JNC Writing Group Review Thread - The Adopted Princess is Actually a Wayfarer of Worlds
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My story didn't make it past the first round, and I honestly can't figure out why. When I inquired about feedback, I was told the judge didn't leave any whatsoever. If anyone can help me improve or give me insight why I was rejected, that would be great. Other comments are appreciated too, of course.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CpJFO0Q4nzZKZjzZxcba49fsCWwP3CCnQVJBwg1TSFA
Note: This document only includes the first 2/3rds of the story. I'll post the last 1/3rd if there's enough interest.
Approximate word count: 60k words
Short description of the work: Fifteen year-old Elise leads a double life with many secrets. She is the daughter of a true saintess, but she and her mother are forced to hide their holy powers to avoid running afoul of the powerful, corrupt Philian church. After her parents disappeared under mysterious circumstances five years ago, Elise was adopted by her aunt and uncle, who jointly ascended the throne at the end of a long and brutal civil war. At the same time she must navigate social and political challenges as a princess, she journeys across other worlds and fights to protect her homeland from demons known as the Maleficara. Several days before her sixteenth birthday, Elise sets out to investigate a fissure leading to another world, only to land in far more trouble than she bargained for. Returning to the palace after a traumatic event sees her embroiled in even more problems, as she abruptly finds herself tangled in a web of various political machinations. Who is lying, and who can she trust? What happened to her parents five years ago, when they vanished on another world? Why did her mother suddenly reappear a year and a half later, without any memories from that time? Now that Elise is eligible for marriage, will she discover the meaning of true love?Trigger warnings if your work deals with sensitive subject matter: brief allusions to rape, abuse, torture, PTSD, and suicide
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@Alfaerin I'll be somewhat busy tomorrow but I'll try to set aside some time this weekend to take a look.
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I've read the first chapter, and here are my impressions so far.
The premise seems interesting. I am intrigued by being able to explore multiple worlds, and by having a mother as a saintess.
If I was going to improve upon it, I think it would come to three main issues.
- Tighten the prose
- Introduce backstory, description and worldbuilding more sparsely
- Change how the character monologues to the horse
I'll elaborate on these issues.
- Tighten the prose
I'm not sure how to explain this. Science fiction writer Lois McMaster Bujold is a good example, in my opinion, of a writer who uses every word efficiently. She once had to cut back a novel to be about half its initial length because of publication constraints of physical books, and it changed her writing for the better after that. She is also efficient in how each scene accomplishes multiple purposes. She's a good example to emulate, in my opinion. (This is just my opinion. Everyone has their own taste.)
The Raven Ring by Patricia C. Wrede has an introduction where she goes over revising the first scene of one of her older novels, and I think it is a good example of tightening prose.
- Introduce backstory, description, and worldbuilding more sparsely.
This is counterintuitive because - wouldn't the reader want to know what's going on ASAP? I think you crammed a lot of information into a small space, and that's sort of what I was telling you to do in point 1. However, I think the amount of information is too much all at once. It's probably more important to engage the reader in caring about the character and the story than doing all the setup. Point 1 is about the flow of words. Point 2 is about the flow of ideas.
If I was going to rewrite your second paragraph, it would be something like
A young woman stared back at me in the water's reflection, a sword hilt peeking through her wavy blond hair. The contrast of the tightness around her grass-green eyes with her slight smile screamed “working hard to keep her cool upon realizing she’s in a mess.”
Probably you have a better way to rewrite it to convey what you had in mind. I think my main point is that the mention of the cornflower-blue tunic and grey leggings can wait until later.
- Change how the character monologues to the horse
Talking to an animal can be a fun technique, but for some reason I wasn't having fun with it here. I'm not sure how to articulate it.
An example of a light novel where the character does this, and somehow it works is A Late Start Tamer's Laid-Back Life. I think the author does it better in that series than in his other series Reincarnated as a Sword. There's a lot of thinking in his own head and talking to his non-verbal companions, and yet somehow it feels fun and light. It does not bog down the action.
Final thoughts
After only one chapter, I'm also not sure what kind of story this is going to be. I suppose that's a lot to ask for one chapter, but I think in the best novels I've read, I get something of a sense for it that quickly. What does your character want, beyond dealing with the next short term issues of landing on a world? I have a few hints, but can't really tell yet, and don't have a sense of priority.
From your short description of the work, it looks like what she wants is to find out what happened to her parents. I'm not sure why she didn't just ask her parents or her adoptive parents. They seem to be pretty powerful. "There wasn't enough time" seems like not a good enough reason, without more context. Especially since there was enough time for her to have that less important conversation about going alone to a world.
I don't know if I'll have time to read further, but I hope that there is some value in first impressions.
I think there is a cool story in there. It might take some polishing to let it shine through a bit better.
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@strangeattractor Thank you very much for reading, and thanks for your input. I can see you have quality feedback, but its usefulness is hampered a lot by being based solely on the first chapter. If you read any farther in the story, please let me know, because I think your feedback would be different and a lot more helpful if you did.
Regarding #1, making the writing style as highly utilitarian as you're suggesting would have a dramatic impact on Elise's voice. An important part of writing in first person is showing how the viewpoint character sees the world. Elise can only convey what she observes, and what details grab her attention are a part of her character. The detail about her outfit may not have been important to you, but it's important to her. If you told me I had a habit of being verbose when I could convey the same information in fewer words, that would be one thing, but you're counselling me to shave details down to the bare minimum needed to propel the story forward. What would I gain from making my work less detailed and dramatically shifting Elise's tone?
Regarding #2, I put these details in the first chapter because it's a relatively quiet scene without much happening yet. Elise has only her horse and her thoughts for company right now, so I made the most effective use of this time to lay out background. If I took that out here, anything I introduced to replace it would just be boring and unimportant filler, contradicting your first point. Not only that, the action picks up in the next few chapters, and there's little time to explain things there. The reader would be lost about what's going on if I removed most of the background here. I'm not expecting people to remember everything Elise covers here, but I'll see what I can pare down without hurting the rest of the story.
Regarding #3, as Elise indicates, she's just talking to fill the silence. It's only for this first chapter and doesn't happen again after that. So it's not a big deal if this isn't the most riveting human-horse dialogue you've ever read.
After only one chapter, I'm also not sure what kind of story this is going to be. I suppose that's a lot to ask for one chapter, but I think in the best novels I've read, I get something of a sense for it that quickly. What does your character want, beyond dealing with the next short term issues of landing on a world? I have a few hints, but can't really tell yet, and don't have a sense of priority.
I'm not sure I see why Elise's long-term goals need to be in the first chapter. Didn't you previously say I should omit details that are not immediately important? Because the story starts in media res, the most important things for the reader to know are who Elise is, where she is, why she's there, and what her immediate goals are. Her long-term goals will become apparent soon enough as more details about her life trickle in.
From your short description of the work, it looks like what she wants is to find out what happened to her parents. I'm not sure why she didn't just ask her parents or her adoptive parents. They seem to be pretty powerful. "There wasn't enough time" seems like not a good enough reason, without more context. Especially since there was enough time for her to have that less important conversation about going alone to a world.
As the text explains, no one knows what happened to her parents five years ago. Her father is still missing, and while her mother eventually reappeared, she has no memories of what happened. Since then, Elise's mother spends all her time searching for her husband or doing the work expected of a saintess. She's so incredibly busy that Elise rarely sees her mother anymore, and that's why she continues to live as a princess. What Elise never found time to ask her mom is a fairly minor point about why she's bringing unspecified items back from other worlds., something that will be cleared up soon enough.
Thanks again for reading and taking the time to write out such detailed feedback. I really appreciate it, and would definitely love to hear your thoughts if you decide to continue reading.
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I found some time tonight to finish the first chapter and was going to respond with some initial thoughts, but would you prefer I keep reading for now and save it up for later? Some of my feedback was similar to strangeattractor's (though I had planned to phrase some of it differently) so sharing it now might provide some additional perspective. I'll be reading more regardless, just wanted to make sure I'm providing feedback in a form that would be most useful for your purposes.
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@Hylebos Hello, and thanks for reading! I think it would be best if you continued reading until chapter 4 or 5 at the very least. There's not much point in posting now if you were going to say more or less the same thing, and it would help me a lot to know if the following chapters alter your opinion in any way. Thank you again!
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Hi there,
I’m not going to review the text itself (because there are others who are far better than me who will do so) but instead I want to talk about the uniquenesses of the competition vs submission model.
You see, I suspect as a submission this would have had more legs than in a competition with potentially several other similar stories.
Personally, I think your writing is good and clean and tells a great story. I want to read more and, if I started reading it, I would continue to do so (unlike some others).
But, from a competition perspective, what is it that makes your story (not your craft or writing skill) better than others? What makes you stand out from the pack and screams I love this ‘idea’?
This is a hard point to nail in a review and is something that really is highlighted in competitions where there are likely to be many other stories with similar themes or ideas. It matters in general submissions but the volume of similar works being read and reviewed in such a short time would be different.
In my opinion only - this is what you need to draw out and distill more.
What is the hook that makes you different? Is it being the saintess’ daughter? Are you reincarnated as a status window? Are you an incubus who gave it up to become an accountant at a run-down detective agency?
This is a hard one to review because I like your style and your writing and, in a different set of circumstances, think you would likely have gone forward. You may even be able to put the same story next year and progress.
I’m not a judge and have only read/discussed a couple of stories from people I know but I get the feeling they were looking for things over and above the just ability to write - which you certainly have. Commerciality. Suitability for the list. Even just a possible similarity to something else they are planning on publishing.
Just like us - stories grow and mature. I can’t remember how many versions of mine I have done. Not making wholesale changes but tweaking little things (removing a line here and there and giving them a quick ‘spit and polish’). Even now I opened one of mine and immediately saw a mangled line I would change in an edit.
Keep at it. You have the talent and ability.
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Thank you so much! There's a few things I think differentiates my story from others with similar themes, but I'm reluctant to spoil too much. I know I definitely didn't do a good job selling the story in the synopsis for that reason, though. How to walk the line between giving out enough detail to sell the story without ruining it is something I could definitely use help with.
To answer your question about "what makes this different" with the minimum possible spoilers, I can think of several things:
Thanks again for reading, responding and encouraging me. I really look forward to hearing your thoughts as you continue reading.
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Referenced by A Alfaerin
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Thanks for your response and for putting your work out there and asking for feedback.
I feel like my feedback is a little on the harsh side, but I decided to voice some of the criticisms that I might usually hold back from saying, since you said that you want to get published and make money from writing, and want to know what may be holding you back from that.
@Alfaerin said in JNC Writing Group Review Thread - The Adopted Princess is Actually a Wayfarer of Worlds:
Regarding #1, ... If you told me I had a habit of being verbose when I could convey the same information in fewer words,
This is actually closer to the point I was attempting to make than the other ways you've interpreted my words.
I didn't mean to say to shave the details down to the bare minimum to move the story forward.
I also didn't mean to say to change the voice of your character.
I think point 1 is something like "too many words per idea" and point 2 is "too many ideas per paragraph".
There's also something about not understanding the character's priorities or viewpoint from their word choice. I think you are attempting to convey that, but the picture I was getting was muddied and not cohesive. I didn't feel like I was getting properly introduced to the character or story through the way words were used.
Regarding #2, I put these details in the first chapter because it's a relatively quiet scene without much happening yet. Elise has only her horse and her thoughts for company right now, so I made the most effective use of this time to lay out background. If I took that out here, anything I introduced to replace it would just be boring and unimportant filler, contradicting your first point. Not only that, the action picks up in the next few chapters, and there's little time to explain things there. The reader would be lost about what's going on if I removed most of the background here. I'm not expecting people to remember everything Elise covers here, but I'll see what I can pare down without hurting the rest of the story.
As a reader, and other readers may feel differently, I can only take in so many details at a time. In that second paragraph, I felt like there were a lot of details presented in such a way that it was difficult to absorb them, or care about them, or understand why the character thinks they are important. I think this has to do with the amount of ideas crammed into a single paragraph rather than any problem with the ideas or details per se.
The info in that paragraph is:
-young
-woman
-green-grass eyes
-wavy waist-length blond hair
-small, delicate plain facial features
-charming
-corn-flower blue tunic
-gray leggings
-small haversack
-sword
-sword is a deterrent to would-be troublemakers
-her expression "working hard to keep her cool upon realizing she's in a mess"That's 12 things. I think I can absorb maybe 3 things.
So... there are two approaches to information overload. One would be to focus on the details most important to the character, and that's what I suggested above. Perhaps that is the grey leggings rather than the hair and eye colour and sword that I put in my rewrite. Pick the 3 most important details for that paragraph, and fill in the other details later.
Or, the other approach to information overload is to add more information. This is the approach airplane designers use for cockpits. There used to be an individual readout for each sensor, but now that computers are used, there is actually more information displayed that synthesizes and contextualizes the data.
So, you could make that paragraph into 3 paragraphs or 5 paragraphs and add information with emotional valence that shows why your character cares about the blue tunic and grey leggings. If every single piece of information is that important and has to happen right at the beginning, then adding more information about each one may be the way to go.
I'm just making this up, but "the blue leggings reminded me of that time I won the fashion prize and the prince kissed my medal and I felt a stab of longing for those simpler days" or whatever. I'm sure you could come up with something better than that.
Another thing that makes me hesitate when reading this paragraph is "character gazes into mirror" is one of the classic tropes for getting a physical description of a character into a book. When it is used, it does sort of make me wonder if the writer doesn't have the skill to present the character's physical characteristics in another way.
Regarding #3, as Elise indicates, she's just talking to fill the silence. It's only for this first chapter and doesn't happen again after that. So it's not a big deal if this isn't the most riveting human-horse dialogue you've ever read.
If this was a random scene in the middle of the story, I might agree with you. However, it is the first chapter. If something isn't entirely working, it probably doesn't belong there. The first chapter is where readers are deciding whether to keep reading or not. Additionally, the first chapter sets up expectation and promises, so if there isn't more talking-to-horse scenes later, it is not introducing the book properly.
I remember listening to a Writing Excuses podcast episode about keeping promises to readers and Howard, the comic strip author, told a story about how he made some off-hand comment about elephants in one of his early comics, and his readers kept asking him about it for years afterward. It was an unintentional promise he made to his readers and he eventually had to draw the elephants in his comics.
I think the talking-to-horse scene could be an unintentional promise like that.
I'm not sure I see why Elise's long-term goals need to be in the first chapter. Didn't you previously say I should omit details that are not immediately important? Because the story starts in media res, the most important things for the reader to know are who Elise is, where she is, why she's there, and what her immediate goals are. Her long-term goals will become apparent soon enough as more details about her life trickle in.
Hmm, no. I don't think I meant to say to omit details that are not immediately important. I think I meant to say something subtler than that.
In fact, something I enjoy when I'm reading is when details that previously seem important turn out to be relevant.
I was having difficulty figuring out who Elise is, what she prioritizes and thinks is important, and why I should care. Maybe the fix for that is not what I suggested, but it probably needs to be fixed somehow.
As the text explains, no one knows what happened to her parents five years ago. Her father is still missing, and while her mother eventually reappeared, she has no memories of what happened. Since then, Elise's mother spends all her time searching for her husband or doing the work expected of a saintess. She's so incredibly busy that Elise rarely sees her mother anymore, and that's why she continues to live as a princess. What Elise never found time to ask her mom is a fairly minor point about why she's bringing unspecified items back from other worlds., something that will be cleared up soon enough.
Somehow I missed that her mom has memory loss. I think it might help to have something with emotional and sensory things to anchor the information. For example, Elise could remember the time she asked her mom about it, or the expression on her mom's face when she attempts to remember, or the emotions Elise felt when she realized there were no answers.
Thanks again for reading and taking the time to write out such detailed feedback. I really appreciate it, and would definitely love to hear your thoughts if you decide to continue reading.
I'm really busy for the next few months, so I don't know if I'll have time, so if I don't continue please don't take it as a reflection on your story. I enjoyed the part I read.
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@Alfaerin, I've finished reading through Chapter 5. At a high level, there were definitely aspects of the entry that I liked, and I could see the groundwork for something that could develop into an interesting volume, but it suffered from some pacing, flow, and worldbuilding-conveyance issues that made it difficult for me to really get into the story.
I'll start with my thoughts on Chapter 1, which definitely felt very different from Chapters 2 through 5 in terms of style and pace. I've had more time to think about Chapter 1 than Chapters 2 through 5 so my advice is a bit more prescriptive here.
We start off in medias res with a spoken line about how the protagonist is in some sort of mess. There's a paragraph where she describes her physical appearance and attire through the perspective of examining her own reflection in a stream, and then a paragraph where she describes her fantasy surroundings. The protagonist then launches into a fairly large, self-deprecating rant about how she's been trapped on the other side of a fissure and how her Mom should have stopped her from going alone.
At this point I was legitimately baffled as to what was going on. The protagonist is clearly in some sort of trouble but I didn't understand what sort of trouble that was exactly. It clearly wasn't immediately pressing and dire as she had the time to examine her own reflection and slowly survey the scenery, and it clearly had something to do with a fissure (geological or otherwise), but the pieces weren't fitting together in my mind, and that was a real problem with regards to immersing myself in the story.
The biggest thing I look for right out of the gate when evaluating a first chapter is what sort of hook is the author using to pull me into the story. Unfortunately your story as written didn't particularly snare me as well as it should have.
That's not to say that your story didn't have a hook or that you chose an uninteresting scene to start on. The hook is there, it's just buried deeper in the story than I would prefer, and the reader has to do a bit of work to read in-between the lines and across separate paragraphs to figure the complete scenario out, which is less than optimal.
The warning about the eating or drinking things in the Blanchefleur paragraph, as well as the direct mention of collapsed gate and demons in the following paragraph, were eventually enough for me to realize that Elise was likely stuck in some sort alien pocket dimension with no way out. There's a two paragraph diversion about Elise's complicated home/family situation, and then finally, a paragraph that clearly describes the immediate events leading to her getting trapped in this world behind the fissure.
All in all, it took slightly over 1,000 words for me to get an initial grasp on Elise's situation. Others might have figured it out sooner than that and had a comfortable time reading, especially if they read your synopsis carefully (I only skimmed it and paid more attention to the political machinations thing than the "land in far more trouble than she bargained for" bit), but I wonder if it would be possible to rearrange the order in which information is presented to give readers a brief, if incomplete picture of Elise's situation before fleshing out the other details.
I have an idea of how you could accomplish that so the scene flows better, but I'll omit it for now as you may find it useful to take a stab at a rough, bullet by bullet ordering first before seeing someone else's approach. Let me know if you want me to share.
I think this is ultimately my biggest issue with Chapter 1. Looking through my notes, I wrote down various other things, but I think a lot of them were byproducts of the fact that your hook and premise wasn't immediately front and center.
For example, like strangeattractor, I initially felt that the physical description in the second paragraph was too detailed, but looking at it in a vacuum later it doesn't seem too bad (Or perhaps you modified it in response to feedback? Wasn't sure.) A factor behind my initial, unfavorable impression could have been that I was more eager to get an grasp of the situation than I was to get an understanding of the color of the protagonist's tunic so I took my frustration out on it.
Still, the description does still feel a bit detached (in part because she's describing the reflection rather than herself, so to speak) and is lacking in characterization. The biggest takeaways I got from it about Elise as a character or her situation is that she's probably prettier than she's evaluating herself as (par for the course, honestly), that she's a traveler of some kind between her haversack and her sword that's supposed to be a deterrent to troublemakers, and that she's looks to be in a spot of trouble from her facial expression (as has already been stated twice).
One strategy that can help make the visual description flow better is to offer the reader a characterization of her outfit as a whole before going into details. That way, the reader has a firm handle to grip to reassure them as they wade into the details.
If you start off by saying or implying something to the effect of "This is a traveling outfit I wear to blend in with other commoners because I don't want to stand out," then it becomes easier for the brain to accept the details as they come as they are simply corroborating evidence of the earlier statement that help to flesh out the mental picture, rather than just being a bunch of loose puzzle pieces that need to be assembled by the reader to gain understanding (Is this a priestly uniform for her job? No, probably not, priests don't wear tunics. Is she from a nearby village? Oh! The description of the sword means she probably doesn't know how to use it!)
For the description of the scenery in the fourth paragraph, I initially felt that you were simply describing a standard fantasy environment rather than describing a truly alien environment, so I wonder if you could make the characterization here a tad stronger. Like, I know you literally said it was alien, but I initially wrote that off as "Oh, maybe she's simply traveling and hasn't been to a place like this before" rather than it being a literal alien pocket dimension thing. Something to consider.
As for her rant in the fifth paragraph, I initially felt it was a few degrees too much, but again, like the second paragraph, I might have been negatively affected by not understanding the premise at this point so it was hard to contextualize her complaints to her situation.
I did like how you transitioned out of that paragraph to talking to Blanchefleur, who is just a horse doing horse things, which contrasts nicely with the very distraught Elise. It got a chuckle out of me, so good job.
I had written down a general note that everything seems too detailed, but again, in retrospect, I think that was mostly a result of the delayed premise thing. One example though of an area that was too detailed in spite of that was your description of analysis magic, especially as Elise will end up using it later in the chapter. I think you could have gotten away with simply saying that she used analysis magic to make sure the water was safe, and save for the description of it for when she casts it later. That's typically how you want to do that sort of worldbuilding anyways: start with the broad strokes (she can use magic, and analysis magic at that) and then come back in later on a second pass to fill in some more details (she uses a holy stone she summons to cast spells in general, the analysis magic looks like a bunch of tendrils called probes that go out and investigate things).
One issue I had with the full five chapters I read in general (spoilers ahead from this part on for any reviewers who might want to go into things somewhat blind) is that you never precisely explained what Maleficaras are or the threat they present to mortals. It was useful that you said "or other demons" in that seventh paragraph so I could at least assume an archetype, and I think that's all you need to say this early on I think, but I was hoping for some additional worldbuilding about them prior to their entrance into the story. I gather that they possess people and such, but are they born from the dark desires of mankind, or do they live in some civilization in these other worlds? What happens if they get into the mortal world? Can only saintesses fight them? A basic, if incomplete mental model of how they're supposed to work and their general rarity / threat level at some point would have been appreciated. I'll talk more about the issues that caused for me later, but I wanted to mention that now.
The two paragraphs concerning her backstory and adoption are tricky. My initial impression upon reading them was that they were too detailed for where we were at in this point in the story, but at the time I also didn't realize how immediately relevant her biological parent's situation was to this initial arc. Still, in the first one, there's a lot of fluff that could be slimmed down on, you've got at least three sentences / 65 words to describe how everyone would react to hearing her complaint which slowed down the paragraph without much benefit IMO. I also got confused by your initial usage of mama and papa to describe her aunt and uncle as opposed to mom and dad to describe her biological parents, I think it would have helped if you had said something like "I loved both my new Mama and Papa dearly, but I would've traded everything in a heartbeat to go back to my old life with my Mom and Dad." to better delineate the difference between the two.
I also notice you sort of told the backstory out of order, which makes sense considering your transition from the "I wish I had never been adopted" sentiment of the preceding paragraph, but I wonder if it would read more cleanly if it was re-engineered to be conveyed in a chronological, narrative format. "I lived with my mom and dad, they did fissure stuff for a living, they disappeared, I got adopted, only mom came back, I trained, I messed up, now we're here."
The 10 rules felt a bit much to absorb all at once, but you also did a decent job of reiterating them as they came up. I just wonder if there was a more flowing way to do it or spread things out. Small anecdotes to break them up helped, such as the one about how her mother would bring things back anyways.
You mentioned that Elise contacted her Mom using her holy stone. I wonder if there's an opportunity to write that conversation out in full in Chapter 1. It would be useful for providing some early characterization for her Mom in a very organic and natural way, provide another opportunity to talk about magic and its limitations, give natural hooks to spread out some of the narrative about her backstory and the 10 rules... there's a lot of benefits in my mind to having a scene like that after she and Blanche have a moment to collect themselves at the stream. Think about it, I think it would help things out a lot and vary it up so it isn't just her and the horse.
I found the dialogue where she addresses the world to be a little awkward, but it definitely adds some character to her. Just wonder if there's a smoother way to approach that, or at least convey an equivalent sentiment.
I wouldn't mind a tiny bit more worldbuilding about the holy stone she uses to cast her spell. Something to the equivalent of how she got it and how important it is. Especially since it seems like her powers are going to be stolen shortly it can be useful for the reader to have information on hand like "Oh, it was part of her soul, so she can't just go to Olivander's store of holy stones and pick up another one" or something along those lines.
I found the ending to Chapter 1 to be a bit abrupt, but at the moment I can't put my finger on what could be done to prevent it from being less abrupt.
I think I should try to read back through Chapters 2 and 5 again before I write up more detailed feedback for it. At a high level though, I felt that it was fast paced compared to Chapter 1 with a ton of dramatic reveals and events back to back and I wonder if that was the correct decision from a pacing standpoint, I'll need to think about that more but it felt a tad too fast when I first read it, I was reeling by the time Belial showed up and delivered a reveal that is, frankly, worthy of a volume climax. Some of the gaps in the worldbuilding, especially concerning the Maleficarum, also made it difficult to process or anticipate some of the developments. I'll write more details about that but didn't want to leave you with nothing after having read it, hope that tides you over.
Let me know if you have any questions or feedback about my feedback, I can use it to adjust when I type out the parts for Chapters 2 through 5 (I don't think they'll be as dense as the Chapter 1 stuff).
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Thank you both so very much for the incredibly detailed and helpful feedback, @strangeattractor and @Hylebos. I'm a bit under the weather today and not up to writing a detailed response to all of it atm, but please know I am truly and deeply grateful to you both.
@strangeattractor said in JNC Writing Group Review Thread - The Adopted Princess is Actually a Wayfarer of Worlds:
I feel like my feedback is a little on the harsh side, but I decided to voice some of the criticisms that I might usually hold back from saying, since you said that you want to get published and make money from writing, and want to know what may be holding you back from that.
Oh no, I don't want you or anyone else to hold back on telling me how I can make my work better. I'm nothing but grateful to you and everyone else for taking the time to help me become a better writer. Thanks so much for responding again and clarifying what you meant, especially when you're so busy. I will definitely try reworking the opening chapter with all this advice in mind.
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Alright, I have rewritten the first chapter based on the advice I've received here. If anyone would like to give me their thoughts, here it is:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mdTWzzKPvpJDgfuaqKpY9Syk8IzX2GtuaLY1mAgUJ3Y/edit
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Chapters 1 and 3 have now been edited to take feedback into account, and have been posted in the link above. Chapter 2 and 4 are included in the document, but have not been altered.
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Hi there. As someone who like the originals, I do think these new versions have slightly more 'personality' and verve. Nebulous feedback to be sure but I think the edits work well and the unique relationship between Elise and her mother is better demonstrated.
There is still a sense of place about the new chapters and the characters. The 'meat' of the story is slightly better cooked and the surrounding 'sauce' has a few more chillies to give it some punch (I should never review works before dinner).
Without going back and doing a comparison, this is basically based on my memory of the original and comparing it with versions now. Effectively, it feels stronger but that could be my memory cheating.
The new 'tightness' doesn't lose the storytelling but does help the reader trip along at a better pace. The first chapter in particular benefits from the tweaked pace.
Not that the previous version dragged - just that this is probably more 'commercial'/saleable. The hook or point of difference felt more pronounced in the latest edit.
You've definitely got something here so keep writing.
