So I have a new story set in the same universe as "I Got Sent to Hell And Decided to Become Demon Lord In Another World" it's called "To A Goblin's Heart" I want some honest feedback and reviews on this story so please give it a look at. I hope you guys enjoy it so please leave me some feedback.
If you like Shortack girls, Goblins, and Romance, this is a new story for you to pick up!
Synopsis: A young Prince named Caspian of Rivenhold decides to enter a tavern to drink his sorrows and responsibilities away when he happens to meet a lovely goblin barkeep maid named Sylra who lights up the tavern with her positive energy. The two from different realities hit it off and now must find a way to keep their love going in a world that denies their companionship.
Have you ever heard about how you make up your mind about someone in the first two seconds? Novels are similar, but for most people, it's only the synopsis and the first chapter.
There will always be nitpicking readers that will pick up on something small and pass on your series, but as a writer, you can at least avoid some of the most obvious ones. Often, these are things that are related to how you visually present your writing as opposed to anything relating to your skill. We should fix these things because they lower expectations of the reader, making them more inclined to be even more critical.
Firstly, there is inconsistent spacing between your paragraphs. Is this a result of the program you copied and pasted from? It comes across as lazy, and the space difference is the first thing I see before I even start reading. If I, as a potential reader, think the author can't be bothered to quickly fix something like this, then I probably can't be bothered to read it.
Second is this lazy-looking scene break. There is a horizontal rule button in the scribble hub editor. Please use it, or if you want to get fancy, find a good image of a divider. When writing the first draft of chapters I might spam the dash keyboard key a few times to produce something similar, but I always remember to swap it out.
Seeing these two, I'm already feeling inclined to file this series away as "amateur", and I haven't even read one word. Because these obvious flaws were so visible, I scrolled through the chapter looking for more stuff and noticed a chronic lack of punctuation.
If I started to read your chapter, was caught by the hook, and became impressed with your world-building and characters, then I could start to forgive these errors. But these errors are too obvious and have prevented me from even reading.
Edit: I noticed that, for some reason, I clicked on chapter 9 first. Regardless, these issues exist in the first chapter and others.
Hello there. I’d say it’s nice to see you, but I hate lying this early in the feedback. After slogging through your previous edgy demon-lord serial killer melodrama, I dared to hope—foolishly—that you’d learned something. Yet here I stand, forsaken and deceived, ankle-deep in another webnovel that doesn't even TRY to persuade. It’s like you copy-pasted the same mistakes, threw a fantasy romance wig on them, and shoved them back on stage. Only this time, you’re screaming "DONATE ME TO READ PLEASE!" more loudly.
Synopsis is so absurdly amateur it read like a placeholder that's been forgotten. You write first a plea for Patreon support—a bold strategy, but also breathtakingly dumb. It’s like asking for a tip before serving the meal. Your credibility is annihilated on impact, without even reading further into the synopsis. Then, just to shut the trash can you are occupying further, you follow it up with a run-on sentence so clumsy it made me reread it thrice. Yes, thrice. That’s where your ethos—the lifeline between writer and reader—dies a pitiful, gasping death.
Let’s talk about that run-on sentence because, oh boy, does it deserve a moment of its own. You crammed half a plot and all your enthusiasm into one breathless, stumbling marathon of words, and the result? It reads like someone threw darts at a “how to write fantasy romance” checklist. Prince! Tavern! Goblin barkeep! Forbidden love! Great, sure, but where’s the hook? Where’s the persuasion? This isn’t just a bad sentence; it’s a red flag that says, “I don’t know how to craft a compelling story.” If you can’t sell the concept in a few crisp lines, why should readers—or, God forbid, paying readers—expect you to deliver in the actual story?
Speaking of the story, Chapter 1 is the chapter where my patience had ended, it’s contrived from start to finish. MC's moody tavern entrance, and suddenly puppeteer strings are practically visible, yanking every piece into place. I hear nonexistent voice coming from the authorial intent "please, turn off your mind, please", but I resisted. He’s not a character; he’s a cardboard cutout of every other “brooding, burdened royal,” and Sylra is less a goblin barkeep and more a factory-default “quirky, strong female lead that will be more interesting than the male lead.” Their connection in this chapter feels forced, hollow, and as believable as a gas station romance novel, and probably is further the chapters I don't want to read. It doesn’t feel like two characters meeting; it feels like you smashing them together because plot.
Logos? I can safely say it's nonexistent. Caspian, a prince, waltzes into a sketchy tavern, announces his royal identity to a random goblin he got enamored with like he’s at a press conference, and somehow survives. Sylra? She believes him without so much as an eye-roll. No skepticism, no “Sure, Your Highness, and I’m the Goblin Queen.” If your characters can’t act like sentient beings, why should anyone care about your story?
And Sylra—a goblin running a tavern in a world that supposedly spits on her kind? Really? Goblins are second-class citizens, but she’s thriving in a gig that demands constant schmoozing with humans? Sure, you slapped on a “tragic burned village” backstory to explain her grit, but that only raises more questions. Where’s the prejudice? How did she leap societal hurdles? Why isn’t anyone in the tavern giving her so much as a side-eye? It’s world-building tripping over its own feet.
Without logic (logos) or credibility (ethos), emotional investment (pathos) is DOA. Caspian and Sylra aren’t people—they’re cardboard cutouts shoved into a romance that screams, “And now they kiss because I said so.” Emotional intimacy isn’t earned; it’s fast-tracked, leaving readers cringing instead of swooning.
The grammar’s better this time, so… congrats? Except, there's always except, you still have a run-on sentence in the synopsis that undermines everything and then some. I don't know what metaphor to put here, it feels pointless to do it.
Here’s the problem, possum-cosplaying writer: you're selling this story as a product, expecting donations, but it wouldn't pass muster with the broke webnovel crowd reading for free. It's surface-level drivel: tropes, clichés, and flimsy characters that crumble under a second of scrutiny. Stories should make us care, drawing us into their worlds and lives. This? A hollow shell—a grab bag of half-baked ideas that never became a real story.
You’re not writing for “fun” anymore; you’re asking for money. If you want people to invest, give them a reason. Consider this your wake-up call: your story fails at persuasion 101. Fix it. Write something worth your readers’ time, and don't even THINK about the cash if you're not consistent, don't have a quality, and don't have characters to root for.
Hello there. I’d say it’s nice to see you, but I hate lying this early in the feedback. After slogging through your previous edgy demon-lord serial killer melodrama, I dared to hope—foolishly—that you’d learned something. Yet here I stand, forsaken and deceived, ankle-deep in another webnovel that doesn't even TRY to persuade. It’s like you copy-pasted the same mistakes, threw a fantasy romance wig on them, and shoved them back on stage. Only this time, you’re screaming "DONATE ME TO READ PLEASE!" more loudly.
Synopsis is so absurdly amateur it read like a placeholder that's been forgotten. You write first a plea for Patreon support—a bold strategy, but also breathtakingly dumb. It’s like asking for a tip before serving the meal. Your credibility is annihilated on impact, without even reading further into the synopsis. Then, just to shut the trash can you are occupying further, you follow it up with a run-on sentence so clumsy it made me reread it thrice. Yes, thrice. That’s where your ethos—the lifeline between writer and reader—dies a pitiful, gasping death.
Let’s talk about that run-on sentence because, oh boy, does it deserve a moment of its own. You crammed half a plot and all your enthusiasm into one breathless, stumbling marathon of words, and the result? It reads like someone threw darts at a “how to write fantasy romance” checklist. Prince! Tavern! Goblin barkeep! Forbidden love! Great, sure, but where’s the hook? Where’s the persuasion? This isn’t just a bad sentence; it’s a red flag that says, “I don’t know how to craft a compelling story.” If you can’t sell the concept in a few crisp lines, why should readers—or, God forbid, paying readers—expect you to deliver in the actual story?
Speaking of the story, Chapter 1 is the chapter where my patience had ended, it’s contrived from start to finish. MC's moody tavern entrance, and suddenly puppeteer strings are practically visible, yanking every piece into place. I hear nonexistent voice coming from the authorial intent "please, turn off your mind, please", but I resisted. He’s not a character; he’s a cardboard cutout of every other “brooding, burdened royal,” and Sylra is less a goblin barkeep and more a factory-default “quirky, strong female lead that will be more interesting than the male lead.” Their connection in this chapter feels forced, hollow, and as believable as a gas station romance novel, and probably is further the chapters I don't want to read. It doesn’t feel like two characters meeting; it feels like you smashing them together because plot.
Logos? I can safely say it's nonexistent. Caspian, a prince, waltzes into a sketchy tavern, announces his royal identity to a random goblin he got enamored with like he’s at a press conference, and somehow survives. Sylra? She believes him without so much as an eye-roll. No skepticism, no “Sure, Your Highness, and I’m the Goblin Queen.” If your characters can’t act like sentient beings, why should anyone care about your story?
And Sylra—a goblin running a tavern in a world that supposedly spits on her kind? Really? Goblins are second-class citizens, but she’s thriving in a gig that demands constant schmoozing with humans? Sure, you slapped on a “tragic burned village” backstory to explain her grit, but that only raises more questions. Where’s the prejudice? How did she leap societal hurdles? Why isn’t anyone in the tavern giving her so much as a side-eye? It’s world-building tripping over its own feet.
Without logic (logos) or credibility (ethos), emotional investment (pathos) is DOA. Caspian and Sylra aren’t people—they’re cardboard cutouts shoved into a romance that screams, “And now they kiss because I said so.” Emotional intimacy isn’t earned; it’s fast-tracked, leaving readers cringing instead of swooning.
The grammar’s better this time, so… congrats? Except, there's always except, you still have a run-on sentence in the synopsis that undermines everything and then some. I don't know what metaphor to put here, it feels pointless to do it.
Here’s the problem, possum-cosplaying writer: you're selling this story as a product, expecting donations, but it wouldn't pass muster with the broke webnovel crowd reading for free. It's surface-level drivel: tropes, clichés, and flimsy characters that crumble under a second of scrutiny. Stories should make us care, drawing us into their worlds and lives. This? A hollow shell—a grab bag of half-baked ideas that never became a real story.
You’re not writing for “fun” anymore; you’re asking for money. If you want people to invest, give them a reason. Consider this your wake-up call: your story fails at persuasion 101. Fix it. Write something worth your readers’ time, and don't even THINK about the cash if you're not consistent, don't have a quality, and don't have characters to root for.
This one seems a little harsher than your first feedback. I'm writing all my works for fun and I'm having an enjoyable time doing it. My story may not be for everyone, clearly not you. But people still find my work to be an enjoyable read. Sorry you don't see it as such but I won't let this get me down. I'll continue to write and improve. Thank you for your feedback. Maybe it's not worth YOUR time, but it's worth it to others. You're just being kinda mean at this point.
This one seems a little harsher than your first feedback. I'm writing all my works for fun and I'm having an enjoyable time doing it. My story may not be for everyone, clearly not you. But people still find my work to be an enjoyable read. Sorry you don't see it as such but I won't let this get me down. I'll continue to write and improve. Thank you for your feedback. Maybe it's not worth YOUR time, but it's worth it to others. You're just being kinda mean at this point.
Ah, the classic non-response to the brutal truth I've shown to you. You just employed "I'm writing for fun, not for you" defense—a predictable cop-out. Let’s cut to the point: if your goal is fun, fantastic. Write to your heart’s content. But the moment you slap a “donate” button on your work AS THE FIRST SENTENCE OF YOUR SYNOPSIS, you’ve left the realm of hobbyist writing and entered the world of amateur publishing, where critique isn’t mean—it’s necessary. Your story isn’t just “not for me”; it fails at the fundamental mechanics of storytelling: no persuasive plot, no believable characters, and no coherent world. That’s not taste—it’s craft.
You’re deflecting instead of engaging. Saying “some people enjoy it” doesn’t magically erase your story’s flaws. Popularity doesn’t equal quality, and the feedback isn’t about taste. Especially mine, as I use universal points, not just "subjective taste". It’s about your failure to create a story that holds up under scrutiny. Claiming I’m “being mean” is just a way to avoid addressing the valid critiques I’ve made.
The problem isn’t your fun—it’s your refusal to grow, and you proved it with this response. Writing for fun doesn’t exempt you from delivering quality if you’re asking for money or readers’ time. Stop hiding behind “it’s not for everyone” and start fixing the glaring issues. Start writing for others. Or keep ignoring critique—just don’t expect to readers to magically appear to stick around to finish your story and then leave meaningful comments that wants you to be better.
OP, I have read 'To a Goblin's Heart' until the latest chapter (8 chapters as of now). Honestly, I didn't plan on giving you a feedback, just looking for something to read. But you asked for opinions, so I couldn't help to read it critically... which on hindsight, was a mistake. I found 4 general problems in a story of just 8 chapters — I don't know how to say this, but it's just too crazy for me. Because I don't want to suffer from this alone, here's what I got for you:
(There are spoilers below)
1. Inconsistent focus
Your focus on expositions is all over the place. You spend many words describing whether it's currently morning or not, the place's empty/crowded, raining or not, and so on. Despite all the never ending telling us the passage of time in every half a chapter, you probably have already understood how time work. Yet after rereading chapter 1 and chapter 2 back and forth, repeatedly, for several times, you clearly imply that only one day has passed since MC and FL's first meeting, but in such narrow time, the court had already tracked him down to the tavern.
Here another example,
She had a hunch where Caspian might be. He often slipped away to a quiet spot by the old mill at the edge of the forest—a place where the world felt still and the weight of his royal burdens seemed to lift.
How??? It has been only one day! Is she a clairvoyant? She didn't follow him when he exit the tavern with his edgy gait, so how did she know?!
This also bleeds to how you describe characters. FL and MC's father are given almost two pages of physical and personality descriptions, yet for MC, it's only a dialogue of him trauma dumping. A girl who has never appeared in the published chapters was already given a page of her personality progression from childhood to now. Why does it matter?
Variety is good, but too much of it, then what you get is this: only inconsistency.
2. Repetition
Narrations, descriptions, and dialogues are repeated for the nth times. It's as if your draft was only filled with 100 key words/phrases, and you downloaded a dice app and ran numbers from 1 to 100 for every paragraph you're going to write. You've already established that the MC and FL are getting a quick romance, you don't have to repeat it time and time. MC won't give up on her — you already wrote it a chapter ago. FL won't give up on him — she already said that literally two spaces above.
There's no need to repeat all that!
3. Illogical
You're forcing the plot. This is not assumption or accusation. It simply is, and you know that. You know some part of the plot is wildly illogical, but because you don't bother to make any of it any sense, you just give up thinking about it. They're already threatened to violence, yet somehow, they think it's a good idea to just stay in the tavern and not running.
Sylra leaned back in her chair, her arms crossed.
Let him come. "This is my home, Caspian. If they think they can waltz in and take what they want, they’re in for a rude awakening.”
Come on! In what world do you think two people huddling in a tavern can resist the king's soldiers?
And like I said before, you know this. That's why you repeatedly make the prince the 'voice of the reason', saying repeatedly that staying is a bad idea. You're telling the readers that you already know that the plot is forced, and with you implying it, you want them to give you some slack.
'I did that, yes, but I already know it's stupid, which means it's not stupid anymore.' That is probably what you're thinking.
Very meta of you. But that just makes you a lazy author. Like, "I know there was a typo, therefore I don't need to edit it." Come on, get serious. In my opinion, you would fare better if you just pretend that it isn't illogical.
4. Everyone's part of the hive?
Everyone seems to know what's going on without any brainstorming.
The court only needed one day to track the prince, sure, maybe the tavern is right beside the palace, or hell, maybe it's in the basement — really, who knows? (We wouldn't know because the point 1). And after only seeing the goblin maid once, the tracker and the king have instantly established that the goblin maid is a liablity, Even though the prince and the goblin maid had only met and talked once?
Instead of just thinking that the prince was only looking for fun outside the palace, the court quickly believed that the prince was rebelling and all.
With power of love at the first sight, the goblin maid can track the mc without any problem.
Mc said his father's reign was actually full of problem below the surface, establishing that the common people were ignorant. One chapter later, everyone knew that the king was tyrannical.
Two random tavern regulars came up to the lovebirds and say that they supported them in any way. One chapter later, they're planning a rebellion as if it was only natural (forced plot, point 3).
They went to the blacksmith and asked for weapons without telling the quantity, and the blacksmith magically knows that they're planning for a war.
And of course, by this point, the court was disconnected from the hive mind, conveniently ignorant that hundreds of people were gathering openly with weapons.
Anyway, that's that. I hope this will help you. Sorry for the weird sentences and bad grammar, I'm writing this while having a cold and mild headache.
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