Give me your opinion

[Vanny]

I've written this story on and off for months now, and I'd like know what a reader thinks of it. It hasn't gotten to the fight, as of yet, so you'll mostly be judging the writting and plot.

Word Wise - Chapter 1- Boarding | Scribble Hub

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[RepresentingCaution]

The readers here are mostly silent. I recommend writing.com for getting feedback <3

 

[Kaguro]

I think the story needs to be more descriptive.

It isn't clear what is going on in the story, so I think there needs to be more on who the characters are, what they look like, what they are doing in each scene, and overall setting descriptions.

Every time a scene changes, it would be good to include a fully developed description of what this new location is like, and what the characters are doing there.

 

[Ral]

Synopsis
A war is brewing. These young men, and women, will come of age, and will be forced to make decision that in turn will create their characters. Follow their journey as they leave their names in Lione's history books.

You can never make a story synopsis/description more generic than this. If you want to tell your readers that your story would be the most generic, boring and forgettable thing ever, sure, but if you want to make your reader be interested about your story then you put something here that would draw them in.

In the first place this isn't a synopsis at all. A synopsis is a summary of your story, usually two pages for a regular traditionally published novel.

Okay, first chapter:

The forklift brought another car down the ramp, parking it beside the four it had brought down earlier. Pilots of groceries were being collected that were from the capital, where they were much cheaper. There was a ship, blue, white and elongated, besides it, releasing passengers; a mixture of foreigners and returning citizens.

Why is this here? I have read the dialogue that follows this and this has nothing to do with whatever was happening or what the character are talking about. Seriously, I actually feel the whiplash when I read the next paragraph.

On the other hand, in what follows, there is no description at all. I can't tell where they are. I can't tell what the characters looks like or at what age they might be. It is like, there are only voices in ether.

The burger was done in seconds. He sucked on the slushy, and said.

"Go."

Did the boy just swallow the burger whole? The boy is speed eating champ or something? I mean, who can actually eat a whole burger in just seconds?

And why is the quote on a different line? The quote is part of the last sentence in the previous line. It is not an independent clause.

And the dialogue is just contrived. Like, you wrote it to be "mysterious" and gives as little hints as possible. It makes the character sounded unnatural and scripted. Like take this for example:

He went quiet because she had sat back and her breaths were a little bit quicker. He said. "Mom", before it got any worse.


She sighed. Cars were driving by, their lights were on, it was getting darker outside.


"Ah, I hate when that happens!"


"Yeah, me too."


"Lookout for Charlene. I'm not saying to jump off a cliff if she falls."


He scratched his head.


"I swear, you don't know how to be funny."


"It wasn't a joke. That's gonna happen. Definitely."


"Definitely?"


"Maybe not a guaranteed, but surely."

No talks remotely like that.

Not helping is the lack of description or anything to provide context or additional information. The dialogue is almost non-sensical as a result.

This might be the most uninteresting first chapter I come across.

Second chapter:

Off to the left of the port near the water, ...

I don't think there are ports that are far from the waters unless it was some ancient thing in a place where the water have dried up.

Off to the left of the port near the water, there was a shed. A large crowd of teenagers were beneath it making a ruckus. Froyd grinned but kept quiet. He hefted a load despite his silent approach.


Oddly, he was noticed by the guy wearing earbuds. Froyd could hear its volume from a couple of feet away, so they were definitely on. The bench John sat on was taken up by him and his luggage. Reaching out, he gave a fist bump to Froyd and then continued nodding to his music. He had this focused look.

The narration here is so awkward. Take the first paragraph for example. It starts with the port and the shed, then it suddenly focused on Froyd grinning for no reason. The shift in topic just comes out of nowhere.

The same with the second paragraph. There was a sudden switch in the POV. It started out like we are in Froyd's POV. Then we suddenly switch to John's POV. It really confuses me when that happened.

The flow or the narration is just horrible. It jerks allover the place.

And, okay, two chapters in and nothing is happening, the character are bland and the setting is barely fleshed out. It practically just characters talking about something we have no idea what and mostly just sitting there. There is just nothing at all that makes me want to continue reading this.

Third chapter. Nothing happens either. Boring.

Fourth chapter. Nothing happens and info-dumping. Boring.

I gave up. I'm sorry. This is just so dull and boring. Nothing happens. The pacing is glacial. We know nothing about the character or the setting or the conflict. The narration is clumsy and the writing is devoid of substance. No substantial description. The dialogue is so opaque and ambiguous. I just can't find anything to be interested about anywhere.

 

[Vanny]

I think the story needs to be more descriptive.

It isn't clear what is going on in the story, so I think there needs to be more on who the characters are, what they look like, what they are doing in each scene, and overall setting descriptions.

Every time a scene changes, it would be good to include a fully developed description of what this new location is like, and what the characters are doing there.

Thanks. But could you tell me the chapter that ypu noticed the problem of the setting descroption? I thpight the scenery was done well enoungh. I'll go back and add the character descriptions, for the readers who prefer them.

 

[Vanny]

You can never make a story synopsis/description more generic than this. If you want to tell your readers that your story would be the most generic, boring and forgettable thing ever, sure, but if you want to make your reader be interested about your story then you put something here that would draw them in.

In the first place this isn't a synopsis at all. A synopsis is a summary of your story, usually two pages for a regular traditionally published novel.

Okay, first chapter:

Why is this here? I have read the dialogue that follows this and this has nothing to do with whatever was happening or what the character are talking about. Seriously, I actually feel the whiplash when I read the next paragraph.

On the other hand, in what follows, there is no description at all. I can't tell where they are. I can't tell what the characters looks like or at what age they might be. It is like, there are only voices in ether.

Did the boy just swallow the burger whole? The boy is speed eating champ or something? I mean, who can actually eat a whole burger in just seconds?

And why is the quote on a different line? The quote is part of the last sentence in the previous line. It is not an independent clause.

And the dialogue is just contrived. Like, you wrote it to be "mysterious" and gives as little hints as possible. It makes the character sounded unnatural and scripted. Like take this for example:

No talks remotely like that.

Not helping is the lack of description or anything to provide context or additional information. The dialogue is almost non-sensical as a result.

This might be the most uninteresting first chapter I come across.

Second chapter:

I don't think there are ports that are far from the waters unless it was some ancient thing in a place where the water have dried up.


The narration here is so awkward. Take the first paragraph for example. It starts with the port and the shed, then it suddenly focused on Froyd grinning for no reason. The shift in topic just comes out of nowhere.

The same with the second paragraph. There was a sudden switch in the POV. It started out like we are in Froyd's POV. Then we suddenly switch to John's POV. It really confuses me when that happened.

The flow or the narration is just horrible. It jerks allover the place.

And, okay, two chapters in and nothing is happening, the character are bland and the setting is barely fleshed out. It practically just characters talking about something we have no idea what and mostly just sitting there. There is just nothing at all that makes me want to continue reading this.

Third chapter. Nothing happens either. Boring.

Fourth chapter. Nothing happens and info-dumping. Boring.

I gave up. I'm sorry. This is just so dull and boring. Nothing happens. The pacing is glacial. We know nothing about the character or the setting or the conflict. The narration is clumsy and the writing is devoid of substance. No substantial description. The dialogue is so opaque and ambiguous. I just can't find anything to be interested about anywhere.

On the topic of the vague descriptions early on, none of those places will be revisited. The people were more important to introduce, and where those people were going. I'll go back and add the character descriptions, for the more visual reader, they would've been given later.

I'll tone down the narrative flexiblity. Most of these mistake stem from the process of writing being a grind, and this being the slowest novel I've ever written.

Your critism was valuable.

 

[Kaguro]

Thanks. But could you tell me the chapter that ypu noticed the problem of the setting descroption? I thpight the scenery was done well enoungh. I'll go back and add the character descriptions, for the readers who prefer them.

I mean it in a pretty general sense, but the issue exists in all of the chapters that I looked at. For simplicity's sake I'll just use chapter 1 as an example.

For the entire story we are missing the 'who', 'what', and 'where' of everything.

1. Who. We don't know who the characters are.

In the first chapter, and really every chapter, we have two characters talking. Who are they? We don't know their names, we don't know what they look like, we don't know anything about them other than very basic dialogue. That's a fundamental issue to the reader.

2. What. We don't know what anybody is actually doing in any scene. What are the characters doing in chapter 1, all they do is talk. So what are they actually doing? Are they out for a walk talking to each other? Are they sitting down eating dinner? That kind of thing.

I should say for the very first scene we know they are eating, but aside from that we don't really know much.

3. Where. Where is the story taking place.

Are they outside? Are they inside? Are they in a coffee shop?

This is the most fundamental question, and something that never happens throughout the story, is telling us 'where' the story is taking place. Every time the scene changes it runs into this problem again, the location is assumed to have changed, but we only learn about that through dialogue. We're never told where the new scene is, or where the old scene was. This is the information that all readers are going to need in order to understand what is going on.

 

[Vanny]

I mean it in a pretty general sense, but the issue exists in all of the chapters that I looked at. For simplicity's sake I'll just use chapter 1 as an example.

For the entire story we are missing the 'who', 'what', and 'where' of everything.

1. Who. We don't know who the characters are.

In the first chapter, and really every chapter, we have two characters talking. Who are they? We don't know their names, we don't know what they look like, we don't know anything about them other than very basic dialogue. That's a fundamental issue to the reader.

2. What. We don't know what anybody is actually doing in any scene. What are the characters doing in chapter 1, all they do is talk. So what are they actually doing? Are they out for a walk talking to each other? Are they sitting down eating dinner? That kind of thing.

I should say for the very first scene we know they are eating, but aside from that we don't really know much.

3. Where. Where is the story taking place.

Are they outside? Are they inside? Are they in a coffee shop?

This is the most fundamental question, and something that never happens throughout the story, is telling us 'where' the story is taking place. Every time the scene changes it runs into this problem again, the location is assumed to have changed, but we only learn about that through dialogue. We're never told where the new scene is, or where the old scene was. This is the information that all readers are going to need in order to understand what is going on.

The firdt scene takes place in his mother's car. I explained it by him getting his luggage from the trunk and the tail light fading at the end. Admittedly, I should've just said where the scenes where taking place. I'll go back and adjust it.

As for the what. They are journeying to stalking island to take a trial for access to more powerful spells and spell nodes. I explained it over the journey. So, what I need right now, is to polish up the writing and make it more immersive I guess.

For the 'who', I'll go back and introduce the character more traditionally, with something like a flash back. As I've mentioned, I've never written slowpaced, so some of my habbits, from either writting faster, or shorter stories, are hindering me.

I'll make some adjustment. Thanks for the help.

 

[Ral]

On the topic of the vague descriptions early on, none of those places will be revisited. The people were more important to introduce, and where those people were going. I'll go back and add the character descriptions, for the more visual reader, they would've been given later.

Just because the people are more important to introduce doesn't mean that you don't do a thing for the setting. Even small thing like this where the setting is temporary you to convey the setting to ground the events and the characters. You can't have events and characters happening in literal nothing.

And I have read five chapters and there is no character description for the main at all. The most I know is that he is a young boy with black hair. Almost every story provides description about their main character in the first chapters because how important it is.

I'll tone down the narrative flexiblity. Most of these mistake stem from the process of writing being a grind, and this being the slowest novel I've ever written.

You didn't like reread them and edit them? Those chapters are months and weeks old. You have the time. Not to mention, the chapters are really short, it should not take that much time to edit them.

And yeah it is slow but its main fault is that it provides and establishes nothing at all. The first chapters are supposed to be The Introduction, The Beginning, The First Act, the whatever; of the Story Structure. It is the part that introduces and establishes things. The characters, the stakes, the conflict, the setting, the magic system, the setup; all the important things in your story. You can be slow but you still have to do the work of introducing and establishing things.

These first chapters, however, do nothing at all. What it exactly do they introduce and establish? They tell you practically nothing substantial about the characters. Not their appearance, age, personality, motivation, etc.. It doesn't provide much of anything for the setting. It seems like the normal world but there are some added stuff like magic and these made-up religion and these test, but there is no explanation whatsoever. The conflict? I have no idea at all what the conflict is. At most it is just a bunch of kids taking a test. In short, there is practically no conflict or the conflict is so shallow to be engaging.

As for the what. They are journeying to stalking island to take a trial for access to more powerful spells and spell nodes. I explained it over the journey. So, what I need right now, is to polish up the writing and make it more immersive I guess.

No. You can't make it immersive if you don't provide anything substantial. To make it immersive you have to establish things. Who are these people? Why are they doing this? What are these spells and nodes? Why do they need those?

I mean, why should we care about these people who we know nothing about? They are strangers and fictional to boot. Why should we care about getting these spells when we don't even know what they do? We aren't given a reason why they want them. Why worry if there seems to be no repercussion if they fail (no stakes)? It is not like the world would will end or whatever. How can we be engaged and be immersed in virtually nothing?

For the 'who', I'll go back and introduce the character more traditionally, with something like a flash back. As I've mentioned, I've never written slowpaced, so some of my habbits, from either writting faster, or shorter stories, are hindering me.

The traditional ways are actually very straight forward. The Lord of the Rings for example, which should be very similar to yours considering that it is a kinda slow paced story, the first two paragraphs are:

When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.

Bilbo was very rich and very peculiar, and had been the wonder of the Shire for sixty years, ever since his remarkable disappearance and unexpected return. The riches he had brought back from his travels had now become a local legend, and it was popularly believed, whatever the old folk might say, that the Hill at Bag End was full of tunnels stuffed with treasure. And if that was not enough for fame, there was also his prolonged vigour to marvel at. Time wore on, but it seemed to have little effect on Mr. Baggins. At ninety he was much the same as at fifty. At ninety-nine they began to call him well-preserved, but unchanged would have been nearer the mark. There were some that shook their heads and thought this was too much of a good thing; it seemed unfair that anyone should possess (apparently) perpetual youth as well as (reputedly) inexhaustible wealth.

Almost instantly we are introduced to an important character and he was quickly fleshed out.

That is the traditional way.

Your plan is actually more avante garde and breaks away from the tradition and deliberately break the rules. To bad the result isn't satisfactory.

 

[Vanny]

Just because the people are more important to introduce doesn't mean that you don't do a thing for the setting. Even small thing like this where the setting is temporary you to convey the setting to ground the events and the characters. You can't have events and characters happening in literal nothing.

And I have read five chapters and there is no character description for the main at all. The most I know is that he is a young boy with black hair. Almost every story provides description about their main character in the first chapters because how important it is.

You didn't like reread them and edit them? Those chapters are months and weeks old. You have the time. Not to mention, the chapters are really short, it should not take that much time to edit them.

And yeah it is slow but its main fault is that it provides and establishes nothing at all. The first chapters are supposed to be The Introduction, The Beginning, The First Act, the whatever; of the Story Structure. It is the part that introduces and establishes things. The characters, the stakes, the conflict, the setting, the magic system, the setup; all the important things in your story. You can be slow but you still have to do the work of introducing and establishing things.

These first chapters, however, do nothing at all. What it exactly do they introduce and establish? They tell you practically nothing substantial about the characters. Not their appearance, age, personality, motivation, etc.. It doesn't provide much of anything for the setting. It seems like the normal world but there are some added stuff like magic and these made-up religion and these test, but there is no explanation whatsoever. The conflict? I have no idea at all what the conflict is. At most it is just a bunch of kids taking a test. In short, there is practically no conflict or the conflict is so shallow to be engaging.

No. You can't make it immersive if you don't provide anything substantial. To make it immersive you have to establish things. Who are these people? Why are they doing this? What are these spells and nodes? Why do they need those?

I mean, why should we care about these people who we know nothing about? They are strangers and fictional to boot. Why should we care about getting these spells when we don't even know what they do? We aren't given a reason why they want them. Why worry if there seems to be no repercussion if they fail (no stakes)? It is not like the world would will end or whatever. How can we be engaged and be immersed in virtually nothing?

The traditional ways are actually very straight forward. The Lord of the Rings for example, which should be very similar to yours considering that it is a kinda slow paced story, the first two paragraphs are:

Almost instantly we are introduced to an important character and he was quickly fleshed out.

That is the traditional way.

Your plan is actually more avante garde and breaks away from the tradition and deliberately break the rules. To bad the result isn't satisfactory.

I was experimenting with a new style months ago. I usually don't write like that so editing it was very difficult. And, in the end, I've rewritten, or taken out chapters, to move forward in a more recognizeable fashion to myself. Compounded onto the fact is, I've written all of it on my phone.

As for descriptions, well I didn't really know that readers cared so much for visual representation. And in my own experience, it doesn't hold weight with me. I don't remember how Rand, from wheel of time, looks, but I remember what he did.

I think I touched on the subject earlier, but I'm used tight, experimental, story telling. You know, since there's so much concern for character description, and clarification, I might as rewritte the first four chapters, then.

Thanks for your feedback.

 

[Ral]

I was experimenting with a new style months ago. I usually don't write like that so editing it was very difficult. And, in the end, I've rewritten, or taken out chapters, to move forward in a more recognizeable fashion to myself. Compounded onto the fact is, I've written all of it on my phone.

Ouch. That is going to make this very difficult for you.

As for descriptions, well I didn't really know that readers cared so much for visual representation. And in my own experience, it doesn't hold weight with me. I don't remember how Rand, from wheel of time, looks, but I remember what he did.

You don't need to be very descriptive especially if the setting isn't very important like in the first chapter. A single sentence here and there are all you need.

Also, descriptions doesn't mean just visual but the senses like touch, smell and sound. Like what the burger taste like? Are the seats of the car comfortable? The aircon makes the car interior cool? Little details like that mixed here and there ground the story, that, yes, they exist in this place. They are not floating in the emptiness.

The important thing, especially in that chapter, is to ground the events and the characters. You have to do at least the minimum to root the events and characters in place.