Offering Critiques [Open for submissions, adult works welcome]

[Rookieqw]

Ah, another SV member! Good to see you.

Department of redundancy department.

Thank you. Nice to meet you, too.

My bad, it slipped past my editing. I corrected it to the best of my ability:

Without stopping, she leaped over the stunned slaves, denting the metal ceiling with her helmet, green light dancing across its slit. Landing behind the slaves, she rushed toward Daulet, casually swinging her spiked mace. The tip sank into the gorget of the man holding Rustam and pierced him, to the boy's surprise.

 

[goth_dropping_in]

It's still ongoing, and I'm not very confident with the first three chapters.

Thank you.

Untapped Memories

Cassa Ironbrooke and Eliana Krahl are stranded in the border town Moonbridge. To leave, their choices are bleak: fight through monster-infested wilds, or pay ship fares they can't afford. Either way, they're stuck. Hope seems lost, until they discover their missing master's journal. Inside it...

www.scribblehub.com

Your first chapter is workmanlike and fairly decent, but fails to make me feel invested in the characters. It's clear you have the technical skill to get me invested in them — the banter is solid, and there are some stakes at hand (will they capture the alpha before sleepy party member conks out completely?), but you're trying to get me invested with casual banter when what you should be doing is showing me in more detail what's personally at stake for each of the characters. I don't for a second believe that an oversized rat is going to be a challenge for our apparently seasoned adventuring party, and it feels... a little too self-aware and tropey for me to feel engaged. The party is not up against something that I buy is on their level.

Though your writing is technically proficient and has real potential, you fall short of the mark because you're failing to put character first, before the action. I don't feel that the stakes are real, mostly because "kill five rats" is such an overdone quest, and I don't feel like I am in the shoes of the character with the most to lose.

I hope you keep writing and refining your craft — your work shows real potential, it's just a matter of prioritizing the right things in the right order.

 

[LuoirM]

Open this back up

 

[goth_dropping_in]

I already know this has terrible flow, writting, and pacing, so here goes nothing.
Novel

This has a good conceit and grabbed my attention when it came past in the newly uploaded category. I think you'll do well with this; the constant dodging of plot leadins is amusing and rewards the reader for knowing the webnovel genre well. Added to reading list.

Open this back up

Not until I'm caught up on the backlog, sorry.

Good evening!! I’d really appreciate some honest feedback. Yes, I know my cover is plain, but I’ll work on it when I have the time. For now, I’m focusing on the story itself. Also, just to clarify my novel is set in a timeless world. Some chapters might be shorter, and that’s completely intentional. Part of the fun is that the story doesn’t always make complete sense right away you get to piece it together yourself!

The Piece of Paper

Dane never thought his new job would lead him into a world of shadows. Hired by Kaelen the man the town whispers about as “The Hollow Heart”. Dane enters the grand gloomy manor only to sense that something isn’t right. One by one, tragedies unfold, each thread unraveling toward...

www.scribblehub.com

Thank you!

Feels over-wrought rather than gothic. Gothic horror should be intimate and personal, while a woman in a diaphanous gown falling off a cliff while thunder roars and lightning crashes is more melodramatic. It's a situation that seems too dramatic to be real, so it breaks my suspension of disbelief almost immediately.

Starting with a dark and stormy night is a bad beginning for a reason — it tries to impose a mood on the reader when they have no attachment to the characters yet at all.

It feels... kind of stereotypical? You're trying to be ominous, but without a sense of what the omens might portend in the story we're left wondering instead whether you, the author, have a plan for all this. Hopefully there is a payoff eventually, but currently most of your action is setup.

It's delicate, giving the audience enough leads to make them want to learn more while not revealing the whole mystery at once. I feel that currently you are erring on the side of being too vague.

I hope you keep writing — your descriptions are beautiful in their detail, and many of the specifics, such as the bouquet of dandelions, are striking in your selection of imagery — but your opening's excess of melodrama makes it feel too unreal to capture my interest.

In your place, I would instead have the protagonist be reading a final letter or document from their wife, rather than caught up in a dream in such a way. This gives us the voice of the wife on the page as a posthumous character, and what parts of the letter our protagonist chooses to focus on will be telling about their own situation and feelings. The emotions of the protagonist are clearly in enough turmoil to draw in the reader — you don't need overdramatic imagery (thunder and lightning!) to convey that.

Hi! I'd love to hear your thoughts on my historical fantasy reverse haremlit story. It's very character focused and has an introspective, slice of life style progression so it might be up your alley? I drew the cover art myself. I know it could be better, and anime style covers seem to be received better with readers here, but I couldn’t stomach going the AI route and I don't have the cash to commission an artist so I did my best. I've been thinking the title is maybe a bit too generic too, but idk what would be better.
All that to say, thanks! I hope you enjoy my story.

Consorts of the Court

(A REVERSE WORLD STORY) In a world where women rule and men serve, Princess Moriya was born to conquer—not just lands, but hearts. Raised in the grandeur of Dyss, the most powerful Queendom on the continent, Moriya is destined to become Queen. But power in a matriarchal empire doesn't...

www.scribblehub.com

Your cover is good! It looks unique and conveys the feel of the book well. Keep it!

Your chapters intrigue me and I love your premise. I think you will do well. I read all three chapters for review purposes and already am quite invested in Princess Moriya's life, as a decorative object now elevated to the line of queens. What ridiculous choices she is forced to make... But queenship will be heavier still, I fear.

I love your approach here. It is a well-suited one for a soft romance, even if you eventually intend for the piece to become explicit later; I've written a similar piece in terms of pacing before. The handling of gender issues is delicate and well managed. I very much enjoy what I've read so far and intend to read more. You have earned a place on my reading list.

Keep doing what you are doing: you will gain an audience with this if you just keep posting regularly.

Well, you seem very polite and reasonable with your critiques, which is something I really appreciate... I feel like a lot of critics just kind of use it as an excuse to go off on the writer. I'll assume you're probably not into pony stories so I will share my sole original work (as of right now), instead. Immaculate has been in progress for a very long time and at this point its possible that the earl ystuff is rather outdated relative to my newer work, but I really like the later stuff so any input on how to improve reader retention so they can actually read that far would be appreciated.

Immaculate

Depending on who you ask, Alunya is either a bastard witch who has enthralled his own brother, or simply a carefree and innocent child. Born into a village isolated by a divine barrier for fifteen hundred years, the expectation of his life is simple; Grow up, marry, have children, and...

www.scribblehub.com

I will note three things. One, the details in the prologue are a little underwhelming but, they are eventually important to the story. And two, the cover art is drawn by yours truly; as you can probably tell, I am not an artist. I don't believe in using AI and I like doing thing smyself so the terrible cover is likely to stay. Thirdly, the story is very fluffy and slow paced slice of life that eventually gives way to drama and adventure elements. I'm quite proud of having actually gotten to the point eventually while keeping it as a slower paced story, but it might be boring to people who dislike that sort of thing. Or possibly even people who like that sort of thing, I don't know, hence why I share it here.

I understand if you're too swamped to take a look. But if you ever have a chance I would appreciate it. Thankyou.

I think your issue is that your beginning takes too long to establish stakes. It is very slice-of-life and does little to challenge the characters to grow, instead allowing them to play and gambol without a care in the world. If you're intending to write fluff, that's fine I guess, but I lost interest fairly quickly because the pacing felt slow despite many things happening quickly in the story — mostly because most of those things didn't feel very relevant to the overall journey of the characters.

Thank you for sending this, but I slid off it mostly because you failed to get meaningful action onto the page after establishing your characters well.

Open this back up

Alright, now it's open again.

 

[LuoirM]

Alright, now it's open again.

damn I was being rude for fun I'm so sorry for that I love you

 

[empalgepuk]

Your first chapter is workmanlike and fairly decent, but fails to make me feel invested in the characters. It's clear you have the technical skill to get me invested in them — the banter is solid, and there are some stakes at hand (will they capture the alpha before sleepy party member conks out completely?), but you're trying to get me invested with casual banter when what you should be doing is showing me in more detail what's personally at stake for each of the characters. I don't for a second believe that an oversized rat is going to be a challenge for our apparently seasoned adventuring party, and it feels... a little too self-aware and tropey for me to feel engaged. The party is not up against something that I buy is on their level.

Though your writing is technically proficient and has real potential, you fall short of the mark because you're failing to put character first, before the action. I don't feel that the stakes are real, mostly because "kill five rats" is such an overdone quest, and I don't feel like I am in the shoes of the character with the most to lose.

I hope you keep writing and refining your craft — your work shows real potential, it's just a matter of prioritizing the right things in the right order.

This feels like a praise I didn't know I'd need, even with my shortcomings.

Thank you for the suggestion. I'll see what I can do.

 

[V8485]

If you got the time I would be thankful but if not it was worth a shot.

The Devil Been Isekai | Scribble Hub

 

[Dominus701]

I would gladly love any feedback. I originally posted my work on royal road but the lack of any real feedback there is kind of getting to me. I'm glad I stumbled upon this site and your specific forum and would be overjoyed if you'd be able to critique at least my first chapter. I hope it's not too long, about 2000 words per chapter.

https://www.scribblehub.com/series/1883379/man-made-god/

 

[Cyruka.]

My first #### which is a mess like my mind… probably not "catchy" but uhm, I'm on hiatus so… nvm, here's my work:

Yoei: Symphony of The Broken Oath

In the immaculate kingdom of Altheria, purity is a performance — and power is inherited like a disease. Yoei Bougainvillea, a royal healer bound by blood and duty, lives under rules she never chose and truths she is never allowed to question. Every audience with the court leaves her weaker as...

www.scribblehub.com

*bowed*

 

[goth_dropping_in]

If you got the time I would be thankful but if not it was worth a shot.

The Devil Been Isekai | Scribble Hub

You seem to think that being cool is a set of accoutrements — clothing, a gun, a motorcycle, and a who-cares attitude — but as a result the character you serve up is a mishmash of cliches. Rather than the attire serving the character, the character serves their attire. In short: you come across as young and shallow, with little understanding of what actually makes something cool. And referencing the fact that this is a light novel character repeatedly doesn't help your case, because I don't buy that an actual badass would be spending most of their time reading shitty light novels. Your character clashes with your theme. You swear a lot, but rather than your character seeming hard-boiled he seems like a teenager who hasn't learned that saying bad words doesn't make you hard.

I slid off by the end of the first chapter. Sorry, but you need to rework this from the ground up, because it comes off as trying too hard to be cool.

I would gladly love any feedback. I originally posted my work on royal road but the lack of any real feedback there is kind of getting to me. I'm glad I stumbled upon this site and your specific forum and would be overjoyed if you'd be able to critique at least my first chapter. I hope it's not too long, about 2000 words per chapter.

View attachment 41500

Please post your piece online somewhere, currently I have to download a sus file to read it and I'd really rather not.

My first #### which is a mess like my mind… probably not "catchy" but uhm, I'm on hiatus so… nvm, here's my work:

Yoei: Symphony of The Broken Oath

In the immaculate kingdom of Altheria, purity is a performance — and power is inherited like a disease. Yoei Bougainvillea, a royal healer bound by blood and duty, lives under rules she never chose and truths she is never allowed to question. Every audience with the court leaves her weaker as...

www.scribblehub.com

*bowed*

I really want to like this. You have a good eye for turns of phrase, and the situation is compelling — why did Yoei collapse? What is happening at these meetings? Who is behind the raid? — but unfortunately, the line of action in the piece is confused and confusing. I have difficulty following who is where and what is going on. I don't know who these people in the second chapter are in relation to Yoei, and rather than feeling like you're going to answer those questions, I instead just feel disoriented. You need to work on getting all the information that's in your head onto the canvas, I fear.

Your work shows promise — when you can weave these storylines together while tracking what the reader ought to know, I think you'll have something special — but as it is, it's hampered by awkward underspecification of what's going on. I might just be impatient or having a bad brain day, but I think you need to work on clarity.

 

[V8485]

Thank for the review of the first chapter.

I disagee on a few point but having any eyes and then seeing what I may had poorly is a great help.

I'm thinkful but I think V fits the story but I'm very thankful for spending any of your looking at my work.

 

[frostednightfall]

I feel as people like you should get paid to critique stories. I'm fairly new here and have seen some forums like these and honestly you people are doing a lot for new writers. So thank you.

I'll be honored if ANY one reads/ critiques my boring story,so. Here's the link:

A LIGHT BULB: You’re A Prisoner Of Your Own Mind

When you're a part of darkness, will you ever meet the light? Once you force yourself up to the light and forget how you lived your life, Are you even alive? A Psychological Horror on human behavior and adaptedness. *The entire premise is metaphorical*

www.scribblehub.com

 

[goth_dropping_in]

I feel as people like you should get paid to critique stories. I'm fairly new here and have seen some forums like these and honestly you people are doing a lot for new writers. So thank you.

I'll be honored if ANY one reads/ critiques my boring story,so. Here's the link:

A LIGHT BULB: You’re A Prisoner Of Your Own Mind

When you're a part of darkness, will you ever meet the light? Once you force yourself up to the light and forget how you lived your life, Are you even alive? A Psychological Horror on human behavior and adaptedness. *The entire premise is metaphorical*

www.scribblehub.com

Your cover is good, but you lost me with your premise. A good metaphor shouldn't have to tell the reader it's a metaphor; if it's not demonstrated in the text then you're clearly forcing it.

Your writing is compelling, but it's hard to divine what lesson or moral you're trying to convey. The various items in the protagonist's life could stand for most anything, any kind of knowledge that you the author consider valuable, after all. I would much rather you stated what you were trying to convey clearly, even if I disagreed with it, than hide behind broad metaphors like a cloak of shadows.

I would gladly love any feedback. I originally posted my work on royal road but the lack of any real feedback there is kind of getting to me. I'm glad I stumbled upon this site and your specific forum and would be overjoyed if you'd be able to critique at least my first chapter. I hope it's not too long, about 2000 words per chapter.

https://www.scribblehub.com/series/1883379/man-made-god/

Now that this is available online, I have comments!

Your cover is fineish. Your synopsis does tell me something of what's in the story but is rather vague.

Reading the first chapter, I'm immediately struck by the run-on nature of your paragraphing. You often connect multiple ideas in a single paragraph, blending them together into a much larger thing. This feels awkward and disrupts the flow. One paragraph should communicate one idea. You also have some grammar awkwardnesses.

All this I could perhaps forgive, if you gave me a character I liked — but your protagonist is a scoundrel and a murderer who, despite having a conscience, we don't see performing any actions that are kind or praiseworthy. I fail to empathize with him despite his bad situation because his humanity is so constrained as to make him a vicious killer.

Gritty pieces aren't precisely my style, so I might not be the person to ask here, but it is common screenwriting advice that the protagonist should be shown to do something kind, clever, cool, or otherwise good early on in order for the reader to be able to attach themselves to them. This is the "save the cat" of Save the Cat! While I personally think the approach of Save the Cat is a bit overly formulaic, I think it is correct in that a morally reprehensible protagonist needs to have some virtue to them in order to be someone the reader will want to root for. Most often this is done with intelligence and a sense of the character as well intentioned but with goals that morally compromise them, as with e.g. Tanya of Saga of Tanya The Evil or Light Yagami of Death Note.

I find it hard to care about your starving orphan, even though he is only taking vengeance against his abuser; and as such, I didn't read past chapter one.

 

[MagdalenaForsberg]

Hi,
Thank you for offering your reviews. I would love to hear what you think about my quirky space adventure. The book cover is a place holder. I have an illustrator that will do it so no need to critique that.

MagdalenaForsberg's Profile | Scribble Hub

www.scribblehub.com

 

[frostednightfall]

Your cover is good, but you lost me with your premise. A good metaphor shouldn't have to tell the reader it's a metaphor; if it's not demonstrated in the text then you're clearly forcing it.

Your writing is compelling, but it's hard to divine what lesson or moral you're trying to convey. The various items in the protagonist's life could stand for most anything, any kind of knowledge that you the author consider valuable, after all. I would much rather you stated what you were trying to convey clearly, even if I disagreed with it, than hide behind broad metaphors like a cloak of shadows.

Now that this is available online, I have comments!

Your cover is fineish. Your synopsis does tell me something of what's in the story but is rather vague.

Reading the first chapter, I'm immediately struck by the run-on nature of your paragraphing. You often connect multiple ideas in a single paragraph, blending them together into a much larger thing. This feels awkward and disrupts the flow. One paragraph should communicate one idea. You also have some grammar awkwardnesses.

All this I could perhaps forgive, if you gave me a character I liked — but your protagonist is a scoundrel and a murderer who, despite having a conscience, we don't see performing any actions that are kind or praiseworthy. I fail to empathize with him despite his bad situation because his humanity is so constrained as to make him a vicious killer.

Gritty pieces aren't precisely my style, so I might not be the person to ask here, but it is common screenwriting advice that the protagonist should be shown to do something kind, clever, cool, or otherwise good early on in order for the reader to be able to attach themselves to them. This is the "save the cat" of Save the Cat! While I personally think the approach of Save the Cat is a bit overly formulaic, I think it is correct in that a morally reprehensible protagonist needs to have some virtue to them in order to be someone the reader will want to root for. Most often this is done with intelligence and a sense of the character as well intentioned but with goals that morally compromise them, as with e.g. Tanya of Saga of Tanya The Evil or Light Yagami of Death Note.

I find it hard to care about your starving orphan, even though he is only taking vengeance against his abuser; and as such, I didn't read past chapter one.

Your cover is good, but you lost me with your premise. A good metaphor shouldn't have to tell the reader it's a metaphor; if it's not demonstrated in the text then you're clearly forcing it.

Your writing is compelling, but it's hard to divine what lesson or moral you're trying to convey. The various items in the protagonist's life could stand for most anything, any kind of knowledge that you the author consider valuable, after all. I would much rather you stated what you were trying to convey clearly, even if I disagreed with it, than hide behind broad metaphors like a cloak of shadows.

Thank you so much for giving my writing a read. This is the first critique of this story by anyone and it's exactly what I needed. I have also noticed the problems that you mentioned with my story. But I could never put those exact problems to words, those just felt off but I could not understand why. The way you pointed out the exact weak spots really gave me clarity on where I should improve. I could honestly not thank you enough.

Now I really like your analogy on the protagonist. And I completely understand your dislike towards the protagonist. He isn't someone to do kind,cool,clever or even good. He is someone extremely repulsive and he is aware of that. Why he is that way or what made him that way will get answered as the story progresses. And I'm keeping most things vague because as an amature writer I do not know how much I should reveal as to not reveal the plot.

I do agree with the rest of the points that you made. I will surely change many things in the story while keeping these points in mind. I appreciate your help a lot.

 

[Cookiez_N_Potionz]

I would be grateful for a critique!

The Maverick and The Succubus [LitRPG]

5 Systems. 5 Royal Families. Greetings, Champion! 17 year-old, Collin Rex is a football player with a heart of gold. But his easygoing life is flipped upside-down when his older siblings fall into a mysterious coma. With no more tricks in their playbook Collin's folks decide to move back to...

www.scribblehub.com

 

[DismaiNaim]

Here you go

A Place To Bloom

Caleb of Gath wants nothing more than to climb mountains, hunt in the forest, and chase girls around the village, until he's called to war. He's never held a sword. As the truth unfolds, he must sacrifice everything he thought he knew about the world and grapple with the darkness...

www.scribblehub.com

 

[Humanistheart]

The cover is obviously AI

Sorry, not feedback to me but if I may ask, so?

 

[ZannaYO]

This has a good conceit and grabbed my attention when it came past in the newly uploaded category. I think you'll do well with this; the constant dodging of plot leadins is amusing and rewards the reader for knowing the webnovel genre well. Added to reading list.

Not until I'm caught up on the backlog, sorry.

Feels over-wrought rather than gothic. Gothic horror should be intimate and personal, while a woman in a diaphanous gown falling off a cliff while thunder roars and lightning crashes is more melodramatic. It's a situation that seems too dramatic to be real, so it breaks my suspension of disbelief almost immediately.

Starting with a dark and stormy night is a bad beginning for a reason — it tries to impose a mood on the reader when they have no attachment to the characters yet at all.

It feels... kind of stereotypical? You're trying to be ominous, but without a sense of what the omens might portend in the story we're left wondering instead whether you, the author, have a plan for all this. Hopefully there is a payoff eventually, but currently most of your action is setup.

It's delicate, giving the audience enough leads to make them want to learn more while not revealing the whole mystery at once. I feel that currently you are erring on the side of being too vague.

I hope you keep writing — your descriptions are beautiful in their detail, and many of the specifics, such as the bouquet of dandelions, are striking in your selection of imagery — but your opening's excess of melodrama makes it feel too unreal to capture my interest.

In your place, I would instead have the protagonist be reading a final letter or document from their wife, rather than caught up in a dream in such a way. This gives us the voice of the wife on the page as a posthumous character, and what parts of the letter our protagonist chooses to focus on will be telling about their own situation and feelings. The emotions of the protagonist are clearly in enough turmoil to draw in the reader — you don't need overdramatic imagery (thunder and lightning!) to convey that.

Your cover is good! It looks unique and conveys the feel of the book well. Keep it!

Your chapters intrigue me and I love your premise. I think you will do well. I read all three chapters for review purposes and already am quite invested in Princess Moriya's life, as a decorative object now elevated to the line of queens. What ridiculous choices she is forced to make... But queenship will be heavier still, I fear.

I love your approach here. It is a well-suited one for a soft romance, even if you eventually intend for the piece to become explicit later; I've written a similar piece in terms of pacing before. The handling of gender issues is delicate and well managed. I very much enjoy what I've read so far and intend to read more. You have earned a place on my reading list.

Keep doing what you are doing: you will gain an audience with this if you just keep posting regularly.

I think your issue is that your beginning takes too long to establish stakes. It is very slice-of-life and does little to challenge the characters to grow, instead allowing them to play and gambol without a care in the world. If you're intending to write fluff, that's fine I guess, but I lost interest fairly quickly because the pacing felt slow despite many things happening quickly in the story — mostly because most of those things didn't feel very relevant to the overall journey of the characters.

Thank you for sending this, but I slid off it mostly because you failed to get meaningful action onto the page after establishing your characters well.

Alright, now it's open again.

Thank you so much for the feedback! I'm glad you enjoyed my story so far. And thanks for the reassurance regarding the cover.
Later on, there will be more intimate scenes, but still not anything 'very' explicit. I'm more comfortable writing soft romance and fantasy drama.

 

[Cyruka.]

I really want to like this. You have a good eye for turns of phrase, and the situation is compelling — why did Yoei collapse? What is happening at these meetings? Who is behind the raid? — but unfortunately, the line of action in the piece is confused and confusing. I have difficulty following who is where and what is going on. I don't know who these people in the second chapter are in relation to Yoei, and rather than feeling like you're going to answer those questions, I instead just feel disoriented. You need to work on getting all the information that's in your head onto the canvas, I fear.

Your work shows promise — when you can weave these storylines together while tracking what the reader ought to know, I think you'll have something special — but as it is, it's hampered by awkward underspecification of what's going on. I might just be impatient or having a bad brain day, but I think you need to work on clarity.

Lovely lovely lovely!

Thank you for taking the time to read and share your thoughts! You’re right — clarity is something I’m still working on, especially in the first few chapters since this is my very first long-form work. I tend to write with mystery and reveal things slowly, which can sometimes blur ‘who’s where’ or how storylines connect. Your comment helped me see where readers might feel lost rather than intrigued.

I admit that Chapters 1–3 are rough (first attempts always are!), but I hope you’ll notice the writing change and improve as the chapter numbers increase. I’m glad you still found the premise compelling, and I really appreciate your encouragement about the story’s potential.

As for why Yoei collapsed in the early chapter… I prefer to leave that mystery lingering a while, since sometimes I like to write in ways that even make me uncomfortable. It’s part of how I explore the story.