OK, so I'm going to preface this with two points. One, I finished the first chapter and read a few paragraphs into the second. If the direction you take the story beyond that influences what I say here, I wouldn't know about that. Two, [as it's currently written] I'm not your target audience. So keep that in mind as well.
The first issue I see is branding. In your opening chapter, you go full-throttle gratuitous F-F erotica. What that signals to the reader is "this is smut, and the plot is there to drive the smut." I'm not above reading smut, but nothing about your story page says that. The cover is bland and ambiguous, the title doesn't suggest anything smutty, and the blurb doesn't even mention it. You have trigger warnings, but that's not going to do anything.
If your purpose is to write a story that "happens to be uncensored," the general advice is to begin with the story and then weave the uncensored stuff later. As a rule, whatever you lead with signals to the reader what this story is going to be about. Smut-first = "the story is just there to glue the smut together." Story-first = "this is a story that has smut in it."
Second issue, and this ties to the first, is that you have long, meandering paragraphs describing the neighbors and extended family in the beginning that for me were very difficult to slog through. I see you mixing some humor into it, and that does work, but then it starts to drag and drag and drag, especially when you go into long info-dumps about all the extended family reminiscent of those passages in the Old Testament "and Beth-Molof beget Zoloft, and Zoloft had three sons, Larry, Moe and Curly, and Larry changed his name to Imhotep and took Mary Sue to wife and they beget Dramamine who worked in IT customer service..." I found myself checking the scroll bar several times asking "how much longer is this?" TBF your casual reader won't do that; they're just going to move on.
Third, there's a plausibility problem. This may or may not be a problem, depending on your priorities. If your purpose is to create a smut-driven narrative, then plausibility isn't all that critical. 1) the sister-on-sister erotica is definitely weird. Coming on the heels of your MC fapping to the neighbor girl-next-door who's clearly her crush, then get into the sisters, and I'm unclear exactly what they were doing, but it was weird. I think they were getting off on watching each other masturbate? 2) The neighbor in window scene. It would work if it's clear she's deliberately showing off, but you don't allude to that. If that's what she's doing, then the tension of "how does she feel about me" is lost. If it's not, then I don't see your MC having such a clear, detailed view of inside her bedroom. 3) you mean to tell me the whole family has been demons their whole lives and neither of the sisters knew about it? And Lina is now being told she's the new Dark Lord, but there was no grooming, no preparation, no training, nothing. She didn't even know. Best of all, both sisters are totally nonchalant about it. Sorry, but I don't buy it.
Fourth, structure and clarity. The time reckoning doesn't work. You start off telling your audience that her sister wants to kill her, then flash back to the birthday party. Then, you dip into long expository about neighbors and extended family, then you go back some more, then back to the birthday party (I think?). I got lost in there. I think you could benefit from a cleaner scope. Rather than try to cram everything together, I would start off with "I helped my sister get ready for her birthday party... little did I know this was the day everything would change." This would plant the seed in the reader's mind that "OK, so something crazy is going to happen" and then drip-feed from there. And then show the party in a linear fashion. You can then delve into the introductions AS we meet them. "Bob raised his glass to me, he was the neighbor across the street who drove fast cars and shit. Then I ate a taco, and oh look there's Erin, damn I'd like to eat her taco..."
If you introduce Erin at the party and show MC fawning over her, show Erin NOT reciprocating, you build a sweet tension for your audience that you can dig into later. Like a tease, you keep your audience at the edge of their seat wanting more. As you have it now, you deliver it front and center with no foreplay... and the best smut teases the audience with chapters and chapters and chapters of probing, teasing, taunting the reader until they can't take it anymore.
Anyway now for the good stuff. You paint a vivid image. I could see the world clearly. You brought me into it with immersive sensory detail which I highly appreciate. That, and the premise itself has potential.
Anyway that's my three cents (inflation, you know how it is). No matter what I say, just remember that I'm not a best-selling anything. The most I ever made on one book was about $60 and that was ten years ago.
Just to start, I absolutely love this reply, I'm incredibly happy to just receive the feedback. Thank you so much. I was going to go step by step quote reply-quote reply, but that just seems messy to me. So, here's my full reply as is. I fully, absolutely understand
this was my first chapter, of my first story, of my first time posting anything ever on Scribblehub, so no worries. It could have been all completely bad review, and I wouldn't have minded, I really seek for honesty. I myself think of the story as a complete mess, so you being as
nice, and direct, but fair, is..
You're wonderful. Believe me.
Thank you.
lol The story needs work. I Fully agree. lol. No disagreements there; Needs desperate rewriting compared to later chapters.
The cover is bland and ambiguous. < -- Yea. That's true. I'll actually draw something in the future to replace it. The story was just a way to shut my brain off and just write paragraphs and paragraphs of nonsense, but It kind of went out of control and grew into this near 50 chapter monstrosity of a story. And so if it had interest, and promise, I thought, maybe I CAN fix it? But also.. why fix it, if it's not even good enough TO fix. You know what I mean?
Smut-first = "the story is just there to glue the smut together." Story-first = "this is a story that has smut in it." <-- This is SO smart. I will take this into future considerations, and carry it everywhere! It never crossed my mind.
Long, meandering paragraphs describing... Yes. I fully agree. Early chapters make me cringe just looking at them, but I was hoping they weren't as bad as I imagined they were on sight, but hearing it. I do need revisions and editing. Fully aware, was just hoping it was me being my worst critic, but, yea, fully understand.
The sister-on-sister erotica is definitely weird.< -- I'm very, very, very sorry to subject you to that., but on the subject of clarity and tension: Needs more of both. I get it. And to not bounce around so much with the structure of the time framing. Less info dump, slog, expositional boring nonsense that slows the story. Right right.
Lmao. Taco, made me laugh.
Anyway now for the good stuff. (My first though was: 'it's very small'. [TTwTT
Nuh-uh, it's average! IT'S AVERAGE!] lol) But thank you so much. It means the world, and I'll take everything you said into my future writing, (and revisions). I understand this book isn't for everyone, and it's very niche, and weird, especially with the wide array of 'topics' I threw in, but I genuinely appreciate you looking into it, and giving me a few
cents of feedback I was looking for. I also kind of forgot how the first chapter went. and Again,
I'm very, very, very, very sorry to have had subjected you to the sis-con thing.
Just a side note as author of the story. Somewhere down the line I took 2 weeks away from the random story uploads, and forgot what I was writing. Mostly because I never put too much thought into it, it was just a nonsense "Clear my head" kind of story full of frustrations, but in more recent chapters, I have had ideas, and concepts, and I think it's gotten.... better?? I wouldn't know where that point is though. -And I would still say it's not for everyone. And needs to be edited. that's for sure. lol.
Anyway.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR HELPING ME. <3
(Oh. very quickly: Is it
better on Scribblehub to make a separate book saying "X-title (Revised)", or just to edit the original?? I've seen it done both ways. but at the same time. I feel like the "revised" never does as good because of the 'why read something you already read' mentality, but also.. It automatically also says, 'read this version, it's better than the original'.)
