Can you guys critique my first chapter?

[JustHANO]

Idk what else to say. It's a sci-fi show inspired by cowboy bebop. It's called the Black Bazaar Blues. It's episodic. Um I've been working on it for a while and I'm releasing it monthly to apply pressure on myself lol.

All types of critique are welcome. Don't like it? Why. Grammar issues, I'd love to know about em.

 

[Eukro]

Idk what else to say. It's a sci-fi show inspired by cowboy bebop. It's called the Black Bazaar Blues. It's episodic. Um I've been working on it for a while and I'm releasing it monthly to apply pressure on myself lol.

All types of critique are welcome. Don't like it? Why. Grammar issues, I'd love to know about em.

I posted a comment on the story... I refuse to rate it until I know who is saying what. I love the story but I can't tell who is saying what.

 

[Jemini]

Warning, I'm a tough critic. Don't get too discouraged. I will point out every little flaw, reason being I want to call attention to it so you can improve.

I've read about half way through the chapter, and I was looking primarily at characterization, the flow of the narrative, and the writing conventions.

The writing conventions and narrative flow I would rate about a 4 out of 5. The characterization is more of a 3. The characters are way too flat and cartoonish in their portrayal, they don't feel human. It just sounds like a bundle of stock-lines and tired 50s cartoon character stereotypes. That's better than most people on the site do, thus the reason I rated it a 3. You also at least keep the character's traits consistent and they don't contradict each other. However, I get no real sense that the characters have a thinking brain under that bundle of stock lines.

Given the setting you talked about, it is looking like it's supposed to be some kind of noar-style crime drama setting? (I may be getting a bad read for that noar-style, it could also be a western style like Cowboy Bebop.) If this is the case, this means that your characterization is, in fact, the single most important aspect of your story. Characterization is always important, but for the genre you chose to write in it is especially important. I don't care if these two characters you are starting with are primary characters or stock one-off characters, you have to make every single last character that talks feel like a real person with real motives.

So, that was the criticism part, time for the constructive part of this. (This is going to go long, going to use spoilers for the rest.)

Basic overview of how to characterize them.

Spoiler

So, it sounds as though the two characters presented here are on some kind of job. A job that seems to involve violence. So, why are they in this kind of line of work? Because it's a job that pays money is not a good enough reason. Why do they need money to the point that they have turned to become criminal thugs or hit-men? You don't need to answer this for the reader, but as the writer you should at least have a vague idea of the reason so that they will be more human in your mind. If they are more human in your mind, then you will naturally start to write them in a way that makes them more human to a reader.

A few other things, what do they think of their boss? Are they thugs who work for the same boss all the time, or are they hired hit-men on this one job? Or, are they doing this of their own accord? If they are doing this on their own, then why?

What do they think of their target? They should at least have some opinion. Is their target an easy mark? Are they conflicted about killing their target? Is their target someone they hate? Are they callous and don't even care about the target?

What do they think of the job itself? Do they view it as just a job? All in a day's work? Or do they view it as a bit of a drag, like "why do we have to deal with something like this? Someone else should be doing this, not us!

I am sure you had in mind to clear some of this up later in the chapter, but I ought to be able to get some sense of the answer to at least 1 out of the 4 questions I just asked based on the way the characters carry themselves alone, preferably 2 of them, in just the first 5 paragraphs while it's still in the introduction process. I got none of that though. All I got is that the girl has a cartoon-character like demenior and says words that make it sound like she's excited. At least change those words to their equivalent in a form that a normal person might say them in order to make me believe she's actually excited.

Specific fixes for the violence-loving girl.

Spoiler

So, about the one thing I clearly understood is you are portraying the female character as rather violence loving, but it seemed kinda one-dimensional. She also comes off as very dumb, like an 80 IQ. In my opinion, dumb and violence-loving are not a very effective combination for characterization. You really should at least make her have a normal 100 IQ level of intelligence. Or, maybe you could keep the 80 IQ intelligence and make her a hard-core druggie. Drugged-up is about the only culturally acceptable way to make a female character both dumb and also violent.

If you go the druggie route, then that helps with the characterization quite a bit. You would make her a LOT more eager on the trigger and have weird side-ways sounding logic that she "NEEDS" this job (in order to get her next fix,) and thus she's really eager to get it done and that explains why the guy is constantly having to hold her back.

If you go the route of making her have at least a normal level of intelligence, you should probably make her pissed off to go with her trigger happiness. She should be a lot more confrontational and get into a bit of an argument for the guy telling her to cool it down. An excellent example of this kind of character would be Levy/Revy from Black Lagoon Levy is a freaking bad-ass with guns, and a fantastic character study to look into as to why someone might turn out like this.

You don't actually get any history into Levy's past the entirety of the series, you don't get some sob story of exactly how she became such an F-ed up sociopath, but you get so much characterization absolutely dripping from her that you can infer a LOT off of her.

Actually, as a matter of fact, I would STRONGLY recommend watching Black Lagoon in order to get some idea for your characterization in this story. It tells the exact same kind of story, a crime drama sorta thing, except that it's VERY ultra violent to an extreme. However, the characterization in this thing is everything.

Another resource I would not recommend as highly but could still help you is Detective Conan which is very much a detective series in something of a pseudo-noar style in that it makes noar homages everywhere. The primary villains of the series, Jin and Vodka, very much fit the dynamic you seemed to be going with these first two characters, and while being the flattest of the Black Organization characters (Black Organization being Conan's name for the primary villains' organization of the series, since he has never learned the actual name of the organization) they still manage to come across as very imposing and intimidating, and do still have some good level of characterization to them. The only problem, and the reason why I place Detective Conan low as a recommendation, is because there is a LOT of filler and the episodes where the Black Organization is involved are very few and far between, at a rate of about 1 plot episode for every 20 episodes dedicated to a 50/50 mix of filler and B plots. (and there are a lot of B plots.)

 

[glenn-fletcher]

I left a comment on your story. I mostly went into grammar stuff.

 

[CupcakeNinja]

Warning, I'm a tough critic. Don't get too discouraged. I will point out every little flaw, reason being I want to call attention to it so you can improve.

I've read about half way through the chapter, and I was looking primarily at characterization, the flow of the narrative, and the writing conventions.

The writing conventions and narrative flow I would rate about a 4 out of 5. The characterization is more of a 3. The characters are way too flat and cartoonish in their portrayal, they don't feel human. It just sounds like a bundle of stock-lines and tired 50s cartoon character stereotypes. That's better than most people on the site do, thus the reason I rated it a 3. You also at least keep the character's traits consistent and they don't contradict each other. However, I get no real sense that the characters have a thinking brain under that bundle of stock lines.

Given the setting you talked about, it is looking like it's supposed to be some kind of noar-style crime drama setting? (I may be getting a bad read for that noar-style, it could also be a western style like Cowboy Bebop.) If this is the case, this means that your characterization is, in fact, the single most important aspect of your story. Characterization is always important, but for the genre you chose to write in it is especially important. I don't care if these two characters you are starting with are primary characters or stock one-off characters, you have to make every single last character that talks feel like a real person with real motives.

So, that was the criticism part, time for the constructive part of this. (This is going to go long, going to use spoilers for the rest.)

Basic overview of how to characterize them.

Spoiler

So, it sounds as though the two characters presented here are on some kind of job. A job that seems to involve violence. So, why are they in this kind of line of work? Because it's a job that pays money is not a good enough reason. Why do they need money to the point that they have turned to become criminal thugs or hit-men? You don't need to answer this for the reader, but as the writer you should at least have a vague idea of the reason so that they will be more human in your mind. If they are more human in your mind, then you will naturally start to write them in a way that makes them more human to a reader.

A few other things, what do they think of their boss? Are they thugs who work for the same boss all the time, or are they hired hit-men on this one job? Or, are they doing this of their own accord? If they are doing this on their own, then why?

What do they think of their target? They should at least have some opinion. Is their target an easy mark? Are they conflicted about killing their target? Is their target someone they hate? Are they callous and don't even care about the target?

What do they think of the job itself? Do they view it as just a job? All in a day's work? Or do they view it as a bit of a drag, like "why do we have to deal with something like this? Someone else should be doing this, not us!

I am sure you had in mind to clear some of this up later in the chapter, but I ought to be able to get some sense of the answer to at least 1 out of the 4 questions I just asked based on the way the characters carry themselves alone, preferably 2 of them, in just the first 5 paragraphs while it's still in the introduction process. I got none of that though. All I got is that the girl has a cartoon-character like demenior and says words that make it sound like she's excited. At least change those words to their equivalent in a form that a normal person might say them in order to make me believe she's actually excited.

Specific fixes for the violence-loving girl.

Spoiler

So, about the one thing I clearly understood is you are portraying the female character as rather violence loving, but it seemed kinda one-dimensional. She also comes off as very dumb, like an 80 IQ. In my opinion, dumb and violence-loving are not a very effective combination for characterization. You really should at least make her have a normal 100 IQ level of intelligence. Or, maybe you could keep the 80 IQ intelligence and make her a hard-core druggie. Drugged-up is about the only culturally acceptable way to make a female character both dumb and also violent.

If you go the druggie route, then that helps with the characterization quite a bit. You would make her a LOT more eager on the trigger and have weird side-ways sounding logic that she "NEEDS" this job (in order to get her next fix,) and thus she's really eager to get it done and that explains why the guy is constantly having to hold her back.

If you go the route of making her have at least a normal level of intelligence, you should probably make her pissed off to go with her trigger happiness. She should be a lot more confrontational and get into a bit of an argument for the guy telling her to cool it down. An excellent example of this kind of character would be Levy/Revy from Black Lagoon Levy is a freaking bad-ass with guns, and a fantastic character study to look into as to why someone might turn out like this.

You don't actually get any history into Levy's past the entirety of the series, you don't get some sob story of exactly how she became such an F-ed up sociopath, but you get so much characterization absolutely dripping from her that you can infer a LOT off of her.

Actually, as a matter of fact, I would STRONGLY recommend watching Black Lagoon in order to get some idea for your characterization in this story. It tells the exact same kind of story, a crime drama sorta thing, except that it's VERY ultra violent to an extreme. However, the characterization in this thing is everything.

Another resource I would not recommend as highly but could still help you is Detective Conan which is very much a detective series in something of a pseudo-noar style in that it makes noar homages everywhere. The primary villains of the series, Jin and Vodka, very much fit the dynamic you seemed to be going with these first two characters, and while being the flattest of the Black Organization characters (Black Organization being Conan's name for the primary villains' organization of the series, since he has never learned the actual name of the organization) they still manage to come across as very imposing and intimidating, and do still have some good level of characterization to them. The only problem, and the reason why I place Detective Conan low as a recommendation, is because there is a LOT of filler and the episodes where the Black Organization is involved are very few and far between, at a rate of about 1 plot episode for every 20 episodes dedicated to a 50/50 mix of filler and B plots. (and there are a lot of B plots.)

Holy shit. Well damn do mine next fam.

 

[JustHANO]

Warning, I'm a tough critic. Don't get too discouraged. I will point out every little flaw, reason being I want to call attention to it so you can improve.

I like tough criticism.

The cartoonist characters i didn't feel for Berry but I totally understand that for Rena (the psycho girl if you didn't reach the name. Also imma move the name introduction up. It'll solve some pointed out problems and help dialogue.). Rena however is suppose to fit the stereotype. She developes a lot later own. Why she like that is explained in chp 3 and she starts to change soon after. I was going for the standard trope, so i can change her later on. Sorry to make your research section null void but I think she'll end up in a good place. I do feel like someone like you would feel she didn't "earn" that change because im very much a critic type too and i feel that for her as well. But i dont think her earn it and play the role in the group. There's two other characters that are much more complicated feeling wise and I like her being dumb, powerful and in the back for a bit.

I relooked at the parts of Berry and I feel it wasn't that cliche. Tho i do feel the way i built the trade deal scene was straight cliche.

This first chapter I really just want to introduce the characters before I got into any real stories and character backstory. Show some action before I talk their ears off.

The characters are pretty deep, it just takes... one chapter acutally. The next one is kinda Berry's episode.

Speakin of episodes, the series is episodic, so the noir feel comes and goes. Sometimes it'll be western.

What I do feel we're most indifferent is in what type of series the characters are in. I know that in novel writing you have so much more powers to explain their mindset and actions. I do take advantage of this, but that's not what I'm trying to get.

I'm going more of natural dialogue, you don't know anymore than what their conversational partner knows. Other than one character, they all trying to keep other out for one reason or another, and with each chapter we get to understand them more, like you would a person you talk to irl.

Also I dont think you understood the trade off. I reread it and it's a bit confusing, i see where I can touch up and make it more obvus whats going on.

Tyty for the critic btw.

 

[JustHANO]

Holy shit. Well damn do mine next fam.

Is it in this section? I will if I can find it. No promise itll be as indept as his jemini's was

 

[Jemini]

Holy shit. Well damn do mine next fam.

Your series is a chart topper and it was on the trending list yesterday. Do you even need a critique?

Well, I suppose we all could do better. It just feels a little uncomfortable to critique chart toppers, but I could check it out anyway since public opinion suggests it's probably some decent writing already and I could suggest some things if you really want me to.

 

[CupcakeNinja]

Your series is a chart topper and it was on the trending list yesterday. Do you even need a critique?

Well, I suppose we all could do better. It just feels a little uncomfortable to critique chart toppers, but I could check it out anyway since public opinion suggests it's probably some decent writing already and I could suggest some things if you really want me to.

Well yeah but I'm a chart topper--tail end, really, but still--almost every time I release a chapter I just have infrequent postings--Dunno how many noticed but I've been on there like literally ten times on and off. Pretty funny I you think about it. Heh

But thats nothing special, you know how people are my dude. Topping a chart dont mean shit sometimes. Heck I got way more readers and reviews over at webnovel too. It's just that people liking a story dont means it's good or well written.

As one might expect finding someone like you who goes more in depth than "it's good. I like it." Is an uncommon occurrence.

And I'm always up for finding aspects where I need to improve.

Warning tho, I'm pretty easily influence by what I read so I haven't been as descriptive as a western style story. One of the flaws I recognized myself early on. Slowly tryna fix that.

Is it in this section? I will if I can find it. No promise itll be as inept as his jemini's was

Thanks man. Here lemme just link so you dont got a search around https://www.scribblehub.com/series/2983/my-sister-the-villainess/

 

[Jemini]

I relooked at the parts of Berry and I feel it wasn't that cliche. Tho i do feel the way i built the trade deal scene was straight cliche.

As I said, I didn't read the entire chapter. It's kinda my habit. When I'm asked for criticism, I read up until I have noticed something that seems like a big enough thing to be called out, and then I usually stop as soon as I have it. Most of this is because reading to critique something is different from reading it for pleasure. I'm doing something nice for the person who requested feedback, but it also feels like more of a chore so I don't want to spend too much time unless I wind up actually really enjoying what I'm reading (which is hard to do if you are actively looking for the flaws.)

Anyway, in terms of Berry, I got around 10 paragraphs in and most of his dialogue was constrained to either reigning in Rena or talking about his opinion on how the streets of this town were easier to navigate. That tells me he has been in this trade for a while and has the mind to think on this subject a little, but that sort of characterization, while being characterization, is also cleche to the crime genre. True, it's not cartoonish, but it's still not something that made me feel much depth.

Beings I only got about 10 paragraphs in, maybe it did improve from there. In the critiquing I have done though, I have come to realize exactly how important a beginning is. The first 1 paragraph is the single most important thing in your entire story, the first 10 are also pretty important. There are a lot of stories on this site, and readers do not have time for them all. They will give a little more benefit of the doubt to a story that's on the top list and will slog through an opening they don't think is so good because they know a lot of other people like the series, but when you are lower on the charts you need to really polish up those first few paragraphs in order to get anyone to pay attention to your story.

Right now, those 1st 10 paragraphs did not make a strong impression on me, and the first 1 paragraph exemplified the single thing that was the most off-putting to me. I get that you were going for something with the cartoonish characterization of the girl, but it's not coming across well right now as you have it. Maybe it will help a little if you work in some characterization to Berry that's got a little more depth to it, maybe expressing a little more annoyance at the way Rena acts or some eye-rolling as he thinks about why it is he puts up with the way she is? If you want to keep her characterization as it is, then at least play off of it a bit.

 

[JustHANO]

Well yeah but I'm a chart topper--tail end, really, but still--almost every time I release a chapter I just have infrequent postings--Dunno how many noticed but I've been on there like literally ten times on and off. Pretty funny I you think about it. Heh

But thats nothing special, you know how people are my dude. Topping a chart dont mean shit sometimes. Heck I got way more readers and reviews over at webnovel too. It's just that people liking a story dont means it's good or well written.

As one might expect finding someone like you who goes more in depth than "it's good. I like it." Is an uncommon occurrence.

And I'm always up for finding aspects where I need to improve.

Warning tho, I'm pretty easily influence by what I read so I haven't been as descriptive as a western style story. One of the flaws I recognized myself early on. Slowly tryna fix that.


Thanks man. Here lemme just link so you dont got a search around https://www.scribblehub.com/series/2983/my-sister-the-villainess/

I can tell you i cant critique your work. I read it from time to time when I'm procrastinating. It's great. Didnt recognize your name.

 

[CupcakeNinja]

I can tell you i cant critique your work. I read it from time to time when I'm procrastinating. It's great. Didnt recognize your name.

what a coincidence then. I write it when im procrastinating too! By the way, just started reading your story. Seems refreshing, dont usually read science-fiction-y stuff. Dialogue seemed a bit off at times though. Not awkward but i dunno, the wayit was done. I suggest using italics for people's inner thoughts instead of the brackets. I cant since i use mywritingspot which is really really simple but Tony--creator of NU, NUF and Scribblehub--did seem to do a damn fine job with the writing tool. Gotta have loads of options. If it autosaved i'd be using that instead. Wait, DOES it autosave?

 

[JustHANO]

Gotta have loads of options. If it autosaved i'd be using that instead. Wait, DOES it autosave?

You mean [ ] auto save when you copy paste? If so yes, yes they do. Also yea, i need to work on formatting the convos so much.

 

[Jemini]

Well yeah but I'm a chart topper--tail end, really, but still--almost every time I release a chapter I just have infrequent postings--Dunno how many noticed but I've been on there like literally ten times on and off. Pretty funny I you think about it. Heh

But thats nothing special, you know how people are my dude. Topping a chart dont mean shit sometimes. Heck I got way more readers and reviews over at webnovel too. It's just that people liking a story dont means it's good or well written.

As one might expect finding someone like you who goes more in depth than "it's good. I like it." Is an uncommon occurrence.

And I'm always up for finding aspects where I need to improve.

Warning tho, I'm pretty easily influence by what I read so I haven't been as descriptive as a western style story. One of the flaws I recognized myself early on. Slowly tryna fix that.

In case you missed the notification under other notifications, I gave my critique of your prologue as a comment.

Yes, I was able to catch something, it's both small and big at the same time. Small because anyone who does not specialize in characterization or otherwise write at a masterful level in general would make the same mistake, big because it is an issue that covers the entire chapter and really threw me off and as soon as I noticed it I couldn't see anything else. Basically, it's one of those mistakes that separates amatures from pros. I would call your writing top tier amature writing, but this one mistake I pointed out keeps it from being pro level.

(I honestly meant that note to be a lot shorter. I just wound up thinking of more and more comments to put on there and now I might as well have just said what the mistake was here. Oh well, I'll say it in brief. It's the portrayal of the prince. His character voice is too old for a 12 year old character. You can get the full details by looking up my comment.)