Long explannations vs Fragmented sentences Need help

[FrenzyWanderer]

As a new Author I struggle a lot with balancing these 2, I have written a novel in SH https://www.scribblehub.com/series/...up-dont-ask-about-my-sisters-opinion-on-this/

But I got 2-3 feedbacks saying too little detail and hard to follow. And my writing style tend to deviate into those japanese LN style, if unintended.

I rarely tend to include long paragraphs, even when using them I use them only to immerse the reader at the beginning and not anywhere else.

“What happened?”

World came into my visual field. First thing I noticed is the damaged Caravan. I pinched myself to see whether it was a dream, Apparently it was not. My hands and legs were smaller that it used to be

Wait…

Then bodies—Dead bodies, lying around the caravan. Servants and maids

Gasp!

The imagery forced a step back

“What the hell?”

I looked around,

Trees! Trees! TREES!

I’m in the middle of nowhere

Like this one, a quotation from my novel ch03

Is this kind of prose viable?

Can you give my novel a shot and highlight whether this type of writing OK, because some liked it and some absolutely despised it

Since I have no proper experience or much skill, I struggle in these kind of conflicting feedback

Also can anyone please tell me whether I messed up opening 2 chapters (your opinion)
And compare it into ch 03, 04, 05

The novel until now is around 4,000 words

And also highlight any other prose related issues (there are few problems in ch01 and 02 some lack fullstops, because when copying from my draft I copied it section by section, so my cursor had missed them in some places, I couldn't find the way to edit published chapters and the error is fixed in ch03 onwards)


Thank you in advance

Sorry for any inconvenience caused, just started writing 1-2 yrs ago and this is the first thing I published

 

[greyblob]

did you read the links i referred to you?

 

[FrenzyWanderer]

did you read the links i referred to you?

Yeah

 

[Zagaroth]

Your sample reads a lot like a script for a play or movie. The reason that scripts can be so sparse is that it is the job of the actors to round out and bring the characters to life, while it is the job of the director and stage hands and such to bring the setting around the actor to life.

Writing this way may work inside your head, but that's because you already have all that secondary information in your head.

Reading your sample creates a series of first movement, a still image, then a brief bit of movement, then the scene freezes again. There is no fluidity between the lines, nothing carries through, no ongoing sense of motion and very little continuity. This is what makes it jarring.

Yes, this is the style that light novels are written in, but this is exactly why a lot of people do not like LNs. I only read them when I am impatient about an ongoing anime/manga and I want to know more of the story. That way I can carry the visuals and characterizations I already have from there into the light novel, and mentally fill the gaps that the LN author leaves.

You do have relatively dense information for the amount you have written, but you achieved this by stripping away that which makes a world vibrant, rich, and immersive.

 

[Eldoria]

Try writing from a limited third POV. LN style generally focuses on the first POV.

 

[FrenzyWanderer]

Your sample reads a lot like a script for a play or movie. The reason that scripts can be so sparse is that it is the job of the actors to round out and bring the characters to life, while it is the job of the director and stage hands and such to bring the setting around the actor to life.

Writing this way may work inside your head, but that's because you already have all that secondary information in your head.

Reading your sample creates a series of first movement, a still image, then a brief bit of movement, then the scene freezes again. There is no fluidity between the lines, nothing carries through, no ongoing sense of motion and very little continuity. This is what makes it jarring.

Yes, this is the style that light novels are written in, but this is exactly why a lot of people do not like LNs. I only read them when I am impatient about an ongoing anime/manga and I want to know more of the story. That way I can carry the visuals and characterizations I already have from there into the light novel, and mentally fill the gaps that the LN author leaves.

You do have relatively dense information for the amount you have written, but you achieved this by stripping away that which makes a world vibrant, rich, and immersive.

Yeah the problem is that I assumed LN like style was a 'Style of writing' not a 'bad style of writing'

I've reading lot of LNs recently and I like reading LNs that's probably why my style had gone like this

I mean does those kind of sentences belong only in action scenes or high stakes scenes?
Or not even suitable for those?

Basically what you have to do in a scene is

(1) A bit of a long paragraph to ground the reader in the location and in the scene

(2) Slow build up, longer sentences and build up

(3) If high stakes action / comedy scene present switched to usual writing style, short sentences etc. Fragmented writing etc.

(4) Follow up with long paragraphs


I'll write Chapter 06 considering your advices and can you just read and react to chapter 06 only, (not about the story but about the prose)

I mean I'm not a writer by profession, I started this as a hobby. These are the only places that I can get actual feedback to improve my writing

So please can you review the prose? Would be a great help

Thank you

Chapter 06 will be uploaded by Saturday or Sunday
@Eldoria @Zagaroth @greyblob

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Yeah the problem is that I assumed LN like style was a 'Style of writing' not a 'bad style of writing'

I've reading lot of LNs recently and I like reading LNs that's probably why my style had gone like this

I mean does those kind of sentences belong only in action scenes or high stakes scenes?
Or not even suitable for those?

Basically what you have to do in a scene is

(1) A bit of a long paragraph to ground the reader in the location and in the scene

(2) Slow build up, longer sentences and build up

(3) If high stakes action / comedy scene present switched to usual writing style, short sentences etc. Fragmented writing etc.

(4) Follow up with long paragraphs


I'll write Chapter 06 considering your advices and can you just read and react to chapter 06 only, (not about the story but about the prose)

I mean I'm not a writer by profession, I started this as a hobby. These are the only places that I can get actual feedback to improve my writing

So please can you review the prose? Would be a great help

Thank you

Chapter 06 will be uploaded by Saturday or Sunday
@Eldoria @Zagaroth @greyblob

That style is an artifact of the translation more than a style choice as far as I can tell - it is the natural way for Japanese writing to flow, but it doesn't always feel "right" to native English readers.

 

[Tsuru]

Time for Tsuru to pull the sign for the Nth time (ppfft i love spamming it) :

-go read more (best advice for any writer)
to be a good writer, you need to be a good reader, so to get better, go read (just like best indie devs are gamers first, and dev second)

 

[FrenzyWanderer]

Time for Tsuru to pull the sign for the Nth time (ppfft i love spamming it) :

-go read more (best advice for any writer)
to be a good writer, you need to be a good reader, so to get better, go read (just like best indie devs are gamers first, and dev second)

Actually the problem was I was reading a lot of LNs recently and grown used to it

I have read english novels mostly during childhood, but recently, all the novels I have read since then are LNs

Now I kinda feel reading long paragraphs boring.

Now If I go on writing with the flow writing becomes like this

But I still can manage to write long paragraphs but only when writing 'conciously with effort'

I didn't feel much of a problem with LN kind of writing l, may be because I'm not a native english speaker or may be because of the scene already being in my head

 

[FRWriter]

Actually the problem was I was reading a lot of LNs recently and grown used to it

I have read english novels mostly during childhood, but recently, all the novels I have read since then are LNs

Now I kinda feel reading long paragraphs boring.

Now If I go on writing with the flow writing becomes like this

But I still can manage to write long paragraphs but only when writing 'conciously with effort'

I didn't feel much of a problem with LN kind of writing l, may be because I'm not a native english speaker or maybe because of the scene already being in my head

I think the LN style is not the main problem.

You need to work on grammar... badly. Your sentence structure is not only awkward, but outright wrong... at least in some cases. A tool like Grammarly would work wonders.

I also think your language comprehension isn't quite there, as some of your sentences make no sense at all.

Read, read, read, write, write, write. You'll get there. Even though it's uncommon your LN style is not a problem at all. Some people like it and I'd say a majority at least accepts it, if done well.

 

[JessicaDrew]

I had to google what LN was...

As a stylistic choice I don't think it's a problem, if that's the way you want to go. You're the artist. From your excerpt, my mind happily filled in the blanks and I could visualise your scene so...

But I can totally understand there will be people who won't get on with it, and you will not be able to convince or please those people.

 

[MFontana]

As a new Author I struggle a lot with balancing these 2, I have written a novel in SH https://www.scribblehub.com/series/...up-dont-ask-about-my-sisters-opinion-on-this/

But I got 2-3 feedbacks saying too little detail and hard to follow. And my writing style tend to deviate into those japanese LN style, if unintended.

I rarely tend to include long paragraphs, even when using them I use them only to immerse the reader at the beginning and not anywhere else.

Like this one, a quotation from my novel ch03
-----
“What happened?”

World came into my visual field. First thing I noticed is the damaged Caravan. I pinched myself to see whether it was a dream, Apparently it was not. My hands and legs were smaller that it used to be

Wait…

Then bodies—Dead bodies, lying around the caravan. Servants and maids

Gasp!

The imagery forced a step back

“What the hell?”

I looked around,

Trees! Trees! TREES!

I’m in the middle of nowhere

-----

Is this kind of prose viable?

To answer this question honestly, no. It isn't viable, even by light novel standards.
@FRWriter already covered basically everything that I'd be saying on this front, so I'm not going to dive too deep into what's wrong here, and instead I'll just jump straight into the advice and foundational guidance.

Best advice I can offer, is advice I was given when I was just starting out as well. "Make friends with spellcheck/grammar-check."
There's plenty of free options out there, including Google-Docs.

Beyond that, take the time to read some published novels in the genre you're writing in. Not light-novels or web-novels.

Prose is simply the means by which an author paints a picture for their reader, and to do that well there are a number of technical skills that need to be honed, and if I were to give the comparison, your sample there is basically the same as a scribbled series of lines and stick figures on a canvas. There's no meat. No weight, or emotional impact at all.

I get that you're a novice, and it shows. That's fine. We all had to start somewhere. I'm simply trying to help push you in the right direction for some self-reflection, and self-improvement. It's up to you, to take those steps, but before we can really get into the technical stuff, you'd need to build your own foundation, since without that no amount polish will help.

Towards that end, there's three basic foundational aspects for writing prose. Structure, Description, and Style.

By Structure, I mean your sentence and paragraph structure. As an ideal, you want a varied sentence and paragraph structure, otherwise it becomes harder to hold reader attention and interest. Paragraphs should, on average, be between three and five complete sentences. More is pushing things towards walls of text that gradually become harder to follow the longer they go on. Shorter works for sharp staccato beats, but should be used sparingly.

Description, and by extension immersion, is the next foundational structure. Quite frankly, you have none there, and I'm not telling you this to be mean. It's just the truth. As the author, you certainly have a clear picture of what you want to convey to your readers, but with the sample there, the execution of that vision is lost in translation because there is nothing to pull the reader into your vision and let them form that picture in their heads. As a general rule, Description follows Action. So present the descriptions through the character's senses, and their actions. This is the basis of the oft-cited premise of "show, don't tell." It takes practice, and no small amount of effort to hone this skill, to be sure. But once you have, the rest of your writing will come easily and naturally to you.

The third foundational aspect is your authorial style. You need to hone and shape it yourself. It is the means by which you'll convey your narrative, and the only advice I can offer towards this, is know your target audience and reader base, then tailor your style for those readers, and this will be honed through time, and no small amount of effort by reading your own stuff and asking yourself while doing so "Okay, how can I have written this better?" while drawing your own stylistic inspiration from some of your own favorite authors and their styles. Mind you, I'm not saying to mimic them. I'm saying to incorporate what you like into your own, distinct, authorial voice.

Some common stylistic choices tend to be:

• Classical Literary Style / Old-English Style
• Modern-Fantasy Style
• Light Fantasy Style
• Shakespearean Style
• And many more (among all of the different genres)

I'm not going to sit here and advocate for any one style over any other, especially when it comes down to a matter of personal preference, and target audience.
Personally, I use a blend of the Classical and Modern-Fantasy styles for my own works, but this is simply my own choice. If you don't like those styles, don't use them. The point of this foundational step is defining what style you want to use and where your stylistic inspiration comes from.

 

[FrenzyWanderer]

I refuse to level up! (Don’t ask about my sister’s opinion on this)

What would any normal person do after they isekai'ed to another world? Well that shouldn't even be a question. Grind up levels, become strong and conquer the world with overpowered cheat abilities. But Ren isn't that kind of 'Normal' What if he conquers the world without levelling up? without...

www.scribblehub.com

Chapter 06 uploaded, tried my best to write on some descriptions, but the thing was dialogue heavy... so this was all what I could muster, I think it's better than last chapters. Just can anyone point out whether I'm going in the right direction? With descriptions and prose
@Grey @eldor @Zagaroth