Need feedback, also looking for review swap

[Silentmass_Louigoas]

Spoiler: Cover Art

Hello everyone, like the title indicates, I am looking for feedback on my story, as well as people who are interested in doing a review swap with me.

"Of Ink and Hope" is a queer romance set in a Xianxia setting, the main elements of the story are psychological, romance, and fantasy with a dash of adventure and a little pinch of action ( of which the quantity will increase next "book"); it is also a mix between European Fantasy and Chinese Xianxia, not as opposing or adversarial, but part of the same wider reality.

The story follows two main characters meeting each other after going through what most would be their lowest moment if not outright rock-bottom. And through their meeting, grasping on the opportunity presented to live, heal, and overcome the hand that they were dealt; maybe find genuine friendship, and perhaps love along the way too?

The first book is nearly complete, lacking only two chapters as of writing this thread. This is one of the reasons that is making me create this thread: I need to know how it holds up, especially after the beginning chapters ( 6+). This is my first story, and I really want to learn how to get better at writing so I can keep on making it better.

Of ink and Hope

Life is never kind, nor is it cruel. Uncaring and cold? Sure, but life goes on, it always does, with or without you. Between being caught in a political coup in the Blood Demon cult and being subjected to a holy purge started to avenge the crime of another. Lu...

www.scribblehub.com

Thank you for your attention in reading this thread. Do give it a read, let me know what you think of it. I am looking forward to any suggestion, advice and feedback you may have.

Until then, have an excellent rest of your day!

 

[HouseDelarouxScribbles]

I think this might find success as a shojo slice of life, but is definitively not in the Xianxia genre!

I looked through this story to look for inspiration on how to merge two foreign concepts together; I think the question I keep asking myself is: how is this novel supposed to make me feel? I went in with the expectation of reading a shounen-esque setting, but I did not really feel much of a pressure from the fight. I think a really big part of it is the 'spiderman-talk'.

The fight is Marvel-esque in its quips and feels very foreign to me if I read it from a xianxia angle. Its a classic problem in writing xianxia; the system becomes prop and window dressing and you can replace 'ki' with 'energy' and the story would read the same. A really jarring thing is that the latter part of chapter 1 has the main character still very quippy even after a near-death fight, which takes me out of the story. I'm not sure if that works regardless of genre.

My more immediate question is: What's the unique part of this world? Take out the aperture and ki references and you are left with a very generic fantasy setting that still sort of works. This is a mistake that I think dogs my own attempts at writing this genre even, and I should put some thought into that as well.

Chapter 2's slice-of-life is oddly written better than the first chapter, which is supposed to set the tone! There is strength in the detail and I like how the concept of western magic is subtly weaved into it rather than the blunt way it was written into the first chapter. The tension also builds up better here, moving from an idyllic scene to foreboding danger, to a sense of mysticism. The exposition on the danger was a weak link, since I felt the elongated speech really did not mesh with the urgency that author is trying to portray in the chapter, it did made me feel, so I think it balances out!

I didn't really read further since my guess is that its going to be leaning slice of life after the two meet after this. I get the feeling that writing combat and danger might be a weak point of the author in the upcoming chapters; so my thinking is that there needs to be stakes more than death. It may sound weird since death means the end of everything, my feeling as a reader is that for a xianxia setting the fights are surprisingly doughy in a 'Avatar the Last Airbender' kind of way.

The fight in chapter 1 is a fight between personal belief and those who would keep MC from them; it was difficult to get into it because the stakes were disconnected from the fight. Sure MC is on the downwind, but I felt very little danger, not even in the arrogant young master kind of way. Perhaps that is the point, the enemies are jobbers, and that's fair. But I didn't feel the 'anger at betrayal', or 'consequences for betrayal', it was like the unorthodox sect didn't take it seriously at all. Perhaps a better way would be to make the pursuers a bigger deal or weave the betrayal into the combat, because it really contradicts how MC opens the chapter injured, but still does the quippy routine and takes them out like the injury never existed. The entire psychology of the fight really throws me off, even if I was expecting the jobbers to lose in the end.

In the end, its about combat and stakes making sense; if MC is injured to begin with, why are those guys taken out so easily? Was the injury just for me to sympathize? That doesn't quite work because the jobbers don't take advantage of it to begin with! If the jobbers are weak, that's okay, they're jobbers! Let the MC do their thing, but get backstabbed! That's where they get injured and you build sympathy! You could even build it into the hubris of the MC's quippy nature! The finish to the first fight really made me raise an eyebrow because I am now cheering for the guy who took the risk against a clearly stronger, though injured opponent, to deal a fatal blow to them! That is 'xia'! That is the unorthodox way!

This is my personal feeling because fights are really important in xianxia as they represent more than the actual fight themselves, they usually represent a clash of ideals as well. Chapter 1 especially made me feel really weird in a way I couldn't describe until I typed this out. It feels like xianxia, it sounds like xianxia, but I cannot in good faith say it is!

 

[Silentmass_Louigoas]

I see your points, and I agree that: stakes, danger, and combat are weaknesses of mine.

I realize that I did make Lu Huan a bit more quippy than I initially wanted; thank you for pointing it out. But I also see that I failed to accurately portray that Lu Huan's strength relies on the trigram she has on her soul, making her able to fight like a berserker ( something I developed later on, but didn't really succeed in framing on the first chapter), feeding her KI that it harvest from her own wounds and pain. Perhaps I should have brought that line sooner in the chapter than at the end.

I also see your point in how this is not much of a xianxia way of storytelling, which I agree with you that it is not, nor it is really intended. Because only the setting is xianxia, not the story. If there is a tag for that, then I didn't find it when I was making my story's "front page".

I intended this to be more of a seinen type of story than a shounen one, which is why the action genre tag isn't present, while the psychological, drama, and mature genre tags are instead.

Some of the things you've brought up: such as the lack of "anger at betrayal" and "consequences of betrayal" are explored later on as to why, which becomes a source of friction between the two main characters.

As to your last point about Lu Huan's injuries being there only to garner sympathy, that was not the point: the point was to showcase Lu Huan's strength and endurance, that fighting at death's door is her bread and butter ( once again, as a berserker). Which is also a point I didn't fully manage to demonstrate.

Thank you for the time you've spent reading, thinking, and writing this feedback for my story. It means a lot.

 

[HarperMcFarlane]

Hey! It took me a few days to get to typing this but I hope you don’t mind that. Since you said you were willing to review swap I made a mental note to at least read the first three chapters since that’s all I am truly asking of folks for my own stuff since it sets up the plot.

That being said I am interested in reading your work beyond that after this cursory glance. I’ll admit I don’t know much about the ‘Xanxia’ genre so I can’t give much feedback regarding parallels to other works. But a previous reviewer mentioned ‘shoujo’ which I am much more familiar with and a fan of, and there’s something about the dynamics between the two girls that made me think of Nana. And I think the initial interactions between them felt intelligent and pretty natural enough to catch my interest to read further! (And boy I’m a sucker for hurt/comfort so the third chapter was right up my alley.)

The concept of ink and paint being used for magic is really interesting and I’m curious to see more of it as I read on in my own time. I was able to follow the fight in the first chapter pretty well, though with it being the first chapter I had to read it twice to make sure I understood the stakes and what/who was at play.

The use of ‘<‘ instead of usual quotation marks did kind of throw me off for a while. I don’t know if this is a personal choice or a Xanxia thing, but it’s something I could easily get used to.

I feel like I had more praise than criticism to give but after reading half a dozen stories on here with bad grammar or clear signs of being AI generated/poorly translated this was a sight for somewhat sore eyes. I enjoyed it enough that I’d love to keep going and if I have any further feedback I’ll just comment on the work!

If you’re still up for a review swap here’s my story Through The Dark. It’s a fantasy adventure involving dryads with queer romantic subplots as well, one gay best friends to lovers and lesbian enemies to lovers. I currently only have five chapters out and am only asking if folks would give the first three a look at the very least since it sets up the main conflict.

 

[Silentmass_Louigoas]

Hello, sure. Sorry, it seems that I didn't properly set my pref setting on the forum side of SH: didn't see I had a notification.

Yes, I am interested in doing a review swap with you.

For the < >, it's a me (mario) thing. I've found myself, around chapter twenty-something, needing quotes, thoughts, and speech syntaxes. So I re-edited my whole work then.

Just a word in advance, I have finished my first volume. And will be looking into rewriting some of my first chapters. Using the points brought up by HouseDelarouxScribbles. Trying to better set expectations while also properly setting the conflicts and dangers.

I just want to bring up the shoujo and shonen point back: please, keep in mind that it wasn't intended as either style/genre. Nor was it written with that type of framing in mind.

I will read your story around Wednesday and do your review then if that works with you.

 

[Pumah]

Ill do a review swap, let me know if you're still interested in getting feedback!

 

[Silentmass_Louigoas]

Sure, It will not be until Thursday though, If that works with you, of course.

 

[Silentmass_Louigoas]

@HarperMcFarlane Your review is up. It was a good read.

 

[Pumah]

Here's my review:

I don’t have a lot of time on my hands right now, but I managed to read the first 2 chapters. For the most part I actually found it a pretty decent read. The concept as a whole is unique and and sets itself up for an interesting series. There were a couple of grammar mistakes but it was largely nothing major that really took me out of the book personally.

I don’t know if the is worth mentioning. But I actually think that the ch 0:glossary was a good idea; specifically the syntax and punctuation bit. It helps with the understanding going into the chapters.

In chapter 1, I actually liked the action and found it serviceable. I feel like I understand the scene and felt the pathos shining through for the character and the scumbags trying to kill her. However I could not help but ask myself ‘how is she still alive?’ She has multiple injuries by the end of it and is somehow able to not only acutely understand how battered she is, but also make her way back to her home. (Though, I’m sure this will be explained later on, through the power-system. Or she could just be uncannily aware of those things.)

The use of <> for quotation marks threw me off at first but I very much became accustom to it. However the style of writing makes me feel as though I don’t quite know what’s going on, like with the action scene in chapter one. There were times where I felt that I knew exactly what was going on, thus I could enjoy it. But there were other times where I was a little lost on the choreography. Same thing with the retreat scene in chapter 2, when Iulia ended up leaving her master. There were moments where I felt like my attention was all over the place.

Next the magic system. I actually really like this part, I think that it is super creative and unique. The idea of using emotions and ink is something that stands out to me and the use of it through the characters is appealing to read. However, I wish that I knew more about it going in, since it feels as though I am reading chapter 22 more than reading through the opening. I was also briefly confusion of how the emotions they are using turn into supernatural forces. The use of Ki is also something I tried to understand intuitively and I think it was not as much of a problem as the ink and emotion magic system.

Your world is also very interesting, it makes me think visuals would be appealing. The house made out of a tree is something that I enjoyed.

There were also some things in chapter 2 I wanted to go over. I feel as though the cooking scene was novel and endearing at first. The introduction of the familiar sets the scene nicely. However the pacing is a little too slow for my liking and I think that the scene drags on for longer than it needs to. (Bribing the familiar was also a nice touch)

Towards the end of chapter 2, things ramp up in action really, really fast. I again run into the problem where I am not confident in being able to say that I understood what was going on, I kind of just went from the vibes. The inclusion of uncle Ron was a bit sudden for me, and the departure from Madame Mirza Minadora felt somewhat rushed, but I don’t think it suffered much.

Overall I would say that it is a solid piece of writing. I think you could benefit a lot out of having more information about your power system in the beginning and maybe somewhat of a prologue about the cult and the hypocrites brought up. It felt like a lot was happening in a short period of time and sometimes nothing in long periods. But I still think that it does not kill the story.

That’s all I got for now, hope this helps.