For new authors

[LuciferVermillion]

As usual, before we continue, keep in mind that I'm by far the worst writer around here, so take any of my suggestions with distrust.


This comes as inner thoughts of the character. I recommend marking them something like:



The empty space between sentences comes as unneeded, unless you plan to place an image there.

Sorry, but the incoming betrayal was coming far too obviously. The MC had spotted that something was off and still drank the cup. Did he have a death wish? Either you should write the scene for the MC to come off as more oblivious, or you should not make him drink it. I mean:



You're drumming "Betrayer! Betrayer!" to a reader. If I, who never met these characters, could guess that Herman was a traitor, it should be obvious to the MC.


Still think that thoughts should be marked with another style.



Cool way to hint at the superhuman nature of the MC.



Why boot? She's a knight, why conceal a weapon?

No, the part about "nothing wasted" doesn't work, because you already establish her:



She gloated, already wasting potential surprise.


I assume it refers to the fact that he is the original, while the clone is not, but she is not aware of it. Anyway, I don't get why you repeated it twice, or who even thinks it at the moment.


That part is on me, but, IMO, you should've given us some descriptions of how they looked. Now I understand that none of the knights had any armor on, but since they were, well, knights, I assumed that they had heavy plates. Or mails. Or power armor.


Even though I saw it coming (since there was no way for him to be here without the killers' noticing), it was a very cool twist.

Sorry about doing only one chapter; I don't have time for two.

Ahhh, that. My bad, but I was going to write most of them in the synopsis.

Sorry, but the incoming betrayal was coming far too obviously. The MC had spotted that something was off and still drank the cup. Did he have a death wish? Either you should write the scene for the MC to come off as more oblivious, or you should not make him drink it. I mean:

For that, let's say you woke up at 3am in the morning trying to rush into your friend's place who's in a critical state. I mean, all you had in your brain is to worry about your friend. Who would've thought that your enemy, six of them, masked as your allied, came to you and fed you poison 3am in the morning.

Still think that thoughts should be marked with another style.

Italic?

Why boot? She's a knight, why conceal a weapon?

That part is on me, but, IMO, you should've given us some descriptions of how they looked. Now I understand that none of the knights had any armor on, but since they were, well, knights, I assumed that they had heavy plates. Or mails. Or power armor.

Knights are just a term. In an era where we had planes, we aren't wearing armours anymore. Plus, they aren't knights. They are spies, but I wondered if you read that, perhaps I should make it more obvious.

I assume it refers to the fact that he is the original, while the clone is not, but she is not aware of it. Anyway, I don't get why you repeated it twice, or who even thinks it at the moment.

Okay, this line confuses even me. I did not know there's a clone in this. So the first time the girl mentioned is something like an address of that person. While the second time means that man recalled that specific line. Nevermind, I will add an italic.

Even though I saw it coming (since there was no way for him to be here without the killers' noticing), it was a very cool twist.

Glad to know that I nailed it.

 

[Rookieqw]

I did not know there's a clone in this.

Just to be clear, that was my bad. I read the first Cione as a Clone. Sorry.

Italic?

Honestly, no idea. I use Italic. But other authors have their own styles.

 

[DarkCosmos]

Thanks so much for the offer! Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Worthy39]

Thanks so much for the offer! Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Might help if you at least include a link... we can't review it if we can't see it.

 

[DarkCosmos]

My apologies! And thanks for letting me know.

Here is the link:

Truth Beyond the Veil

P.S. Can anyone see my signature on this post?

 

[AnEmberOfSundown]

I'd actually really appreciate some feedback on a short story I posted on the forum. It's only about 2.6K words in length, but wow...getting any interaction sometimes feels like running on ice.

Here's a quick blurb to see if you're interested: Legends say she appears across cultures: the veiled guide, the ash queen, the immortal mourner. To Professor Beric Raghthul, these are only archetypes—until a student’s question, and a stranger’s smile, force him to reconsider. Is he about to uncover the most tragic life in history…or become part of her myth himself?

If you're up for a quick read, please head on over:
The Monarch Hypothesis

 

[Worthy39]

I'd actually really appreciate some feedback on a short story I posted on the forum. It's only about 2.6K words in length, but wow...getting any interaction sometimes feels like running on ice.

Here's a quick blurb to see if you're interested: Legends say she appears across cultures: the veiled guide, the ash queen, the immortal mourner. To Professor Beric Raghthul, these are only archetypes—until a student’s question, and a stranger’s smile, force him to reconsider. Is he about to uncover the most tragic life in history…or become part of her myth himself?

If you're up for a quick read, please head on over:
The Monarch Hypothesis

After finishing the entire thing, I can say the story improves as you read further into it. Some subtle foreshadowing with the auditor might make it hit harder, I had the idea of who she really was from the start, but if you had added a hint of foreshadowing to her, like her face being obscured, that may have helped the reveal feel more meaningful.

Honestly, this may sound a bit mean, but I was bored reading through the part where he lore dumped the monarch theory and explained who all these different people were. If you added just a few more character interactions between it all, that would keep it more engaging.

Your concept was definitely fun, and I'd say I enjoyed more of it than I didn't, but overall, to keep readers invested to get through the earlier parts, a little more of a personal touch might help make it more bearable.

 

[AnEmberOfSundown]

After finishing the entire thing, I can say the story improves as you read further into it. Some subtle foreshadowing with the auditor might make it hit harder, I had the idea of who she really was from the start, but if you had added a hint of foreshadowing to her, like her face being obscured, that may have helped the reveal feel more meaningful.

Honestly, this may sound a bit mean, but I was bored reading through the part where he lore dumped the monarch theory and explained who all these different people were. If you added just a few more character interactions between it all, that would keep it more engaging.

Your concept was definitely fun, and I'd say I enjoyed more of it than I didn't, but overall, to keep readers invested to get through the earlier parts, a little more of a personal touch might help make it more bearable.

It wasn't mean, it was honest. You said "I was bored" not "It was boring". It might seem like splitting hairs, but to me there's a difference. I get the sense you've been burned by the terminally-online for similar feedback though, so it makes sense why you'd feel the need to qualify it.

The truth is I was trying to go for the slightly-boring college professor idiom I knew from personal experience...probably leaned a little too hard into that. Easily correctable though. The foreshadowing bit I was torn on. You're right, it's fairly obvious who she is but I was trying to preserve just a little bit of ambiguity. Like, you're 99% sure about who she is but maybe, just maaaaaybe there's another explanation. IDK, tough to calibrate but I'll play with it.

Thanks for the feedback!

 

[Cookiez_N_Potionz]

My first LitRPG Webnovel

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

 

[ArborealWood]

I'm pretty new to writing, and I wanted to make a thread for new authors to come and share their work with other new authors so we can all try to improve and help each other gain more popularity!

If you have a story and want some feedback, just post it on here, and (assuming this thread gains any traction at all) someone will read it!

I kinda wanna write too ? but I'm so bad at it like how do ya all do it even the one that refer to themselves as newbie seems professional to me best I could do is gabberish rant in a novel (so many ideas too)...any advice?

 

[Worthy39]

I kinda wanna write too ? but I'm so bad at it like how do ya all do it even the one that refer to themselves as newbie seems professional to me best I could do is gabberish rant in a novel (so many ideas too)...any advice?

Well, a few options. One of them is to write, and let an AI polish it up. I started out like that. I don't recommend letting it write, but having it polish what you write is reasonable since you're new to this. Another is to just write a lot, and eventually you're writing skills will improve as you do it, even if you're not posting it. Write, read, edit, repeat. Or you could take a class if you really want to.

 

[nainaabraham]

I'm pretty new to writing, and I wanted to make a thread for new authors to come and share their work with other new authors so we can all try to improve and help each other gain more popularity!

If you have a story and want some feedback, just post it on here, and (assuming this thread gains any traction at all) someone will read it!

Great idea for a thread! It’s always nice to have a space where new writers can share and get feedback. I’ll definitely check out some stories here and maybe share a bit of my own too.

 

[Tacit]

I kinda wanna write too ? but I'm so bad at it like how do ya all do it even the one that refer to themselves as newbie seems professional to me best I could do is gabberish rant in a novel (so many ideas too)...any advice?

Paste your writing into ChatGPT, Grok, or Gemini and tell it your intentions for the story and ask it to teach you how to become better based on your current writing abilities. People like to harp on AI but it's an incredible educational tool if you're serious about improving at something from 0.

 

[paul_ryenold]

Dear reader, we're looking for feedback on 'Revenge's Requiem: The Isekai Journey'. As the author's assistant, I'd appreciate it if you could share your honest review of the book.

 

[Worthy39]

I did not say that, nice try.

 

[Countess_of_Chaos]

Hi everybody. I really like to come up with a plot, and then see how far my imagination goes to develop an existing fragment or where something needs to be fixed. This time I decided to try to post my experiment and see where it goes here. My story is called Legacy of the Forge: A Promethean Gambit, and it's a story about betrayal, traveling through a dark past, hoping for a brighter future, and finally returning and collecting debts from numerous enemies. In the meantime, I wish all those who are at least a little hooked, a pleasant read. Constructive criticism is welcome.

 

[Wednesdayschild]

I'll try my luck. This is my story of which I have posted three chapters to get started:

Julie

An eight-year-old girl claims to have lived before, attracting attention, and her therapist is convinced that she truly believes it happened. His work with her and her mother leads to a series of dramatic events that change their lives forever.

www.scribblehub.com

 

[ArborealWood]

Paste your writing into ChatGPT, Grok, or Gemini and tell it your intentions for the story and ask it to teach you how to become better based on your current writing abilities. People like to harp on AI but it's an incredible educational tool if you're serious about improving at something from 0.

That's fair enough I guess it wouldn't be wrong for me to ask ai to polish up my rough draft before posting it then? Because yeah it's just tons of info dumps at time or bad grammar basically unreadable.

 

[DireBadger]

That's fair enough I guess it wouldn't be wrong for me to ask ai to polish up my rough draft before posting it then? Because yeah it's just tons of info dumps at time or bad grammar basically unreadable.

writing tip: after you know how to do it yourself is the best time to ask an AI for polish. When you don't know what you are doing, you won't understand the changes it is making, which will lead to AI (which are incredibly stupid) making absolutely ridiculous changes which you could otherwise catch.

The first rule of AI: It's retarded, and I mean that literally, not as an insult. It does not understand what you have written, it just averages everything out based on common tropes. Asking it to help improve your writing is expecting a chainsaw to help you whittle a necklace. DO NOT EVER TRUST IT until you know you can do better without it.

It can save you time and effort, but it CANNOT improve your writing or do the 'hard part for you'.

 

[ArborealWood]

writing tip: after you know how to do it yourself is the best time to ask an AI for polish. When you don't know what you are doing, you won't understand the changes it is making, which will lead to AI (which are incredibly stupid) making absolutely ridiculous changes which you could otherwise catch.

The first rule of AI: It's retarded, and I mean that literally, not as an insult. It does not understand what you have written, it just averages everything out based on common tropes. Asking it to help improve your writing is expecting a chainsaw to help you whittle a necklace. DO NOT EVER TRUST IT until you know you can do better without it.

It can save you time and effort, but it CANNOT improve your writing or do the 'hard part for you'.

Then how do you think I should go with it? I can't really post a rough draft cause honestly it's horrendous.