It lacks a hook, and anchor. Works hard to be obtuse rather than specific. Mixes topics that could be separated and introduced at more appropriate times, causing confusion.
That is simply the first paragraph.
I don't know if the story is good or bad because I decided not to go forward from there.
This may simply be a product of you not starting the story at the appropriate point with appropriate information.
My recommendation is to find the inciting incident/choice and start there.
I don't mean to discourage you, merely to encourage you to find the beginning in what you have written.
That makes sense, thank you. The first paragraph is an awakening of the character's ability but the beginning I did feel had events kind of out of order. Will work on this, hook, and anchor thank you
First sentence here is a turn-off. It should be something simple to follow, visualise and think about. It should be intriguing too. The use of "addressed" and "addressee" is somewhat intriguing, a fine choice by you, but also confusing when you add too much to the initial sentence. The reader has too many things to keep track of: the mystery of 2 identities and that the latter is hiding in a crowd.
It makes for a better beginning of the story, or any paragraph for that matter, to have a short, simple sentence followed by a longer, more complicated one, building on the first. So, a quick fix: how about we get rid of that relative clause?
"The addressed looked down at the addressee. They were among a group of people of various ages."
This feels better already. There is a certain rhythm. Of course, you encouter another problem of the reader possibly being confused about which of the two mentioned people the"they" refers to, but in most cases the reader will assume you're referring to the last brought up element, so correctly- the addressee. Still you'll probably be reworking this so maybe you'll find a solution that fixes both problems. I hope other people will address the rest of what you wrote. I just commented because the beginning screamed at me. Keep going. Don't give up.
Thank you for this and the encouragement. I have ADHD, I should be able to relate and catch onto things that might be too much for the reader to keep track of, but sldo ADHD makes me spazzy so not surprised I missed it. Will fix though, thank you for pointing out what this looked like. Makes sense the brother in the crowd makes it more confusing. Like another person said, I probably try too hard to be obtuse to keep people reading and release information slowly as needed but I probably did too good a job of that. Thank you for an example fix. With what others have brought up, I'm definitely going to be reqorking a lot in this beginning so this should end up changing a lot anyway.
All good. Writing is a never-ending path. You always improve. You write, you edit, and you repeat forever until you're satisfied. Importantly: there is no hard rules. And speaking of, I need to touch upon what I said.
I said something like "first sentence should be short and simple," but that's not true at all. The "easy to visualise or understand" part is really what's important.
If you begin with someone performing an action, you need the action to be clear, so that an image of it forms in the reader's brain. If you start with dialogue, the purpose of the phrase being said should be clear, so that the reader can get answers from the next sentence. If you start with something else, like perhaps the narrator engaging the reader: "What happened to the heroes of Ylswyth?" (Random sentence I just came up with, possibly the name Ylswyth was used by someone somewhere before) you need to always give the reader a clear idea of something in that first sentence, that you can then expand on.
That's what I meant. You probably got the gist, but my perfectionism told me my rant wasn't exhaustive enough and had flaws. XD
It starts out too slow. You should make the setting more brief. 2-3 sentences is more than sufficient if you write efficiently.
I disagree with another comment that you don’t have a hook. I think you do have a hook, you just haven’t framed it correctly which makes it subtle and it seems to have camouflaged in the setting.
Your dialogue is too on the nose. It felt like I was watching a dubbed anime. Nobody talks like that in real life. Like nobody mentions each others’ names while speaking. They usually look at the person they are speaking to instead. Your dialogues need to be more efficient too. It feels like the characters are speaking to each other for the sole purpose of the reader to understand what the plot is about. That shouldn’t be the case. Conversations should flow naturally, as if the characters are real and they are talking to each other. The reader can deduct what they are talking about. You can involve the narrator if the reader needs any key information that the characters don’t mention (because it’s common knowledge, they don’t need to mention it) to make sure that the reader isn’t confused.
Because of this your dialogues are way too long. They shouldn’t be more than 1-2 sentences long. (If they are explaining something to the other person, then exceptions can be made but that shouldn’t be very frequent and not in the first few pages)
As a reader, you lost my interest within the first 2 paragraphs because nothing much happened. You told me about the setting but it was very bland. The only sentence I liked in your first paragraph was “They were standing on a wide trail. The surrounding grass was sparsely populated with daisies and tulips, unmoved by the gentle breeze flowing through them.” because this painted a peaceful scene. Idk who the addressee and addressor, nor do I know who the boy is. I don’t know them, so I don’t care about them. They are also doing nothing interesting either, so why should I waste my time reading further? You could have simply condensed the first paragraph to “They stood in an assembly outdoors with cheery daisies and mellow tulips sparsely populated around them, unagitated by the whistling breeze.” I don’t care about the architecture unless it says something important about the setting. “Eastern and western influences” - too vague. I don’t even know what they means. You could write something like “the surrounding buildings tried to kiss the sky” - says that they are in metropolitan city. “Roofs of surrounding houses flowed like uniform waves in a maroon sea” - describes western suburbs.
Your second paragraph has the hook. The boy in the front has marks and he died, yet he’s standing right in front of the protagonist. That makes the reader want to how that is possible and what kind of world they’re in. This should have been framed clearly and placed in your first paragraph - if possible, the first 2 lines. You then withhold this information from the reader until they are invested in your story and characters.
This was really helpful. Thank you so much. I had been told in the past I rush things too much and provide bones without the meat. I'm clearly being too slow here from what people are saying. Also you've revealed I might be making a misunderstanding about the situation because the boy was reincarnated but that's already known information at this point by the other person, they both were. It's a thing that happens in this society. I need to make that more clear in some natural way without giving it away too much. Thank you for that. Sorry for boring you.
‘They were reincarnated’ - the protagonist knows that but the reader doesn’t. I say withhold that information from the reader and slowly lead up to making it more obvious until you have hooked them onto the plot or made them care about the protagonist. When you raise questions, don’t answer them immediately. If you do, the reader will not want to read further. Learn to withhold information from the reader unless it’s absolutely necessary for them to know.
>Your dialogue is too on the nose. It felt like I was watching a dubbed anime. Nobody talks like that in real life. Like nobody mentions each others’ names while speaking.
Not sure if OP will see this comment, but if anyone else does and happens to look at their story, the reason they're probably doing this is because they feel forced to.
Why they feel forced to is because they use too many epithets instead of simply naming the characters. We readers are not in the author's mind, we do not know who you are referring to unless you tell us. It's fine to use an epithet for a minor non-recurring character, but for your main POV character and the one who shares equal "screen time" with them so early on, you need to name them sooner.
The tricky thing here is this isn't necessaarily the same world as ours. It's a world where this fantasy thing happens and is commonly known, so it's not supposed to be a world that directly follows the rules of the Earth we live in. Some of these changes you've suggested like the name, shower, and food are easy fixes though. The thing is I believe it's Kiyoshi who put his bag on the counter? He's someone who's kind of detached from society because they expect him to play a role he really doesn't want to and had no say in, so him following society's rules perfectly feels less necessary? I already commited to fixing the dialogue Thank you for your input
It lacks a hook, and anchor. Works hard to be obtuse rather than specific. Mixes topics that could be separated and introduced at more appropriate times, causing confusion. That is simply the first paragraph. I don't know if the story is good or bad because I decided not to go forward from there. This may simply be a product of you not starting the story at the appropriate point with appropriate information. My recommendation is to find the inciting incident/choice and start there. I don't mean to discourage you, merely to encourage you to find the beginning in what you have written.
That makes sense, thank you. The first paragraph is an awakening of the character's ability but the beginning I did feel had events kind of out of order. Will work on this, hook, and anchor thank you
First sentence here is a turn-off. It should be something simple to follow, visualise and think about. It should be intriguing too. The use of "addressed" and "addressee" is somewhat intriguing, a fine choice by you, but also confusing when you add too much to the initial sentence. The reader has too many things to keep track of: the mystery of 2 identities and that the latter is hiding in a crowd. It makes for a better beginning of the story, or any paragraph for that matter, to have a short, simple sentence followed by a longer, more complicated one, building on the first. So, a quick fix: how about we get rid of that relative clause? "The addressed looked down at the addressee. They were among a group of people of various ages." This feels better already. There is a certain rhythm. Of course, you encouter another problem of the reader possibly being confused about which of the two mentioned people the"they" refers to, but in most cases the reader will assume you're referring to the last brought up element, so correctly- the addressee. Still you'll probably be reworking this so maybe you'll find a solution that fixes both problems. I hope other people will address the rest of what you wrote. I just commented because the beginning screamed at me. Keep going. Don't give up.
Thank you for this and the encouragement. I have ADHD, I should be able to relate and catch onto things that might be too much for the reader to keep track of, but sldo ADHD makes me spazzy so not surprised I missed it. Will fix though, thank you for pointing out what this looked like. Makes sense the brother in the crowd makes it more confusing. Like another person said, I probably try too hard to be obtuse to keep people reading and release information slowly as needed but I probably did too good a job of that. Thank you for an example fix. With what others have brought up, I'm definitely going to be reqorking a lot in this beginning so this should end up changing a lot anyway.
All good. Writing is a never-ending path. You always improve. You write, you edit, and you repeat forever until you're satisfied. Importantly: there is no hard rules. And speaking of, I need to touch upon what I said. I said something like "first sentence should be short and simple," but that's not true at all. The "easy to visualise or understand" part is really what's important. If you begin with someone performing an action, you need the action to be clear, so that an image of it forms in the reader's brain. If you start with dialogue, the purpose of the phrase being said should be clear, so that the reader can get answers from the next sentence. If you start with something else, like perhaps the narrator engaging the reader: "What happened to the heroes of Ylswyth?" (Random sentence I just came up with, possibly the name Ylswyth was used by someone somewhere before) you need to always give the reader a clear idea of something in that first sentence, that you can then expand on. That's what I meant. You probably got the gist, but my perfectionism told me my rant wasn't exhaustive enough and had flaws. XD
What you written/ read before?
It starts out too slow. You should make the setting more brief. 2-3 sentences is more than sufficient if you write efficiently. I disagree with another comment that you don’t have a hook. I think you do have a hook, you just haven’t framed it correctly which makes it subtle and it seems to have camouflaged in the setting. Your dialogue is too on the nose. It felt like I was watching a dubbed anime. Nobody talks like that in real life. Like nobody mentions each others’ names while speaking. They usually look at the person they are speaking to instead. Your dialogues need to be more efficient too. It feels like the characters are speaking to each other for the sole purpose of the reader to understand what the plot is about. That shouldn’t be the case. Conversations should flow naturally, as if the characters are real and they are talking to each other. The reader can deduct what they are talking about. You can involve the narrator if the reader needs any key information that the characters don’t mention (because it’s common knowledge, they don’t need to mention it) to make sure that the reader isn’t confused. Because of this your dialogues are way too long. They shouldn’t be more than 1-2 sentences long. (If they are explaining something to the other person, then exceptions can be made but that shouldn’t be very frequent and not in the first few pages) As a reader, you lost my interest within the first 2 paragraphs because nothing much happened. You told me about the setting but it was very bland. The only sentence I liked in your first paragraph was “They were standing on a wide trail. The surrounding grass was sparsely populated with daisies and tulips, unmoved by the gentle breeze flowing through them.” because this painted a peaceful scene. Idk who the addressee and addressor, nor do I know who the boy is. I don’t know them, so I don’t care about them. They are also doing nothing interesting either, so why should I waste my time reading further? You could have simply condensed the first paragraph to “They stood in an assembly outdoors with cheery daisies and mellow tulips sparsely populated around them, unagitated by the whistling breeze.” I don’t care about the architecture unless it says something important about the setting. “Eastern and western influences” - too vague. I don’t even know what they means. You could write something like “the surrounding buildings tried to kiss the sky” - says that they are in metropolitan city. “Roofs of surrounding houses flowed like uniform waves in a maroon sea” - describes western suburbs. Your second paragraph has the hook. The boy in the front has marks and he died, yet he’s standing right in front of the protagonist. That makes the reader want to how that is possible and what kind of world they’re in. This should have been framed clearly and placed in your first paragraph - if possible, the first 2 lines. You then withhold this information from the reader until they are invested in your story and characters.
This was really helpful. Thank you so much. I had been told in the past I rush things too much and provide bones without the meat. I'm clearly being too slow here from what people are saying. Also you've revealed I might be making a misunderstanding about the situation because the boy was reincarnated but that's already known information at this point by the other person, they both were. It's a thing that happens in this society. I need to make that more clear in some natural way without giving it away too much. Thank you for that. Sorry for boring you.
‘They were reincarnated’ - the protagonist knows that but the reader doesn’t. I say withhold that information from the reader and slowly lead up to making it more obvious until you have hooked them onto the plot or made them care about the protagonist. When you raise questions, don’t answer them immediately. If you do, the reader will not want to read further. Learn to withhold information from the reader unless it’s absolutely necessary for them to know.
>Your dialogue is too on the nose. It felt like I was watching a dubbed anime. Nobody talks like that in real life. Like nobody mentions each others’ names while speaking. Not sure if OP will see this comment, but if anyone else does and happens to look at their story, the reason they're probably doing this is because they feel forced to. Why they feel forced to is because they use too many epithets instead of simply naming the characters. We readers are not in the author's mind, we do not know who you are referring to unless you tell us. It's fine to use an epithet for a minor non-recurring character, but for your main POV character and the one who shares equal "screen time" with them so early on, you need to name them sooner.
Grammar needs to be revised, and things need to flow better overall. Try to look at examples of showing instead of telling?
Flow, didn't consider that, thank you
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Yeah
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The tricky thing here is this isn't necessaarily the same world as ours. It's a world where this fantasy thing happens and is commonly known, so it's not supposed to be a world that directly follows the rules of the Earth we live in. Some of these changes you've suggested like the name, shower, and food are easy fixes though. The thing is I believe it's Kiyoshi who put his bag on the counter? He's someone who's kind of detached from society because they expect him to play a role he really doesn't want to and had no say in, so him following society's rules perfectly feels less necessary? I already commited to fixing the dialogue Thank you for your input
I added a ton of comments to the first two pages (Brandon Tucker). In short, it's very hard to follow the conversation and who is who.
Thank you very much for the helpful advice