MrAuthor101

I just dropped on the forum a bit deeper dive into the basics of writing. I recommend it if you found the pointers useful. I'm happy my pointers helped you :)

No. This whole beginning is just a massive hook for the rest of the story.

Yes.

So for clarification, the stars are just an encouragement. Now about the story. It has potential, but it’s done very poorly. It’s quite obvious that you don’t have much experience. Frankly speaking, I had a feeling that you had some simple idea in your mind, simply sat down and started writing. So yeah… There will be a lot here to unpack. Let's start from the beginning. I think Prologue 1 is pointless. Prologue 2 does a better job at starting the novel, and makes Prologue 1 completely pointless. Don’t take me wrong, it's still a bad start. Why is it bad? To answer this question we should go to the basic of writing. Disclaimer, I’m going ignore prologue 1, because it’s, to me, completely pointless, and pretend you are starting with prologue 2. A few things you need from a good start are: 1. a hook, to keep your readers reading. 2. premise of the story – what it will be about. 3. introduction to your main character. 4. introduction of the setting. What do you have? You have a hook. The story starts with a character (the protagonist in pain). It’s good enough because the readers will instinctively want to know what happened. I’m not sure if you have a premise, because I get horror vibes from this, but it's apparently a romance. What is it? You need to be clear here. You can’t deceive your readers. You kinda introduce your character, but also kinda not. She is just there, like a plastic doll thrown on a bed. I untangle this one a bit more later. Then we have the setting. You also kinda have it, but kinda not. I got the vibe that it’s a real-like world, but then we have a super-blood, but it’s kinda not that super, so It makes me feel like supernatural things are rare, but they do happen around the world. So overall you could add thing up, and say the start is passable, but it’s actually not. Why? I’ll explain. So the character is in pain, can’t really see, opens her eyes, and notices she is in some kind of lab. You don’t really describe the lab. You are the director, actors, scenograph, makeup artist, and everything else of your novel. Set up a scene. Throw characters, and let them play. You didn’t. You are vaguely describing the objects around her, but that's it. Where is the smell? Where is the sound? If you don’t know how to craft a good description, here is a quick guide to a passable one. Describe things as you take them in yourself. We rely on sight most, so start with light. Go from general to specific. Then add sound/smell and other stuff. Obviously, depending on what you need, you can mix those things. This is just a piece of general advice. After that we have your character trying to remember what happened. Why? If I woke up in an unknown laboratory, the first thing I would do is start asking questions. I would check if I can get up, and depending on the reaction from the environment – other people, I would run or stay. Then the complitely-out-of-place-looking boyfriend enters the scene. By that, I mean a dude in a black suit among people in lab coats/hospital attire. He would be stuck out as a sore thumb. Why didn’t she, or us – the readers – notice him earlier? He should be in the description. Now it looks like you are materializing characters out of nothing. She hears his voice and recognizes it, but for some reason does nothing about it. Why not call his name? Why not ask for answers? If she can speak, this should be her immediate reaction. You make her look like a plastic doll, not a human, because she behaves unrealistically. Then the doctor starts talking about experiments and stuff. If I heard it I would be already half a mile away from that place, sprinting for my life. She does nothing. I could pick up on that stuff, more, tu there is a character limit in the review, so I’ll move to more general stuff. You need to make your characters believable. They need to behave humanely! You have doctors interested in a girl performing horrible experiments on her for apparently no reason. What is their goal? Why is the girl not under anesthesia? She should be knocked out, and if she is not, there needs to be a reason for that. Give a reason for their actions, or make them more reasonable. If she has to suffer, explain why. Maybe one nurse would ask a question, and the doctor would explain? Maybe an argument between them, because the doctor is just a sociopath who wants to make her suffer. Make your own explanation, but you need one. Even more general stuff. You tell a lot without showing much, at least in the first 4 chapters. The fifth is a bit better about this. I’ll give you an example. Quote: She has a faint guess already but still was tightly clutching on the last ray of hope so that everything is not true. She hopes that it’s all misunderstanding. Her body was trembling by now. She could only gaze at his lover in the hope that he will pull her into his embrace just like before. Just as she was thinking” So why not like this: „The dark thoughts were already hunting her mind, but she desperately held to the last ray of hope – that this all was just a misunderstanding. A lie. She reached with her trambling, cold hand towards him, but he didn’t respond. There was only his cold gaze, focused on her as if she was an object, not a person.” See the difference? People are doing things. Reacting. Now another thing. In the quite I presented, and in the rest of your story, you do a lot of grammatical mistakes. You misspell, mix times (past and present, especially in your narration), and repeat a lot of words – a rule of thumb is 6 lines of text before repeating something. Even if it’s a character name. Use some software to check for this stuff. I use Grammarly. It's free. So yeah… I hope this helps.

This is a peculiar thing. It's well written, and the balance between telling and showing is done very well. It feels incredibly fluid at times, but there are small issues that from time to time disturb the reading experience. It's minor stuff, for if you are not actively looking you will probably miss it, lured to continue by the narration itself. The author claims it's a romance story, but to me, from the start, it felt more like a psychological horror. The mystery is thick, and the description gives out often an ominous vibe.

First of all, I’ll start with the prize, because it’s the best thing I reviewed so far. It’s well written, the story is interesting, and directed in a good, fluid way, which makes this simply a good read. Dialogues are very nice as well. So putting that aside I’ll move to the pointers, as I have a few, but mostly small things. I start with the beginning: I’m not so sold on how you start the novel. As a starting writer with no cloud, you should make sure your first chapter ticks some basics, and you by all means do, but I think It could be done better. So normally you start with a hook, so people will continue reading and you will have the room to sell them the premise of the story, the protagonist, the setting, and all that stuff. For me, the later parts with Luan on the ground dit it better than the falling star-thingy. So yeah, that’s a possible improvement. Then we have some awkward words here and there. Just a few, but they give an off-vibe. Examples: The fourth paragraph of the 1 chapter. „As he tried to get his bearings” - I presume it’s to avoid the repetition of words but ant it as supposed to be something along the lines of „regaining his posture”, but it feels awkward. I would even say that the repetition would be better in this case. Then a bit later you have the ‘Stunningly’ where mister shades kick Luan. That also does feel awkward. I would use surprisingly, or just simply go with a dry kick. There is more, but I’m not gonna point them all. What I’ll point out, on the other hand, are those weird brackets. It feels as if you use them for the protagonist's thoughts, but not always. So, as far as I know „ „ - this is for dialogue, and ‘ ‘ - for thoughts. At least in English. With this, the third paragraph of the second chapter feels really weird. Then the „...” and the lines. I feel like those are useless there. It’s as if you want to jump to a different scene, but we are left each time in the same scene, so why not just simply continue? Then the office and the club. You kinda described them, but also kinda not. It by all means didn’t feel empty, but I also have this hunch that you could do it better. Flesh it out more. Then the 24-year-old girl. You narrate the story as we are following Luan, but this feels like we zoom out and have the narrator tell us some additional info, which makes this feel off as well. I would either just approximate the age and her soberness instead of stating it. Or completely zoom out, and go full narrator style there – but this, I believe will also feel awkward. Then the re-appearance of the redhead (vampire?) and the return of the brackets, which are again like adding the narrator mixed with the protagonist's thoughts? I don’t know. Then, as the dialogue progresses you start telling instead of showing. You tell what the girl is feeling/thinking, and start telling more stuff as the bulky guy comes. It could be shown instead, which would make it much better. Usually, you want to ‘tell’ only the stuff that’s useless for the novel. Like a quick background of a background character, that’s meaningless, and would only interrupt the flow of the plot. Here I think showing would benefit the story. The stuff about delaying could also be shown, for example by Luan getting weaker or feeling some symptoms of whatever is happening to him. There also is the consent thingy. It feels important for the story, but actually, why is there, and why should Luan care about this? It feels more like an irritating addition to the drink blood quest, which I feel the protagonist, who showed his rebellious side already, could consider ignoring. That would be it from me.

Oh boy... Where do I start? So we have a story, which gives fo a vibe, at least to me, of another one called The Beginning After The End. I would call it a plus. The first chapter checks most of what the first chapter should check. It gives some questions for the reader, but also provides quite a good understanding of what the story might be about. Revenge, re-rise to glory. The language is good. I would even risk saying it's great. The sentences read mostly smoothly. Now the weak points. Let's start with the logic of the story. Chapter two has a child falling asleep in the mother's hand. But, two, three paragraphs later the doctor is giving the chile, presumably the same, to mother. Then Chapter 3 has the timeline set up in winter, with the protagonist literally walking on ice in his room, just so he can walk later to a rainforest. As far as I know, geography doesn't work this way. There is a lot of telling instead of showing in this story, also the dialogues fall flat. I'll end up here since you didn't want the pointers, but there is a lot more to add here. I hope this helps you to improve.

The stars are more of an encouragement than my real opinion. This story has good potential, but it does lack in many aspects. The writing itself is good. Very clear, and easy to understand, which is a big plus. The issues lay deeper. Mainly in the exposition department and the plot. You also shouldn't change how you write dialogues in I believe 4th chapter. You need more stories in your story. You can't just brush through the plot.

This is hardly a review, and the stars are for encouragement, becouse with some work this could be a great story. Let’s start from the beggining, as one should. You open with a sentence spoken by someone Quote: „...Another day alive in this shitty world.” It’s actualyl decent start. Indicates that whoever spoke it, presumably the protagonist, has a problem. This makes the readers curious what the problem is. But the dots should be after the sentence, not before it. If it’s supposed to indicate that there was something said priot to those words, you should use I believe (…) this. Let’s go further, where the problems begin to rise. You start saying too much, while descrybing only that the character of your story woke up. Instead you could for example play on the darkness, use it seemingly to describe what was around your character, but then link it to the feelings.Example: Exekiel awoke in the middle of the night. Only darkness sorounded him, the same emptines which filled his mind. A disconnection from the world around him. A world which felt pointless. ←Its not great. I wouldn’t even say it’s good, but it’s shows the idea. The next paragraff is just wrong. You are telling, and telling a lot. Avoid this info dumps becouse they are just boring. Instead cut the information in pieces, chucks. Present them as hints, outliners of what happaned in the past. You can use fhashbacks, or have other characters mention bits and pieces by speaking them out, or reaction in various ways. Example: „He got out of the bed, throwing the sheets away, and approached the window. Then he pushed the curtains to reveal the night sky with bright dots – the stars - and the sharp sickle of the moon. Enoguh to iluminate an old photo standing on windowsill. It showed a man and a woman, both having some similarities to Ezekiel’s facial features. He grabbed it, and looked at the familar faces of his parents. „Drunks”, he muttered, before chucking the photo through his room, where it smashed into some pieces of the furniture, interupting the silence with the sound of breaking glass.” See the diffrence? This isn’t by all means what you should do, only the general direction to follow. You have your own style, and its good – clean, and simple, easy to read (which is good, you want the clarity) you just need the pointers were to go. Then we have the Eruption, and the crunches. This is anovel, not a comic. In comic they use it, becouse the describe with pictures,a dn only need sounds to add a bit. You use words to describe stuff, so this shouldn’t happen in your novel. At least not in this way. Let’s jump further. You have your character comming out of the bathrrom and aproachign the window, but nothing about where he actually is, or what is behind the window. There should be something there. Othwrwise your readers see an empty space, adn your characters looking through an empty window. If you have a problems how to describe things, here is an advice (not from me, from an actual pro writer, whos name escapes me). Follow the senses. Describe as people would see, which generaly means you should start with light, or the lack of it. Then other senses. Sound, smell, touch. Go from generall stuff, to details. Obciously you can play with it, sometimes shift it of for example smell is so horrible that it hits your character like a truck. Or noise, if its head-splitting. Then you have continuation error. Your guy was by the window, but suddenly three paragraphs later he is getting out of the bed? If he moves, write it, don’t teleport him. Then we have a logical error. Buterflies don’t have blood. If you don’t know, or are not sure, google it. You can write story about lawyers without being a lawyer, but you will at least have to do SOME research. It has to be belivable. Then we have the part of the story about the girl and her dad. First of all, if the dude is drunk, make him look drunk. To me he seemed as sober as me writing it, and I am very sober. Stuter, belch, burp, stumble. If he is wrecked, make him look wrecked. The girl should be belivable as all. She is in the scene, so she can’t just freeze in a moment while things happen. She has to do stuff, or remove her from the picture. Make her run away or something. Otherwise she is looking at her father hetting snapped like a twig, and just doesn’t care, which is not belivable. Normal person would react somehow. Now to the general stuff. After reading your storry I don’t really know what it’s about. The protagonist just is. It’s not like he has a goal,a direction where to go. He should have one. If you have no idea what you are doing with it, go google Brandon Sanderson – Lecture #2: Plot. There are two parts of it, it’s great. It will open your eyes. It opened mine. On top of that we have mixing of times. You go in the past tense, but sometimes you turn to present. Example: „Ezequiel remains silent and with an indiffrent look looks at the drunk in front of him”. You also repeat words a lot, with the name, which you misspel later in the story, at the very front of this issue. As a rule of thumb you want to have at least six lines of text between any repetition, including names. Otherwise it’s a problem, so if there is an option to avoid it, you should. Sometimes it wont be possible, but you want to limit those exceptions If you ahve problems with spelling, use some software for example grammarly. I use it, its free. That would be all from me.

This novel will take you on an emotional journey with descriptive, elaborate language. It’s quite dark, and down to the ground exploring the common feeling of grief, pain, self-hatred, and much more. Warning, the lavish description might drown you.