Feedback/Review Request!

[LadyIsak]

A heads up: the serial is in large part gay smut. If you’re turned off by that, that’s not a problem — I just think it’s common courtesy to flag this kind of thing, and the available tags on the site don’t actually apply. BL connotes things I’m not doing with the story, hence I left that tag off.

Anyway. Onto the actual review request: I’ve started (technically rebooted) a fantasy serial this month. It’s broadly within New Weird — think like, China Miéville — and in the same vein as Disco Elysium or Pathologic, i.e. a spec fiction work set in a ~counterfactual modernity; I think it’s not quite modern/urban fantasy, but it’s not an egregiously incorrect label.

Here’s the description/summary!

A love story of a mystery set in an alternate St. Petersburg that drifts across a shattered world just a few years after the fall of their imperial court. We follow Lev/Lyubov Morgenshtern, a Mad former Rabbi and current queen, cruiser, and hot piece of ass, as he meets Anzu Menelikov, the former court medical Necromancer (Koschei, in the parlance) — who definitely did not kill the tsar.
Between them something will blossom as they find cults and cruelty (and worse) rooting itself in Svet-Dmitrin, and work to stop it.

I’m looking for general feedback, plus advice on what tags to use, since I’m rather clueless when it comes to self-promotion and accurate/useful tagging. ^.^

Thank you for your time!

 

[RepresentingWrath]

A heads up: the serial is in large part gay smut.

It's BL. Yeah, even though it's boys love, it also applies to grown men. The term is broad right now, there is no clear definition, so if it's gay, it's probably BL. By not putting the tag, you are shooting yourself in the leg. You antagonize readers who don't read synopsis and only check tags as there is a lot of them. Don't underestimate people's laziness. And also, you exclude yourself from the community that proactively looks for BL stories. Those who sort out stories without BL tag. But I don't read BL, so perhaps someone who actually read it might help you a lot more and will prove me wrong.

 

[KoyukiMegumi]

I’m looking for general feedback, plus advice on what tags to use, since I’m rather clueless when it comes to self-promotion and accurate/useful tagging. ^.^

Thank you for your time!

This is something I can't help you. Sadly, I suck at this. I just realized my story isn't full smut so I shouldn't use it in the terms this site uses them. So, I won't give advice on something I struggle with, though I agree with Sailus. You should put BL tags. And Yaoi/BL Genre. I think SH has them. I am not 100% sure since I don't look for those when I write. But I am sure I saw them.

From a quick look at your story. I can see you make really long sentences. I should suggest you break those up a bit. Also, there are paragraphs that are long in nature. For someone with a laptop/desktop isn't a big deal, but for people on the phone, it is a bit scary looking. The grammar seemed okay? There are words I am not familiar with, so I won't say anything about them.

They may just be a bit too fancy for me.

 

[Zirrboy]

I can only speak for myself and about the few paragraphs I read, but I think heavy/flowery and informal writing is an either or decision.

Now about the actual content. This is mainly due to prior bad experience with it, but the amount of name-dropping is a major turn off for me.
This does get better after the first 6 or so paragraphs, but if not for the sake of feedback, I'd never have read past them.

 

[LadyIsak]

Now about the actual content. This is mainly due to prior bad experience with it, but the amount of name-dropping is a major turn off for me.
This does get better after the first 6 or so paragraphs, but if not for the sake of feedback, I'd never have read past them.

Could you please clarify what you mean by “name-dropping”? I’m not familiar with the term in a crit context, I’ve only heard it used it to mean, “mentioning famous people you know, to impress someone”.

 

[Zirrboy]

Could you please clarify what you mean by “name-dropping”? I’m not familiar with the term in a crit context, I’ve only heard it used it to mean, “mentioning famous people you know, to impress someone”.

Essentially reverse info-dumping. Using terms that the reader isn't necessarily familiar with (Some words you used seem to be at least vaguely similar terms in Polish, but even then I have to guess what they mean here) or have specific meaning in the stories context that remains unexplained, but seem necessary to comprehend the statements.

It’s the month of Iyyar, what the Ladsky call Matrimony, in the year 5780 since the Creation of the World — or at least like, since us yidn started paying attention. I’m sitting in The Desert Peach teplitse1, smoking my fifth cigarette of the night and staring out of the window.


See, like. Ostensibly, it is night-time.


Materially, though? Nu, like— Glazurka, the sun-star of the Vyuta and Osedka plena, has already sunk into the Silver, but owing to the season and some of the, erm, oddities of the latitude, her departure has entirely failed to bless us with darkness. Through a gap in balding velvet drapes, I can see the empty sky glistening beyond the latticed windowpane, pearly and pallid as the belly of some deep-sea fish, one of those behemes what have maws like bear-traps and eyes like light-bulbs. The night never quite falls on Svet-Dmitrin in midsummer. The tsarists do love such pathetic fallacy, but like, feh, I don’t.