I'm very afraid to ask for feedback from a community, I think everyone is fearful about it, right?
I don't have many people to ask for opinions; I just write, so I decided it would be a good idea now that I've come up with a little story online to get someone's opinion.
Here's the story: https://www.scribblehub.com/series/...he-heros-harem-as-the-useless-side-character/
Don't be too mean, thanks.
Or be mean, you decide.
I decided to give it a try because the synopsis made the character seem relatable, which is a positive, and the premise sounded entertaining and engaging. However, I didn’t get very far into the first chapter because it reads more like a script. The narrative consists of barebones descriptions of actions and dialogue, which are the only elements driving the story forward. This seems to fall into the category of "show, don’t tell"—a common pitfall for new writers.
Visually, I’m not seeing anything. Writing is meant to transport readers or at least provide enough detail for our imaginations to take over. Crafting vivid descriptions is a necessary skill for any writer, so there’s really no excuse not to try. Without that effort, it’s hard for potential readers to care about the story. This feels more like a rough draft built from the outline you mentioned, which is a great starting point, but the actual writing lacks substance. Right now, it’s paper-thin and needs much more development to engage readers effectively.
Formatting is my personal circle of hell, and it would seem it has followed me to narrowly expand into your world.
@ Teh Synopsis
Hurry, you must hurry, and put a little space between the ‘future’ and ‘One day’
No! Nooooo! Demons escaping! Alert, alert! Be very careful to mind the not-very-wide gap between the ‘Journey’ and the ‘But’!
Shift+enter can be your friend (the bottom two pair nicely with it, and I love the dash — I should use it in a place you never need worry about), but we need big bold breaks to the other two!
A chasm so wide no demon can wriggle out of it and snag unwary otherworldly travellers!
(Seems coherent tho, so: noice. Also, that’s dark: he takes in an *orphan*, presumably young… and she is a part of his harem in the traditional storyline? Hella. Yike. I like.
Reach the pinnacle of the harem?! That’s unexpected! And Hella Yike squared: now, you have my interest.
To be honest, I don’t know that you need anything beneath that line at all, as much as I enjoy dashes and repetition (and I do so enjoy them)).
Hmmmmmmmm. First person narrative in the prologue, third person synopsis — If this continues through the story, you might find some value in bringing the synopsis into the fold.
Or not. I’m not expert. Hence why you should think about it: not just do anything I (or anyone) say(s).
Present tense prologue, very economical language — a choice too, not invalid either, but it does notably limit your options.
"Sigh…" A sigh fills the night air of the city. I hang up my apron and hat.
“Sigh…" A sigh. <— Probably should drop one of these, and I strongly recommend it be the dialogical ‘Sigh’: very few purple people actually go through the effort of saying ‘ssssiiieeeegguuhhhhh’ when they sigh, especially of tiredness. Usually it is used to express extreme levels of exasperation when a person is being specifically passive aggressive or melodramatic. —> She is just hanging up her apron and hat… and here’s where we have an issue.
Consider conjoining the sentences, if brevity and economy of words be your dreams as a writer… and flesh them out if you dream of purple people (as I do). My recommendation?
Explore a little.
Say this same pair of sentences in numerous different ways, and pick the one you find most interesting, fun, or impressive.
Otherwise this is liable to be a very dry read: absent colour, and all the speed that comes with density. This line is where I would stop as an organic reader, and is that fair to everything that lies below it, beside it, and all around it?
No. It isn’t:
You have a synopsis that managed to interest me all on its own by the two points I denoted above.
But that was the first line (which comes after ‘…' in its own paragraph above — something I DO NOT MIND, AND EVEN LIKE: it shows you can play with the punctuation to evoke *FEELING* in language, which is desperately important to my reading (personally)).
The second line?
The bell at the grocery store’s entrance rings once again, this time signaling my exit.
A bell rings — sensation; she exits — action, grocery store/apron(from above) — character.
That is a good sign for your competence: you achieve much in this space… but there are two things holding it back, especially as I run through the piece.
Lack of truth — the bell doesn’t ring: it jingles — it is small, or if it does ring: it is electronic and that is a worthy inclusion missing here. This time? There was no other time to orient off of.
Lack of connection — she works in a grocery store, she had an apron and hat to hang up (and interestingly, not take home, or hang specifically in their locker… but confusing: what job lets you hang that stuff anywhere? It must be a small business, it has to be. But small businesses have owners: not managers).
What was so bad about the day that it elicits not one, not two, but thirteen verbal sighs that she counted? Who can relate with this? She’s just experiencing dissatisfaction with her life; she didn’t have an unusually bad day, she didn’t get barked at by her manager, she didn’t deal with a particularly nasty customer: this is just an ordinary day, so why is she sighing fifteen times before she gets to die? Her body is heavy with exhaustion? What, was she (presumably a woman) solo-stocking the dog food or water all day because the truck came in after the night crew left, being interrupted by customers every five minutes and unable to listen to even some music to take her mind off of what was her *fifth* hour of overtime?
No. She’s just tired of living an unfulfilling life… and despite a day that makes her sigh so much: she has plenty of energy to ponder the nature of her existence.
Which means:
It is… excessive, and undirected: very hard to relate to.
Imagine opening this chapter with a customer out later than usual, the jingle of that bell sounding at 7:59 O’clock as the customer arrives dead on closing time — not unruly, or mean, just poorly out of time. So you tell them you’re closed, but they insist that they just want one little thing, please: they forgot their daughter’s birthday.
Who hasn’t stayed five minutes… ten minutes… forty minutes after their shift to help an indecisive customer who selfishly abused the social contract? Who then would not say:
“Sigh.”
Also, the spacing of the prologue contains a lot of inconsistent double line-spacing, and I don’t think you meant to do that.
I decided to give it a try because the synopsis made the character seem relatable, which is a positive, and the premise sounded entertaining and engaging. However, I didn’t get very far into the first chapter because it reads more like a script. The narrative consists of barebones descriptions of actions and dialogue, which are the only elements driving the story forward. This seems to fall into the category of "show, don’t tell"—a common pitfall for new writers.
Visually, I’m not seeing anything. Writing is meant to transport readers or at least provide enough detail for our imaginations to take over. Crafting vivid descriptions is a necessary skill for any writer, so there’s really no excuse not to try. Without that effort, it’s hard for potential readers to care about the story. This feels more like a rough draft built from the outline you mentioned, which is a great starting point, but the actual writing lacks substance. Right now, it’s paper-thin and needs much more development to engage readers effectively.
Thank you for the opinion.
“Show don't tell” is something very abstract to me, despite it being a very simple concept. Maybe because I have a desire to move things forward, when I write detailed descriptions I feel like I'm not moving forward at all, and for this very reason I can understand where this comment is coming from.
Thank you very much, maybe I'm going too quickly and being too synthetic?
I appreciate the advice!
Formatting is my personal circle of hell, and it would seem it has followed me to narrowly expand into your world.
@ Teh Synopsis
Hurry, you must hurry, and put a little space between the ‘future’ and ‘One day’
No! Nooooo! Demons escaping! Alert, alert! Be very careful to mind the not-very-wide gap between the ‘Journey’ and the ‘But’!
Shift+enter can be your friend (the bottom two pair nicely with it, and I love the dash — I should use it in a place you never need worry about), but we need big bold breaks to the other two!
A chasm so wide no demon can wriggle out of it and snag unwary otherworldly travellers!
(Seems coherent tho, so: noice. Also, that’s dark: he takes in an *orphan*, presumably young… and she is a part of his harem in the traditional storyline? Hella. Yike. I like.
Reach the pinnacle of the harem?! That’s unexpected! And Hella Yike squared: now, you have my interest.
To be honest, I don’t know that you need anything beneath that line at all, as much as I enjoy dashes and repetition (and I do so enjoy them)).
Hmmmmmmmm. First person narrative in the prologue, third person synopsis — If this continues through the story, you might find some value in bringing the synopsis into the fold.
Or not. I’m not expert. Hence why you should think about it: not just do anything I (or anyone) say(s).
Present tense prologue, very economical language — a choice too, not invalid either, but it does notably limit your options.
"Sigh…" A sigh fills the night air of the city. I hang up my apron and hat.
“Sigh…" A sigh. <— Probably should drop one of these, and I strongly recommend it be the dialogical ‘Sigh’: very few purple people actually go through the effort of saying ‘ssssiiieeeegguuhhhhh’ when they sigh, especially of tiredness. Usually it is used to express extreme levels of exasperation when a person is being specifically passive aggressive or melodramatic. —> She is just hanging up her apron and hat… and here’s where we have an issue.
Consider conjoining the sentences, if brevity and economy of words be your dreams as a writer… and flesh them out if you dream of purple people (as I do). My recommendation?
Explore a little.
Say this same pair of sentences in numerous different ways, and pick the one you find most interesting, fun, or impressive.
Otherwise this is liable to be a very dry read: absent colour, and all the speed that comes with density. This line is where I would stop as an organic reader, and is that fair to everything that lies below it, beside it, and all around it?
No. It isn’t:
You have a synopsis that managed to interest me all on its own by the two points I denoted above.
But that was the first line (which comes after ‘…' in its own paragraph above — something I DO NOT MIND, AND EVEN LIKE: it shows you can play with the punctuation to evoke *FEELING* in language, which is desperately important to my reading (personally)).
The second line?
The bell at the grocery store’s entrance rings once again, this time signaling my exit.
A bell rings — sensation; she exits — action, grocery store/apron(from above) — character.
That is a good sign for your competence: you achieve much in this space… but there are two things holding it back, especially as I run through the piece.
Lack of truth — the bell doesn’t ring: it jingles — it is small, or if it does ring: it is electronic and that is a worthy inclusion missing here. This time? There was no other time to orient off of.
Lack of connection — she works in a grocery store, she had an apron and hat to hang up (and interestingly, not take home, or hang specifically in their locker… but confusing: what job lets you hang that stuff anywhere? It must be a small business, it has to be. But small businesses have owners: not managers).
What was so bad about the day that it elicits not one, not two, but thirteen verbal sighs that she counted? Who can relate with this? She’s just experiencing dissatisfaction with her life; she didn’t have an unusually bad day, she didn’t get barked at by her manager, she didn’t deal with a particularly nasty customer: this is just an ordinary day, so why is she sighing fifteen times before she gets to die? Her body is heavy with exhaustion? What, was she (presumably a woman) solo-stocking the dog food or water all day because the truck came in after the night crew left, being interrupted by customers every five minutes and unable to listen to even some music to take her mind off of what was her *fifth* hour of overtime?
No. She’s just tired of living an unfulfilling life… and despite a day that makes her sigh so much: she has plenty of energy to ponder the nature of her existence.
Which means:
It is… excessive, and undirected: very hard to relate to.
Imagine opening this chapter with a customer out later than usual, the jingle of that bell sounding at 7:59 O’clock as the customer arrives dead on closing time — not unruly, or mean, just poorly out of time. So you tell them you’re closed, but they insist that they just want one little thing, please: they forgot their daughter’s birthday.
Who hasn’t stayed five minutes… ten minutes… forty minutes after their shift to help an indecisive customer who selfishly abused the social contract? Who then would not say:
“Sigh.”
Also, the spacing of the prologue contains a lot of inconsistent double line-spacing, and I don’t think you meant to do that.
Thanks for the extensive answer, here too I see that a big problem is my being synthetic (and at the same time, ironically, very dramatic). I think that many of those issues also originate from the fact that well, English is not my first language, so things like "the bell that rings" are little mistakes made like that, (also because until now I had no idea that it was said "jingles", I thought they were synonymous).
In addition to language issues and being summarized, I understand the presence of some unrealistic behaviors, such as the literal "sigh".
The spacing is a format error, lol. I don't know why he did this, I definitely need to fix it.
Thanks again, I really appreciate the advice! :D
The best way I can explain this to new writers is by comparing writing to the lens of a camera. The page or screen is your blank canvas or film, and your words and descriptions transform that emptiness into a living, breathing world. The lens—your narration—is the selective scope that presents readers with the important details needed to set the scene. This includes visual elements beyond vague mentions like "gas station," as well as time of day, weather, and more.
Think of yourself as the cameraman, carefully choosing what you want the viewer (or reader) to see. What elements of the scene are most important? Building out details using the senses—sight, smell, touch, and sound—helps ground the reader in the world you’re creating. For example:
"The store door opened with a jingle, and a gust of cool autumn air carried in the faint scent of exhaust, asphalt, and fried food mingled with the sharp tang of spilled gasoline."
Another important description is that of the character's appearance, which can be introduced naturally within the flow of the scene, allowing the plot to progress.
For example:
"Jill pulled the apron over the messy bun of her brunette curls."
"April rolled her hazel-blue eyes as she slapped his change onto the counter."
These details breathe life into your characters and setting without halting the story. It takes practice, of course, but one of the best ways to improve—beyond trial and error—is by reading widely. Every writer will develop their own balance of detail, and that balance will often depend on the genre as well as the writer's comfort and preference.
That's not unusual at all. Writing a first rough draft in this way can be incredibly helpful. However, it's important to recognize that it is a rough draft and likely not ready for readers just yet. I used to call these "vomit drafts" because the goal was simply to get the story down on paper. Once that was done, I could figure out what worked and what needed to change in the plot or characters, and then rewrite it with more attention to details and descriptions. Over time, I stopped writing vomit drafts because experience has shortened the amount of preparation and effort needed to structure and write a story effectively.
Thanks for the extensive answer, here too I see that a big problem is my being synthetic (and at the same time, ironically, very dramatic). I think that many of those issues also originate from the fact that well, English is not my first language, so things like "the bell that rings" are little mistakes made like that, (also because until now I had no idea that it was said "jingles", I thought they were synonymous).
In addition to language issues and being summarized, I understand the presence of some unrealistic behaviors, such as the literal "sigh".
The spacing is a format error, lol. I don't know why he did this, I definitely need to fix it.
Thanks again, I really appreciate the advice! :D
Bells do ring — church bells. They also jingle — sleigh bells (jingle all the way). If it sounds like: DONG. DONG. DONG. You’ve got a bell that rings. If it sounds like ‘tingtingting’ when shaken: you have a bell that jingles, or even chimes if it sounds more like ’Tong’ in a higher register.
TLDR: Bells, they make all kinds of cool sounds, except when they don’t.
I wouldn’t call it a ‘mistake’ so much as a missed opportunity. Your work from what I saw when I glanced over was few in overt mistakes and many in missed opportunities.
Formatting is my white whale. I hope yours proves easier to slay than the travesty that has happened to one of my works when I saved it from one pdf. No paragraphs, no line breaks, just one… long… 50K mess of words where I can be thankful that the sentences themselves are still cohesively spaced.
Bells do ring — church bells. They also jingle — sleigh bells (jingle all the way). If it sounds like: DONG. DONG. DONG. You’ve got a bell that rings. If it sounds like ‘tingtingting’ when shaken: you have a bell that jingles, or even chimes if it sounds more like ’Tong’ in a higher register.
TLDR: Bells, they make all kinds of cool sounds, except when they don’t.
I wouldn’t call it a ‘mistake’ so much as a missed opportunity. Your work from what I saw when I glanced over was few in overt mistakes and many in missed opportunities.
Formatting is my white whale. I hope yours proves easier to slay than the travesty that has happened to one of my works when I saved it from one pdf. No paragraphs, no line breaks, just one… long… 50K mess of words where I can be thankful that the sentences themselves are still cohesively spaced.
Anyway. I've only read chapter 1. Everything is extremely amateurish. The descriptions, the prose, the dialogue, and the energy you bring to the table as a first chapter. Bunch of one sentence strings of words that sort of don't mean anything yet. I mean don't get me wrong I've been writing on and off for a decade and I still can't do that shit right, but it's very clear here lol.
Get rid of all of the sighs. They aren't you doing any favors. In fact, they get annoying pretty much in the first instance lmao. You don't need two "sighs" next to each other. Rather than saying sigh sigh sigh over and over, demonstrate it more with action. This is the crux of "show don't tell" by the way. It's more than just viewing it like a video or movie. It's expressing the character's emotions without using any words. The first sigh is fine. The others should be shot dead. Elaborate way more on the character's feelings in place of them.
Although, to be honest you're on the right track.
Closing my eyes, I pull out a cigarette from my pocket, light it, and place it quickly in my mouth.
Aside from the adverb (quickly), this is a good sentence. If you elaborate more in the way he does it, the familiar clicking of the lighter, the sparks of fire that don't even hurt anymore, and the faintest scent of smoke easing his nerves... Then you really show this dude is tired. Since this is first-person, we are truly in this guy's head. Make it work!
But you've got a decent foundation to work on.
That wall had always made me uneasy. I hadn’t realized it before, but tonight it seemed strangely short. Was I getting taller? No, that was doubtful… I hadn’t grown in years, and at the same time, I wasn’t losing weight either.
Anyway. I've only read chapter 1. Everything is extremely amateurish. The descriptions, the prose, the dialogue, and the energy you bring to the table as a first chapter. Bunch of one sentence strings of words that sort of don't mean anything yet. I mean don't get me wrong I've been writing on and off for a decade and I still can't do that shit right, but it's very clear here lol.
Well this correlates to the previous critic, where it all seems like a movie script. Totally understand where this is coming from, and as I said, kind of my attempt at making things go "quickly".
Anyway, I understand that I may not be utilizing my point of view too much. Since I'm used to using the third person, it may be that I'm just not giving the character enough emotion.
Thank you a lot gentle (but destroying) sir!
