Feedback & Help on Fantasy/Romance/Adventure Story

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I am working on this story and one place I am really struggling is the synopsis so I would appreciate some feedback on that.

Also just in general looking for some early reads and reviews.

Any thoughts are appreciated.

Thanks.
 

Lodur

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her best friend and newly discovered lover, Samara.

I've read up to chapter 4 only to receive a huge bomb on my head: Samara, actually, is a girl. It was totally unexpected (especially after dedication to your husband and daughter). One small tag "Girls Love" on the title page can save your potential readers from such discoveries. (I have nothing against GL, just "overeaten" it recently, and not in the mood to add one more to collection).

(I beleive, my words were not overly harsh or grumpy? Sendin' , good wishes and happy vibes to support you in your work. Peace!)
 

Cipiteca396

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The synopsis is a little weird. It's like you wrote the same synopsis in two different styles. Personally, I prefer the way the last paragraph is written. It's more 'down to earth'. I suppose a small rework to that first run-on sentence might help.

Now then. Onto the bones. As the above person mentioned, you'll want to add the Girl's Love genre. Also consider carefully reading through SH's Tutorial.

To do what I can do, other genres you might add are: Action, Isekai, Mystery, and Supernatural. Whether you add them or not will depend on how much fighting the Protag does, how quickly you reveal the plot's 'secrets', and if there are more creatures like the Nightmares lingering around, or if they're a onetime deal.

Oh, for the Isekai one... If you do add it, make sure you keep the mention of Elca and Lita in your synopsis so people know she's not coming from Earth.

You'll also want to max out and hit the 25 tag limit. For example, you could consider adding Tomboyish Female Lead and Coming of Age. You don't need to add them all at once, but look through all the tags and try to hit the limit. The more tags you have, the better.

Overall, it's a good story, with maybe just a touch too much description for a webnovel. That's not a bad thing.
 

Temple

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It's a generic-looking synopsis. Just change the characters, and it a can be the synopsis of another story. I suck at making synopsis, so I can't recomend how to fix it. Maybe add something more specific?
When a curse turning people into toads befell the non-magical world of Elca, Amalia, a simple zookeeper, is forced to magical sword of turning people into ducks, and face a destiny she never knew she had.
I'm just exaggerating, but you see what I mean. The paragraph after "who she was meant to be with" is way more helpful because it actually tells me what the story is. How about combining that with the synopsis about.
 

C_A_D_M_U_S

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I am working on this story and one place I am really struggling is the synopsis so I would appreciate some feedback on that.

Also just in general looking for some early reads and reviews.

Any thoughts are appreciated.

Thanks.

1. Length - Typically 2 paragraphs max. Each paragraph preferably only has 2-4 sentences (though you don't really have an issue with this so that's fine).

2. Use a unique term or an "out of the norm" phrase - Either use some distinctive term for a power/ability, a character, etc. or insert an unusual phrase in the 1st paragraph cause you gotta hook your readers from the get-go—or at least, make them curious.

For ex:
"The Dark Queen" - This is too generic. You can try to come up with a more distinctive or maybe even quirky term for the villain that may pique a reader's interest.

3. End it with a "half-spoiler" - I used "half-spoiler" for the lack of a better term. Anyway, you can kinda "spoil" a tiny bit of the main plot. The reason for this is, well, most will feel incomplete after reading such an excerpt, so they'll most likely click that Read button to satisfy their curiosity.

Anyway, these are just based on my observations when I read synopses of paperbacks. Those are the three common points that I noticed.

I agree with Cipiteca396. The last paragraph is quite good (though still lacks impact).
 
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I've read up to chapter 4 only to receive a huge bomb on my head: Samara, actually, is a girl. It was totally unexpected (especially after dedication to your husband and daughter). One small tag "Girls Love" on the title page can save your potential readers from such discoveries. (I have nothing against GL, just "overeaten" it recently, and not in the mood to add one more to collection).

(I beleive, my words were not overly harsh or grumpy? Sendin' , good wishes and happy vibes to support you in your work. Peace!)
Thank you for reading. I didn't tag it GL because it's just that one scene and I didn't want people going into it hoping/expecting for a GL story. It isn't. The main love interests moving forward are male/female. I sort of felt torn because I didn't want people to NOT know it was there but I also don't want to throw myself as a genre that I'm not really writing for...

I have been on the fence about keeping that scene as a sexual encounter... when the curse reaches Samara, she obviously is experiencing the dread/foreboding feeling and she feels a race against time to confess her feelings to her friend. I don't see this part as an issue, it seems to make sense to me that if you are like 99% sure you're about to "die", you want to tell the person you love that you love them. But, Amalia didn't see Samara that way previously so I'm not sure it should go that far. I've considered another angle of Amalia gently rejecting Samara and then the massive regret after the Deep Sleep takes her.

Thank you for all the feedback. I'm taking all of it to heart.

I adjusted the synopsis a little but I don't really feel like it's any better. I did add the full 25 tags. I found one for girls-love subplot so I put that on for now.
 
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Lodur

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Thank you for reading. I didn't tag it GL because it's just that one scene and I didn't want people going into it hoping/expecting for a GL story. It isn't. The main love interests moving forward are male/female. I sort of felt torn because I didn't want people to NOT know it was there but I also don't want to throw myself as a genre that I'm not really writing for...
Oh... Sorry for premature conclusion. Still, it will be nice, if you rephrase your synopsis (you know... "newly discovered lover" is pointing in some direction). Maybe, you should exclude Samara from synopsis completely, if it just a little episode. I can understand that when coming of age and discovering your own sexuality, some people can try different things and have different feelings. Though I personally never have any attraction to a living person of the same gender in my coming of age, I have some friends that confessed such episodes.
 
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Oh... Sorry for premature conclusion. Still, it will be nice, if you rephrase your synopsis (you know... "newly discovered lover" is pointing in some direction). Maybe, you should exclude Samara from synopsis completely, if it just a little episode. I can understand that when coming of age and discovering your own sexuality, some people can try different things and have different feelings. Though I personally never have any attraction to a living person of the same gender in my coming of age, I have some friends that confessed such episodes.
I did take out that part when I attempted a rework on the synopsis earlier today, so hopefully that curbs some of that confusion... as it is currently written, Amalia is kind of confused about how she feels but I know how she feels and it isn't going to end with Samara lol She was included in the synopsis because she is the first reason Amalia agrees to even undertake her journey but I also don't want to confuse anyone.

I also posted this thread https://forum.scribblehub.com/threads/torn-between-two-options.14942/#post-318049 to try and work out how I want to approach Amalia and Samara's relationship.
 

Cipiteca396

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I did take out that part when I attempted a rework on the synopsis earlier today, so hopefully that curbs some of that confusion... as it is currently written, Amalia is kind of confused about how she feels but I know how she feels and it isn't going to end with Samara lol She was included in the synopsis because she is the first reason Amalia agrees to even undertake her journey but I also don't want to confuse anyone.
Tbh, if you aren't making Samara the main love interest, most of what you've written is weird. I suppose I'll finalize my thoughts after reading the other thread.
 
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Bumping this to say that I've made some pretty big changes to the early chapters - no more confusion on the girls love tag : )

I have 10 chapters posted as of writing this and I'm fully appreciating all of the feedback I've gotten so far. I'm open to hear more, as well.
 
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