say about your novel. The whole novel is covered with clichés and let’s says inspirations from existing novels. With that I don’t want to accuse you of copying others work that is not what I meant. Rather you take so many well-established themes from other works that the mix still barley passes as original idea. It doesn’t matter if it’s Characters, Plot or World building. I couldn’t find any aspect in this novel where I could go: “Ohh look a creative twist of things.” With that comes a totally predictable storyline, that it got me yawning already after the 2nd chapter.
Secondly I am truly sorry to Rabbink for saying his conversations were unnatural. Your novel has even unnatural plot development at some points. Don’t get me wrong we all read fantasy here, so nobody wants to see the plain reality. But fantasy lives and dies with its realism. If your reader can’t connect with your characters or development of the plot, that’s bad. You use both only as means to an end, as slaves serving the almighty clichés.
Overall the only reason I see why your novel is doing that well, is because those clichés, themes, stigmas or however you like to call them are well-established. Keep in mind that using such clichés limits your potential and with the quantity of them I see in your novel, I am sorry to say this, but I see no potential. Maybe you will say now:” Oh but you have only read 5 chapters it gets way better in the later parts.” Well I am sorry Sir but if I don’t like the beginning of a novel and see no potential in it, I’m just not going to continue reading.

existing

Ok my opinion to Sorcha Knight in the City (reading status: chapter 6)

So with this one I couldn’t tell jet what exact genre you were trying to do (Perhaps a mix of modern Romance with Action and a touch of supernatural?). Nevertheless I have to say definitely a creative idea to think about, when confronted with a reincarnation storyline.

As usual the more positive things first and the flame afterwards (xD). Every one of your characters is really likable. Although some haven’t had much screen time, I ended up liking every one. Your mode of expression has a good foundation. Nothing unique, special or exceptional good, but it its totally solid and has no major flaws within.
Your flaws, in my opinion, are more on the plot level of things. You have a fantastic idea of a story in your mind, but the story you wrote down is only a small fragment of the one you had in mind. You only wrote some parts and your imagination completed the rest. So for a reader, who doesn’t have your string of thoughts, it gets hard to imagen the full picture. Even if one can easily follow the storyline, the picture you have in your head as a colourful one the reader sees only black and white. You have some really irritatingly fast paste plot developments all over your story, where readers fell kind of left behind (I don’t know if that makes sense for you?). In general it is not bad to have the readers’ imagen their parts, but if you start explaining things you have to go through with it to the end or never start.
Good examples for it are both worlds, related to the story. I have actually no Idea how any of them is like, but you still gave some independent facts about both of them.
Also like Rabbinik your conversations are questionable realistic at times, but in contrast to Rabbinik I would actually advice you to work a bit on that. In some places it was pretty obvious.
Over all I can’t really say much more (I read around a fifth of the words compared to Rabbiniks novel xD). It is a good idea, where I see potential in.

MasterRabbink

Ok so, on Endless Universes - Young Master Path - The 1368th (I read the chapters 62-66, because I liked the name “Receiving Master Rabbinik´s Rewards”. I know it’s only 5, but your chapters are truly long af xD).
Warning
This may contain spoiler.
Warning end.
First of all, I experienced this novel as a slow-paced, light-hearted mix between slice of life and your typical cultivation story. The unique traits are: the MC is not your typical hero but a spoiled young master (I really liked this fresh idea) with a very interesting Character design; furthermore the cultivation system had its own unique and exotic traits (such as the almighty Rabbinik becoming a part of it, the novel itself as a part of its own plot and what I liked the most, the troublemeter) that I started to appreciate as I read. With that said, I won’t explain the positive side of this novel any further, because it incorporates the likable sides of both genres pretty well with its own unique traits.
Now to the criticism; you have the typical “Slice-of-life-problem” most other novels of this genre have. It gets kind of boring really fast (no offense). But because this can be minimized as other good examples showed, here some things I see more potential in.
You seemingly place more value on the story development than on descriptions. While this can be a good thing in some novels, I wouldn’t recommend it when going for a slow-paced/slice-of-life kind of story. Those live through the realism of your writing and with that should contain live-like descriptions.
Following that approach of yours are many, many simplistic sentences. If those are used in a repetitive manner they will evoke a monotone feeling while reading. This doesn’t mean that you should use a lot of endless involved sentences, this is also bad. Rather just keep that in mind while writing so you can find a healthy mix.
Another thing I see potential in is the tension of the story and the central theme. With your writing style and novel setting, a really good tension build up is almost impossible and to reassure you not needed at all. Even so, you still want to give your readers something to think about while they read your story. The solution I would suggest here is, to embrace the cultivation theme some more. And with that I don’t mean to give your MC another cheat, but rather let him train or work for his success. This gives readers a got spoon full of anticipation.
Going on to the central theme of your story, usually this should be done like a thread that’s runs through your novel. Of course you could say now, that I have only read 5 chapters and what do I know about the central theme of your story, but it is mostly not the big things I want to turn your attention to, but rather the small things. If you talk about an action somebody does or describe a situation, you have to ask yourself what emotion or thought you want to induce into your reader. If you think about that and overlook your writing, you will soon find passages that are completely unnecessary for either plot development and/or inducing emotions within you readers. Rather you tend to write about things without a reason, just for the completeness of the things. Furthermore I would recommend not having such a huge quantity of character, cultivation aspects and side storylines. But for that I can’t judge with only reading 5 chapters, so you have to know it yourself. Adding to that, I saw on numerous occasions, that you had changes in your story paste from one sentence (almost unexpected) to another. While it is possible to do that, I would recommend preparing or revising them, to make the “thread” more clear.
Other than that I only noticed some more minor flaws, like a frequent repetition of Names or jokes/threats (although you can use this if you to, because it is really minor, I would be careful with it), and some unnatural conversations (those are mostly ignored by the majority of people if they contribute to the story line, so also nothing major).
In conclusion it is still obvious you are no professional, but you don’t have to be one to write an entertaining story and if you are looking for a light-hearted story this is truly entertaining and at least worth a try (I even had to smile at some points, what is definitely a plus).
I hope I didn’t offend you by saying all that. (*kowtows to the Master Creator and almighty Rabbinik)

MasterRabbink haha I knew I would end up reading your novel if I do it this way, but its fine with me xD

Ok, so I want to start getting into the original novels here, but idk where to start. Furthermore because I like to give my opinion and know the struggle of original authors, I hereby give the first 5 people, who recommend me their story, my opinion on around 5-10 chapters (why only 5-10 chapters one might ask... Well I am not Moses). If you don’t want me to criticise your first chapters, u can tell me which ones I should react to.
And one more thing, because my opinion is most of the time pretty... let’s say harsh, I will post them within this thread and not as a comment under the novel. I don’t want to give anybody willing to recommend novels to me a bad review. Even so, if you would like to have it as comment later on, I can also post it under your novel.
With that said, come at me. xD

DeJeL Thanks Thanks although I can say the same about your poems.