Fairemont's Fair & Friendly Fiction Feedback

[Macha]

Fairmont is here tooooo! Yayyy! We have a whole critic(?) family? Tempokai's the dad, and I'm the mom... /jk

Anyway, will throw my novel into the pile once I'm done with it lmaooo.

@Esia create your own critic thread so you can become the sadistic sister. You used to review stories, what happened?

 

[StoneInky]

@Esia create your own critic thread so you can become the sadistic sister. You used to review stories, what happened?

...I was joking. How did you even manage to reply before I edited? Temp is probably in a relationship and ten years older than me, soooo

I'm going to be his daughter(?) Niece(?) Esia can be the sadistic mom if she wants.

 

[Macha]

...I was joking. How did you even manage to reply before I edited? I just realized Temp is probably in a relationship and ten years older than me, soooo

Because we are the same person? Also my cultivation let me have priority.

 

[ItzATrap52]

Can you check my story?

Traversing through different worlds as a vampire princess

A boy born and raised as a normal human in a non-magical world, is reincarnated into the body of the baby vampire princess in a magical world. Now Celine has to adapt to her new life as the vampire princess in a new and dangerous world. Traveling and finding new...

www.scribblehub.com

 

[Esia]

@Esia create your own critic thread so you can become the sadistic sister. You used to review stories, what happened?

I only review stories if they deserved a good review and stopped after realizing most stories I reviewed were deleted.

It's understandable, really. You worked hard to write a good story and then decided to delete it. Maybe you lost interest or just moved on.

Still, it’s a bit discouraging for someone like me who took the time to read, enjoy, and review it.

I don’t leave reviews lightly. So when those stories disappear, it feels like that effort, that connection, just vanishes.

And your story is one of them.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Sometimes stories vanish because the author got an exclusive contract to publish for real. Sometimes they vanish because they were unauthorized translations...

 

[Akkizakura]

Sometimes stories vanish because the author got an exclusive contract to publish for real. Sometimes they vanish because they were unauthorized translations...

Usually, it's because Tony nuked the stories and the authors behind them. Check Sailus' thread for more information. Some authors keep reposting the same story after their previous story is hidden. Sometimes under different accounts.

New novel on blackghosts account, same cover again. I believe it's the same story, just rewritten with chatgpt or something like that.

 

[Erysion]

Sometimes stories vanish because the author got an exclusive contract to publish for real. Sometimes they vanish because they were unauthorized translations...

Usually, it's because Tony nuked the stories and the authors behind them. Check Sailus' thread for more information. Some authors keep reposting the same story after their previous story is hidden. Sometimes under different accounts.

If a story has:
1. Link to the author's Patreon for early access chapters.
2. Updates daily with 5 other stories by the same author.
3. The fanfiction tag.

More often than not, they are unauthorized translations.

 

[Fairemont]

ooo! Feedback please, it would be greatly appreciated!

The Shadow Guard and Her Princess

When the emperor thrusts the seven imperial heirs into a struggle for the throne, Shadow Guard Three becomes the Third Princess’s only knife. But having spent her whole life killing for the throne, the deadly imperial competition drives away any chance Three might have for a happy ending. With...

www.scribblehub.com

Cover
I like the design and the colors. The typeface is so-so. Doesn't showcase much, or even hint at anything, but it is eye-catching and looks nice.

Synopsis
Could use a rework. The content is good, but the syntax is really rough. The sentences feel harsh and disorganized. It wouldn't take much to clean it up a bit.

Chapter One

Spoiler

The opening scene is almost interesting, but not captivating enough. It is missing a few things that would be beneficial. The first is motivation. Even a simple one-line drop of "need to find this macguffin for my boss" would probably suffice. The second thing is to pare down the description of said macguffin. It got a bit wordy. About twice as wordy as it needs to be; this also happens with the description of the general. Too much for someone who is written off immediately with nothing else to attach the reader to them. The last thing that would help is a little more interaction. It feels rushed and lacking substance.

General analysis is you say too much and all about the wrong stuff. Tricky bit, though. Not sure what the best way to fix it would be, but it might also be fine as it is.

Chapter Two

Spoiler

The male 'emperor' title for a woman throws me off. Empress would have been more appropriate.

This chapter continues with some a continued focus on odd details that aren't immediately relevant. Also, I'm noticing that the narrative voice is very sterile and maybe a bit clinical. It makes it troublesome for me to get invested. Fortunately, Three is getting a little character development on the side, but she's still tricky to attach to as a main character.

A decent chapter that felt a bit hurried overall, but hung up in certain spots.

Chapter Three

Spoiler

More pacing issues. Too much random descriptions early on, and then too little in the interaction. The dialogue could have been expanded more to develop character, but was left minimalist. I'll hang it up here for now.

I read three chapters this morning, and I don't think I will read more. There's enough stuff here that doesn't suit my taste. However, that's just my personal preference as to whether or not I'll continue reading.

As for how things looked. In just these three chapters, I get the semblance of a good writer hindered by a lack of organization in their writing. Your prose is technically sound, though it does feel like it could use a little personality since it is extremely basic in critical moments but descriptive elsewhere. This results in a very sterile and flat narrative tone.

The characters are struggling in the development category from it. You're focusing way too much on random things like describing a random room they pass by or investing too much in describing a side character rather than letting the major players actually do anything. Even Three's own thoughts feel clipped and kept to a minimum, and even when she starts to go somewhere with them, it rolls back to one of two things: girls or food.

I'd say you have an overall of a 3.5/5 on what I did read, maybe a 4. A proper editor could really polish up what you've put down and bring it up to a solid 5/5 without a lot of effort, so that is a good sign.

Essentially, my view on this is that it is not your magnum opus, nor is it the best work you shall ever do. It is a stepping stone, and a really promising one at that. I imagine you learned a lot in the process of writing this story and so long as you're able to overcome some of these organizational/focus quirks I kept finding, you will be able to put out some really good content in the future.

Can you check my story?

Traversing through different worlds as a vampire princess

A boy born and raised as a normal human in a non-magical world, is reincarnated into the body of the baby vampire princess in a magical world. Now Celine has to adapt to her new life as the vampire princess in a new and dangerous world. Traveling and finding new...

www.scribblehub.com

Sure!

Disclaimer: Reincarnation gender-bending is usually something that I avoid.

Prologue

Spoiler

A, yes... a victim of Truck-kun. Classic.

This prologue is a major "red flag" for me as a reader in that you're selling this as a reincarnation/isekai gender-bending story but immediately erasing the original character down basically nothing, but giving yourself an excuse to occasionally pull on the fact that the previous iteration was male. I dislike this approach because it feels like tag fishing. You're adding these elements to slap Isekai and gender-bending onto the story and then are doing nothing with them. I haven't started chapter one yet, but as far as I can tell, this could have easily been a non-Isekai vampire FMC without these added tags and you'd be right where you're at.

I then skimmed the bulk of it. You should probably use appropriate dialogue tags, that is to say, quotation marks. I am not the only one who got whiplash from that.

In essence, this prologue is not ideal. Writing about a time period from birth to year four and using it as a time to exposition dump world building details is basically a 1/10 method. In almost any other situation I'd hang it up right now.

I, sadly, did not make it through chapter one.

So, here's what I think. You have a good technical sense. You're a quality writer in that you do not have any glaring issues with your prose. No typos, no grammatical quirks that really stick out, but the approach to this story is... You essentially chose all the wrong ways to do it. A sort of rookie mistake, if you will.

There's no draw for a reader. We're given a nameless pre-protagonist who reincarnates as Celine, which seems to be used only as an excuse for post-birth awareness since everything else about them was erased. You use this time to drone on about a bunch of LitRPG-adjacent material that is not immediately relevant, and overloads a reader looking for something other than a minimally-styled world-building outline.

I'd suggest a completely different approach. You've got the writing chops to do it, granted I didn't get into much of the dialogue or character development. However, I think your prologue hurts you more than it helps, and by a lot.

It is also possible that it is purely a "me" thing, and you've chosen basically every genre I tend to avoid as a reader: purposeless gender-bending, unnecessary reincarnation, wasted/under-utilized Isekai, LitRPG, etc.

I don't know what else to tell you. It wasn't for me. You are doing okay overall, though, since most of your ratings are 3's and 5's.

 

[Ahrihn]

Cover
I like the design and the colors. The typeface is so-so. Doesn't showcase much, or even hint at anything, but it is eye-catching and looks nice.

Synopsis
Could use a rework. The content is good, but the syntax is really rough. The sentences feel harsh and disorganized. It wouldn't take much to clean it up a bit.

Chapter One

Spoiler

The opening scene is almost interesting, but not captivating enough. It is missing a few things that would be beneficial. The first is motivation. Even a simple one-line drop of "need to find this macguffin for my boss" would probably suffice. The second thing is to pare down the description of said macguffin. It got a bit wordy. About twice as wordy as it needs to be; this also happens with the description of the general. Too much for someone who is written off immediately with nothing else to attach the reader to them. The last thing that would help is a little more interaction. It feels rushed and lacking substance.

General analysis is you say too much and all about the wrong stuff. Tricky bit, though. Not sure what the best way to fix it would be, but it might also be fine as it is.

Chapter Two

Spoiler

The male 'emperor' title for a woman throws me off. Empress would have been more appropriate.

This chapter continues with some a continued focus on odd details that aren't immediately relevant. Also, I'm noticing that the narrative voice is very sterile and maybe a bit clinical. It makes it troublesome for me to get invested. Fortunately, Three is getting a little character development on the side, but she's still tricky to attach to as a main character.

A decent chapter that felt a bit hurried overall, but hung up in certain spots.

Chapter Three

Spoiler

More pacing issues. Too much random descriptions early on, and then too little in the interaction. The dialogue could have been expanded more to develop character, but was left minimalist. I'll hang it up here for now.

I read three chapters this morning, and I don't think I will read more. There's enough stuff here that doesn't suit my taste. However, that's just my personal preference as to whether or not I'll continue reading.

As for how things looked. In just these three chapters, I get the semblance of a good writer hindered by a lack of organization in their writing. Your prose is technically sound, though it does feel like it could use a little personality since it is extremely basic in critical moments but descriptive elsewhere. This results in a very sterile and flat narrative tone.

The characters are struggling in the development category from it. You're focusing way too much on random things like describing a random room they pass by or investing too much in describing a side character rather than letting the major players actually do anything. Even Three's own thoughts feel clipped and kept to a minimum, and even when she starts to go somewhere with them, it rolls back to one of two things: girls or food.

I'd say you have an overall of a 3.5/5 on what I did read, maybe a 4. A proper editor could really polish up what you've put down and bring it up to a solid 5/5 without a lot of effort, so that is a good sign.

Essentially, my view on this is that it is not your magnum opus, nor is it the best work you shall ever do. It is a stepping stone, and a really promising one at that. I imagine you learned a lot in the process of writing this story and so long as you're able to overcome some of these organizational/focus quirks I kept finding, you will be able to put out some really good content in the future.

Sure!

Disclaimer: Reincarnation gender-bending is usually something that I avoid.

Prologue

Spoiler

A, yes... a victim of Truck-kun. Classic.

This prologue is a major "red flag" for me as a reader in that you're selling this as a reincarnation/isekai gender-bending story but immediately erasing the original character down basically nothing, but giving yourself an excuse to occasionally pull on the fact that the previous iteration was male. I dislike this approach because it feels like tag fishing. You're adding these elements to slap Isekai and gender-bending onto the story and then are doing nothing with them. I haven't started chapter one yet, but as far as I can tell, this could have easily been a non-Isekai vampire FMC without these added tags and you'd be right where you're at.

I then skimmed the bulk of it. You should probably use appropriate dialogue tags, that is to say, quotation marks. I am not the only one who got whiplash from that.

In essence, this prologue is not ideal. Writing about a time period from birth to year four and using it as a time to exposition dump world building details is basically a 1/10 method. In almost any other situation I'd hang it up right now.

I, sadly, did not make it through chapter one.

So, here's what I think. You have a good technical sense. You're a quality writer in that you do not have any glaring issues with your prose. No typos, no grammatical quirks that really stick out, but the approach to this story is... You essentially chose all the wrong ways to do it. A sort of rookie mistake, if you will.

There's no draw for a reader. We're given a nameless pre-protagonist who reincarnates as Celine, which seems to be used only as an excuse for post-birth awareness since everything else about them was erased. You use this time to drone on about a bunch of LitRPG-adjacent material that is not immediately relevant, and overloads a reader looking for something other than a minimally-styled world-building outline.

I'd suggest a completely different approach. You've got the writing chops to do it, granted I didn't get into much of the dialogue or character development. However, I think your prologue hurts you more than it helps, and by a lot.

It is also possible that it is purely a "me" thing, and you've chosen basically every genre I tend to avoid as a reader: purposeless gender-bending, unnecessary reincarnation, wasted/under-utilized Isekai, LitRPG, etc.

I don't know what else to tell you. It wasn't for me. You are doing okay overall, though, since most of your ratings are 3's and 5's.

Thank you so much for your feedback, it was really helpful!
Also, regarding the use of the word 'emperor' — in Chinese (and most other asian languages, e.g., Korean and Japanese), emperors aren't actually exclusively male. It's just that all but one are. The role between empress and emperor is clearly defined in Chinese court law: empresses rule over the harem and emperors manage the realm and politics (officially). Gender doesn't affect titles, unlike king/queen. Since most english speakers don't know this, would it be helpful to put it in the Notes/Content warning?

 

[Fairemont]

Well, that'd be the first time I've ever heard that. I've also never seen anything that indicates it is that way.

If it is the case, then it's definitely uncommon knowledge. I suppose Wu Zetian is the only case, though some would argue she wasn't the emperor, but the Empress Dowager ruling through her son.

 

[K_Jira]

Putting mine here if you're fine with BL

[QT] Loving an Alien Isn’t That Bad at All

Saving people wasn't exactly Shen Yuan's thing, but if you paid him enough to do it, then you'd get yourself a deal. Whether someone lived or died was never his concern, but what end it brought was his job to direct. He was the perfect agent for the military to...

www.scribblehub.com

 

[Rookieqw]

Hello!

I have some free time, and by some, I mean a lot. I normally spend it just refreshing pages hoping my view count will go up, so I figure I can do something a little more productive.

I will volunteer to provide feedback on your fiction. Some exclusions may apply.

I won't read anything AI-generated or AI-assisted because you've already chosen your path.

I can be fickle, I can be picky, I will at least try and read the first chapter at minimum. I probably won't read more than a dozen unless I really like it. I will then provide my thoughts in whatever form I feel like. This could be a few thoughts, some sort of suggestions here and there, or I might go a little overboard and throw out extensive alternatives to whatever you wrote as examples of what I think could be done better.

If I try reading your story and I do not like it enough to finish the first chapter, I will provide feedback on what I do read and the reasons I do not like it. It may be as simple as being too far outside of my reading preferences.

Provide a link, at minimum. If you don't I am not going to go hunting for it. I am lazy.

Thank you for your kind offer! I've been writing for about a decade now, but all my novels have failed to achieve what I wanted (at least a dozen comments). It is my fault, but I am too dumb (or arrogant) to understand the problem or a solution to the problem. If you could give your input on why this is (is my writing sexist or racist, maybe something else is vile, is my plot boring or doesn't make sense, or perhaps I'm just talentless), that would be great. Here is my novel, which I am currently rewriting: https://www.scribblehub.com/read/51...rying-not-to-become-a-monster/chapter/517937/

 

[sbdrag]

Well, I posted in the other two new feedback threads, no reason to stop now lol - thanks for the opportunity!

I've been posting for a while on other sites so I've got a lot of story and few reviews here, so you can put me lower on the list if you like since I do get feedback/reviews elsewhere lol
https://www.scribblehub.com/series/1261463/demon-kings-gardener/

(to be clear, I am actually picky about who I get feedback from, so if I didn't like your review style/didn't think it was fair, I wouldn't post just because I did on the other threads ?)

 

[TachimeSan]

I'll bite ehehehe ~

This one is a fairly new work of mine: https://www.scribblehub.com/series/475678/the-rise-of-raruk-warwulf/

Thanks!

 

[Fairemont]

@Rookieqw

Took some time today to look at as much of your story as I could. Here's some of my thoughts:

Title
Title covers a lot, implies a few things, but is maybe a bit wordy. That is, unless you're going for a longer title for a style reason. I'd say you could trim it down and be more concise.

Cover
Sets tone really well. Locks in a lot of aesthetic. Implies we're going to get some sort of wartime or post-apocalyptic futuristic, sci fi, or contemporary setting with substantial conflict. It also makes it clear that the main character is not going to be a human. All of the elements come together well on that front. The typeface and color for the title do nothing. It might as well not be there. You'd probably need to make it pop more since it is basically invisible and impossible to read.

Synopsis
The overall syntax of the synopsis is cumbersome and difficult to read comfortably. It'd benefit from some serious revisions in that regard.

As for the content, the entire first paragraph is mostly useless. It is overly specific, but cannot be reasonably expected to explain who or what all of these people and places are, so it falls flat. The second paragraph does a better job. Overall, your synopsis is poorly structured and will either confuse or turn away readers who come across it. At least, that is my opinion of it.

Chapter One

Spoiler

Okay, so, I see why you feel like you might be struggling with this a bit. You've fallen into some seriously rookie mistakes. Fortunately, it isn't entirely unsalvageable.

Your opening scene is effectively two lines of dialogues and their action tags. You then immediately go into a long-winded info dump before blasting right back to continuing this opening scene. This layout, on a scale of 1-10, is effectively a 1/10 approach to beginning your story. The first two dialogue interactions queue something up, but you immediately drag the reader away from that for a lecture, and then once done, toss them back into the action. I'd say most of your readers see this info-dump and promptly hang it up.

The second big problem is all of this information is not important. It took a long time for me to break from this habit. When writing and developing a story, as soon as I come up with an idea, I write it down. However, when I do write it down it may not be the best time or place for that information. So, in my first proofread, I will often cut a lot of content and paste it into my outline so I can insert it in a more appropriate location. This is probably something you will need to do. So...

Let's break it down into two lists of what is relevant now and not:

Relevant/Important Now

• Unusual Family Dynamics
• Kalaisa's appearance (minimally important)
• Mother wears a wintersong necklace (minimally important)
• Gregor's appearance (minimally important)
• Aranea's appearance (minimally important)
• Reference to Aranea's age and how something is maturing her faster
• Aranea's personality; she speaks freely and reads a lot (minimally important)

Not Relevant/Important Now

• They are from the wolf tribe
• Wolf tribe is from the ravaged lands
• Kalaisa was a warlord at some point
• Gregor is an ice fang warrior
• All details related to the ice fang warriors (this is two full paragraphs)
• Gregor's pilgrimage
• Aranea's birthday
• More info about Ice Fang warriors

So, basically, the only truly important details from that were the unusual family dynamics, and maybe some content about Aranea's age and her personality. However, the bulk of that can be removed from this segment without worry. It'll be a lot better to introduce her free-speaking personality and love of reading as part of her dialogue and actions. You'll also want to cut back on all of the visuals regarding appearances to anything not immediately relevant.

The better way to introduce their visuals is to do so as part of the story and actions. Mom is rather large. It'd be easy for her to stand next to the father and just make a quick reference of her towering over him or some such. Your current approach is poorly executed for so early on. Besides, so much appearance content isn't really important to begin with.

This is all just the first half of the first chapter. There's nothing here to draw your reader in except a bunch of exposition in a relatively lackluster presentation. It's too... textbook. However, even a textbook tries to make the content somewhat fun. You just threw it all on there and hoped for the best.

I'm not a huge fan of the sequence you've chosen, either. They are present for a painting of some sort, and are disruptive in a rather cliche fashion. The dialogue feels forced and unnatural. While the conversation topics aren't exactly unreasonable, it doesn't feel like they are talking about it in a way that real people would. Also, the transition from topics is abrupt and very sudden.

You've also chosen a very, very common opening sequence. One or more parents going off to war (or something similar), a slightly rebellious youth who just wants to fight, parents saying no, etc. It's like, one of the top five most common fantasy set ups. It can work, but you're not being particularly innovative with it, so it might hurt your reader retention if they come in, see something they are very familiar with, and then see you do nothing compelling with it.

You also just interject a massive exposition paragraph into the action again. You dwell too much on the details of it.

The second problem I get here is that your characters are also just... exposition dumping in their dialogue, which is why it isn't feeling natural. Even the child is speaking about pretty advanced topics for someone being carried around by their father.

Safest place in the world? Hmm... that's a major disaster flag if I ever saw one.

So, my general opinion of you writing, after chapter one and briefly skimming chapter two, is that the biggest reason you are not retaining readers is your focus. You spend far too much time on exposition, adding details about the world and story that aren't necessarily useful to the reader, but break up the flow.

The second thing I feel is hindering you is your style. Your writing feels like something I'd expect from a fairly young author, or someone just getting started in their writing career. At the same time, the story, characters, and world content being presented feels very much like a fursona self-insert story, which is going to turn away a lot of people, and only retain those who are particularly interested in that.

Now, I do not want you to think that having anthropomorphic creatures, such as these Wolfkin, or even fursona or furry-related content is a bad thing. I do not believe it is. I do not think most readers around Scribblehub will think it is, but your style and presentation lends a sort of feeling that I'm struggling to properly convey. Effectively, it signals the story of an immature (as in rookie) writer establishing a fursona-lore.

That is going to be a hard sell for a lot of people.

That's all the "bad" stuff. There is nothing without some good, and that goes for you and your story.

You are quite creative, that much is certain. You've put a lot of thought into developing the world you're starting to present, and I'd expect you've organized it quite well. Your deep world building is being hindered by how quickly you're presenting it, and the order in which you're presenting that info. Essentially, you're releasing like A B C D E F when you might actually need to do F C E D A B or some such --- and spread it out a lot more.

Your technical skills aren't bad either. I'd give it a 4/5. There's very few grammatical errors, and this means it is very readable.

In the end, the biggest problem with Duty, Empty Dreams, and Trying Not To Become a Monster, is your desire to front load all the world-building. That single flaw in your approach is influencing everything else, and dragging it down like a ball-and-chain.

I firmly believe that, if you were able to sort this out, revise it into a more streamlined story, and focus less on the world-building and more on developing the characters and their interactions while then sprinkling in the world building when it becomes critical, you'd retain a lot more readers because the premise seems solid and the general content theme should be appealing on ScribbleHub.

Therefore, my final verdict is this:

Your story is currently a 2/5 stars story when compared to what else is on ScribbleHub.

With a bit of work, there is no reason it cannot be at least a 4/5 stars story.

 

[StoneInky]

@Rookieqw

Took some time today to look at as much of your story as I could. Here's some of my thoughts:

Title
Title covers a lot, implies a few things, but is maybe a bit wordy. That is, unless you're going for a longer title for a style reason. I'd say you could trim it down and be more concise.

Cover
Sets tone really well. Locks in a lot of aesthetic. Implies we're going to get some sort of wartime or post-apocalyptic futuristic, sci fi, or contemporary setting with substantial conflict. It also makes it clear that the main character is not going to be a human. All of the elements come together well on that front. The typeface and color for the title do nothing. It might as well not be there. You'd probably need to make it pop more since it is basically invisible and impossible to read.

Synopsis
The overall syntax of the synopsis is cumbersome and difficult to read comfortably. It'd benefit from some serious revisions in that regard.

As for the content, the entire first paragraph is mostly useless. It is overly specific, but cannot be reasonably expected to explain who or what all of these people and places are, so it falls flat. The second paragraph does a better job. Overall, your synopsis is poorly structured and will either confuse or turn away readers who come across it. At least, that is my opinion of it.

Chapter One

Spoiler

Okay, so, I see why you feel like you might be struggling with this a bit. You've fallen into some seriously rookie mistakes. Fortunately, it isn't entirely unsalvageable.

Your opening scene is effectively two lines of dialogues and their action tags. You then immediately go into a long-winded info dump before blasting right back to continuing this opening scene. This layout, on a scale of 1-10, is effectively a 1/10 approach to beginning your story. The first two dialogue interactions queue something up, but you immediately drag the reader away from that for a lecture, and then once done, toss them back into the action. I'd say most of your readers see this info-dump and promptly hang it up.

The second big problem is all of this information is not important. It took a long time for me to break from this habit. When writing and developing a story, as soon as I come up with an idea, I write it down. However, when I do write it down it may not be the best time or place for that information. So, in my first proofread, I will often cut a lot of content and paste it into my outline so I can insert it in a more appropriate location. This is probably something you will need to do. So...

Let's break it down into two lists of what is relevant now and not:

Relevant/Important Now

• Unusual Family Dynamics
• Kalaisa's appearance (minimally important)
• Mother wears a wintersong necklace (minimally important)
• Gregor's appearance (minimally important)
• Aranea's appearance (minimally important)
• Reference to Aranea's age and how something is maturing her faster
• Aranea's personality; she speaks freely and reads a lot (minimally important)

Not Relevant/Important Now

• They are from the wolf tribe
• Wolf tribe is from the ravaged lands
• Kalaisa was a warlord at some point
• Gregor is an ice fang warrior
• All details related to the ice fang warriors (this is two full paragraphs)
• Gregor's pilgrimage
• Aranea's birthday
• More info about Ice Fang warriors

So, basically, the only truly important details from that were the unusual family dynamics, and maybe some content about Aranea's age and her personality. However, the bulk of that can be removed from this segment without worry. It'll be a lot better to introduce her free-speaking personality and love of reading as part of her dialogue and actions. You'll also want to cut back on all of the visuals regarding appearances to anything not immediately relevant.

The better way to introduce their visuals is to do so as part of the story and actions. Mom is rather large. It'd be easy for her to stand next to the father and just make a quick reference of her towering over him or some such. Your current approach is poorly executed for so early on. Besides, so much appearance content isn't really important to begin with.

This is all just the first half of the first chapter. There's nothing here to draw your reader in except a bunch of exposition in a relatively lackluster presentation. It's too... textbook. However, even a textbook tries to make the content somewhat fun. You just threw it all on there and hoped for the best.

I'm not a huge fan of the sequence you've chosen, either. They are present for a painting of some sort, and are disruptive in a rather cliche fashion. The dialogue feels forced and unnatural. While the conversation topics aren't exactly unreasonable, it doesn't feel like they are talking about it in a way that real people would. Also, the transition from topics is abrupt and very sudden.

You've also chosen a very, very common opening sequence. One or more parents going off to war (or something similar), a slightly rebellious youth who just wants to fight, parents saying no, etc. It's like, one of the top five most common fantasy set ups. It can work, but you're not being particularly innovative with it, so it might hurt your reader retention if they come in, see something they are very familiar with, and then see you do nothing compelling with it.

You also just interject a massive exposition paragraph into the action again. You dwell too much on the details of it.

The second problem I get here is that your characters are also just... exposition dumping in their dialogue, which is why it isn't feeling natural. Even the child is speaking about pretty advanced topics for someone being carried around by their father.

Safest place in the world? Hmm... that's a major disaster flag if I ever saw one.

So, my general opinion of you writing, after chapter one and briefly skimming chapter two, is that the biggest reason you are not retaining readers is your focus. You spend far too much time on exposition, adding details about the world and story that aren't necessarily useful to the reader, but break up the flow.

The second thing I feel is hindering you is your style. Your writing feels like something I'd expect from a fairly young author, or someone just getting started in their writing career. At the same time, the story, characters, and world content being presented feels very much like a fursona self-insert story, which is going to turn away a lot of people, and only retain those who are particularly interested in that.

Now, I do not want you to think that having anthropomorphic creatures, such as these Wolfkin, or even fursona or furry-related content is a bad thing. I do not believe it is. I do not think most readers around Scribblehub will think it is, but your style and presentation lends a sort of feeling that I'm struggling to properly convey. Effectively, it signals the story of an immature (as in rookie) writer establishing a fursona-lore.

That is going to be a hard sell for a lot of people.

That's all the "bad" stuff. There is nothing without some good, and that goes for you and your story.

You are quite creative, that much is certain. You've put a lot of thought into developing the world you're starting to present, and I'd expect you've organized it quite well. Your deep world building is being hindered by how quickly you're presenting it, and the order in which you're presenting that info. Essentially, you're releasing like A B C D E F when you might actually need to do F C E D A B or some such --- and spread it out a lot more.

Your technical skills aren't bad either. I'd give it a 4/5. There's very few grammatical errors, and this means it is very readable.

In the end, the biggest problem with Duty, Empty Dreams, and Trying Not To Become a Monster, is your desire to front load all the world-building. That single flaw in your approach is influencing everything else, and dragging it down like a ball-and-chain.

I firmly believe that, if you were able to sort this out, revise it into a more streamlined story, and focus less on the world-building and more on developing the characters and their interactions while then sprinkling in the world building when it becomes critical, you'd retain a lot more readers because the premise seems solid and the general content theme should be appealing on ScribbleHub.

Therefore, my final verdict is this:

Your story is currently a 2/5 stars story when compared to what else is on ScribbleHub.

With a bit of work, there is no reason it cannot be at least a 4/5 stars story.

I thought you were fair and "friendly" lmaoooo. (Also noticed the abbreviation of your thread is FFFF. Niceee.)

Hm...or maybe it's me. This is friendly.

 

[Fairemont]

I thought you were fair and "friendly" lmaoooo. (Also noticed the abbreviation of your thread is FFFF. Niceee.)

Hm...or maybe it's me. This is friendly.

There's some difficulty in remaining friendly while also being effective...

They have some things to sort out, but I think they can do it!

You also missed an F.

 

[Hoshino]

Here-nya

 

[Rookieqw]

The dialogue feels forced and unnatural.

Even the dialogue? That's fair, but I really tried and revisited the story several times, trying to make it good. But honest is honest, my skills are shit, and I am not meant to be an author. I'll finish the novel to the best of my ability, but I guess I am not meant for it even after a decade of writing. Some people are meant to suck. Apologies for bothering you with this turd, and thank you for your honest opinion. It was good to hear things as they are.