Ok then i'm gonna leave this link here
The Necromancer Who Can't Raise The Dead
A little bit something to "improve" your mood,
Adieu~
Synopsis
A bit lengthy until it gets to the point. There are bits and pieces that I like, and those can be significantly trimmed to reach the hook faster.
Like:
Why rely on fate when you can have a price list?
Different tiers. Different classes. Different budgets.
Dislike:
A professional séance scammer. A man who made a living talking to the dead without ever actually summoning them. Now living his second life as a hero, he still couldn’t. A necromancer who couldn’t control the dead, with no summoning skills, and worst of all, he grows at only one quarter the normal rate. A defective product they said. So they did the logical thing.They threw him away.But Theo isn’t the type to despair. He’s the type who survives. Because what no one knows is, he can summon the dead, even though his system only allows him to summon souls from Earth.
This should be trimmed.
From Archimedes
to Nikola Tesla,
Julius Caesar
to George S. Patton,
Leonardo da Vinci
to… Steve Jobs?
Why not just put them into one sentence?
In general, I like the premise. I like underdog stories with MCs who use their brains to solve problems. But I would rather that the hook arrive much faster instead of going through a lengthy section about Theo’s supposed inadequacy. It’s no secret that many readers enjoy instant gratification. You’ve delayed it a bit.
Chapter 1
Then he looked forward. A third truck stood directly in front of him, headlights on, completing the arrangement.
That’s weird. Pretty sure this is something he should see first, before the white, endless, polished?! whatever white and the heaven sign. Sure you can justify it as disorientation, but the rumble of the engine against the ground should be the next giveaway, not the faded sign. Trucks aren’t light, and you would physically feel it before seeing it.
I know what you tried to do—subverting expectations. But for me, having to actively switch my suspension of disbelief, I find this subversion doesn’t land well.
Only when he stopped right in front of Theo did the details become clear.
So you choose this odd moment to name the man Theo, when we could start at the very beginning, since this has been written in 3rd person limited from Theo’s perspective.
“…Nice to meet you.”
A brief pause.
“Do you think we can, uh… start over?”
Who says this?
Naturally, he pivoted to séance scams. Pretending to channel the spirits of loved ones. Emotional, delicate work. Required timing, empathy, and just the right amount of theatrical pause. It was challenging and it was exciting.
I don’t like the constant use of grammatically incorrect fragmented sentences like this one. You could have used a comma instead of a period to instantly solve the problem, so why didn’t you?
Not just himself pretending to be possessed—but others, carefully staged, each performance rehearsed to perfection. The experience became immersive. Convincing. His business exploded, and that was when Master Obsidian Veil was born. All of it—every success, every client, every dollar—everything he built came from one thing he took very seriously: research. Theo believed in preparation. Deep dives. Background checks. Social media stalking. Family history. Old posts. Archived forums. Anything that could be used.There was a reason scammer is the only criminal that can be called scam artist.There’s no burglar artist.
No pickpocket artist.
No blackmail artist.There was a craft to scam, and Theo was proud of that craft.
Wayy too long, and my eyes started to skim here. Then there are more lengthy paragraphs around truck-kun, which I’d say is a bit silly for a scam artist’s mind to wander towards internet slang in his last moment instead of panicking. Perhaps you wanted to show his coping mechanism, but it comes across as trying too hard to inject humor. It did not work for me btw. When humor keeps trying to announce itself as humor, I just want to skim it.
Then the second half I also skimmed. It's pretty much a generic setup for the next part. There is humor there, so it’s not entirely a slog to read. But I’m not sure whether pulling us out of Theo’s immediate perspective to the king is a good idea in the opening chapter, where you should at least hint at:
What makes Theo someone I want to follow?
I still haven’t found a hint of that here yet. He’s not unlikeable, to be fair, but he’s not likeable either. Just, as you described, average. A little more interiority should be injected here, and I don’t mean a full sob story.
You want readers to root for him, but you spend so much time describing scamming mechanics instead of using those mechanics to hint at and deepen the connection between Theo and the readers. The connection isn’t there yet, and there needs to be a hook. It’s not there either.
The synopsis did promise an interesting premise, but so far, the opening does not quite live up to that.
Hii, I wanna try dropping my first story for feedback and my perfectionist self wanna I take everythin into account
