/lit/ - Literature

I can't give you any advice, but I'm happy for you. Show us some excerpts?

You should have been querying since you started on draft 2

post some excerpts first

>>16901593
>>16901608
There we go! (chapter 1)
>https://pdfhost.io/v/Wf4HFCeYv_Chapter_1pdf.pdf
(board didn't let me submit the PDF directly here, so had to host it somewhere)

>>16901597
>You should have been querying since you started on draft 2
That's a bit too early, no? I wouldn't feel comfortable reaching out to a professional before even letting random people like family & friends reading it first

Though, this is my first writing ever and I'm not even sure it has any querying potential

>>16901673
Not really my thing so i can’t comment on the story. But you made a grammatical error on the second paragraph. It should be “Lord Fynhowl HAS” not HAVE.

>>16901673
not gonna lie, textually it's bland from the start, cant say anything about plot or characters as im not a fantasy expert. you seem to be new here so i'll compliment the map, it looks comfay

>>16901690
>It should be “Lord Fynhowl HAS” not HAVE
Thanks for pointing that out! Fixed

Also, I wonder how no one has noticed this before (including myself, after reading the whole thing so many times)

Also, any further comments/mistakes you can point out? I would love to hear thoughts on the story/flow/promise of the first chapter, but if all you can provide is grammar/writing feedback, I'll take that as well! :)

>>16901590
>>16901714
It's not really subtle to the point some bits are redundant or awkwardly said. I like how declarative it is considering the genre and I could read it more, you seem to have good ideas but some punctuation, grammar (again not technically bad but "horned head... horns" seems like it could be said once for better effect) and some cliches could maybe use some work. I don't think the cliches in showing the demoness is powerful is really bad but it makes you wonder if there's a more clever way to express it. I read a lot ln so this style really works with me and I'd be really interested to see your world-building and story progression play out.

>>16901842
Thanks man! That's good stuff

If you want to read a little more, here is chapter 2:
>https://pdfhost.io/v/krq31fTMy_Chapter_2pdf.pdf

>"horned head... horns" seems like it could be said once for better effect
Definitely! That kind of stuff is something I really tried to polish during my last revision, but there always a few of these that manage to sneak past me. I will take a look at this one specifically, but do feel free to pinpoint more examples like this!

>I don't think the cliches in showing the demoness is powerful is really bad but it makes you wonder if there's a more clever way to express it
Any specific thoughts on how to improve? Or maybe particular bits that you thought it is too much showing off?

>I'd be really interested to see your world-building and story progression play out
If you are truly interested, I can include you on the list for beta reading and send you the whole thing :) or we can take it slow and just dump a chapter at a time here, that's alright as well

bumping i guess

>>16901714
>The knight spat on
Is this really the first sentence?

>>16901673
I'm not gonna lie, I couldn't get past the first dialogue exchange

>Is that all you got, little knight?
Doesn't really sound like something a devil would say.
I would have expected him to not even acknowledge him as anything more than a pesky human, I think human might be even too much.
Otherwise I'm proud of you, keep up the good work.

>>16903157
>Is this really the first sentence?
Yes

>>16903188
That's unfortunate

>>16903411
>Is that all you got, little knight?
>Doesn't really sound like something a devil would say
She's not a devil/demon per se, but rather a "regular" person with demon blood. She has lived most of her life as a commoner, and she *hates* knights

>I'm proud of you, keep up the good work
Thanks! It takes a lot of time/effort, but I'm glad to have what I got

last bump

>>16901944
I passed out I'm enjoying it. I like the chapter lengths. The naming of the demons seems a bit out left-field for me. I like how the second chapter introduced them but I do think the tone is sorta flat. There's no real build-up. It mostly seems to be just a checklist of things to write in tone. I did enjoy meeting them. If I read further I'm sure they get tied together better. Are you posting this on a website? I'd read it from there if you are

>>16905137
Forgot to say I laughed at a few parts getting to meet them.

I'm not a writer and I can only give you my impression on the very first page. Feel free to either reflect upon this or dismiss it as pseud garbage.
The main issue I found in that page was the lack of conduciveness, fluidity; especially regarding the information you chose to present as the very beginning of the novel. Those first paragraphs should never present any particular information if they don't have the purpose of explaining it or if that information isn't deductible for a first time reader. That is, in the first pages, you should seek to explain simply and interestingly the very basic aspects of the things that exist in the given environment before you start creating complex relationships/interactions between these things, or else it feels flat, half cooked. Each fantasy world has its own definition of a knight, a witch or a demon, so I don't really know what you are talking about, and why you are detailing combat between unknown characters, or why it is the very first thing that happens in the story. I'll leave here an example of an introduction (Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451) that hooks the reader and presents things that are easily deductible for a first time reading, thus making it conducive, comfortable.

TL;DR: Explain everything you need to explain before you add any complexity.

Forgot to attach the fucking file

>>16905137
>>16905143
Hey man! Glad you are enjoying it so far :)

If you want to read a bit more, here it is:
>https://pdfhost.io/v/6x1Go9fRS_Chapters_3_4pdf.pdf

I can also drop larger chunks at a time if you prefer (I just feel like smaller ones are less overwhelming to read)

>The naming of the demons seems a bit out left-field for me
In what sense? Can you tell me which one you think is worse?

>the tone is sorta flat. There's no real build-up. It mostly seems to be just a checklist of things to write in tone
I tried to go a little bit more in depth into the characters because my beta readers felt like there was not much description about them in the first chapters, so I picked this one to do it. The in tone reflection does have a little bit more weight than just describing the characters

I do feel like I tend to turn things into "checklists" every now and then - I tried to tone that down during the last revision, but I get what you mean by that on chapter 2. Though I was hoping the fact that I break off the description of the MC into another scene could help in this regard

>Are you posting this on a website?
Unless this site/board/thread counts, no, not really. I'm ok in dumping bits here, and I'm also OK in sending you the whole thing directly if you would like, but unfortunately I don't have it readily available anywhere atm

But in this subject, are there any websites you recommend for this? Any you actively read stuff on?

>I laughed at a few parts getting to meet them
That's good I think! :)

>>16905273
Thanks for your thoughts, man!

>Explain everything you need to explain before you add any complexity
I consciously went on the other direction, which is to simply start off things and explain things on the run as we go. That is because I feel like it's a bit boring to start with a detailed description of who is who and what is what. So this approach is done by choice (which doesn't necessarily means it is a GOOD choice)

Nevertheless, it seems that while many novice fantasy readers struggles with too much info dumping in their first works, I fucked up on the opposite direction by not telling readers enough, at least in the previous version at least. On this one, I tried to put more emphasis in describing the demonkin both physically (as a race) as well as individually (as people)

>Each fantasy world has its own definition of a knight, a witch or a demon, so I don't really know what you are talking about
Definitely true. In fact, what means to be a knight was something that was very poorly addressed on the previous draft, simply because I assumed people would get it but like you said, it's not the same thing and people have different expectations unless stated otherwise

>why you are detailing combat between unknown characters
It is not really combat, though. The 1st scene starts literally after combat, which i skipped because a combat scene between unknown characters is indeed meh. But what I'm trying to show instead with that confrontation is that: there's demon-people, and they're being hunted down but they have powers and magic

But lastly, do note that the first few chapters do introduce/explain a lot more about the characters, what means to be a demonkin, what is the deal of knights, etc.

You should start the book with something more interesting than unknown character beats up other unknown character. We don't know why they're fighting and from what's written, I doubt anyone cares to find out

>>16905353
You can also release a chapter once or twice a week on Royal Road or Wattpad

>>16901714
Judging from this excerpt, the author needs to read more actual literature and watch less anime and play fewer video games. Keep writing but you’re at least three years from making anything readable.

>>16906298
This, the top writers make a lot on patreon.

>>16905353
Again I'm enjoying it and it's readable. I laughed more at the queen's conscious reflections. She seems to have a lot of room for character.
For demon names, I guess I'm not sure but swyzans comes out of left field. The names of the particular demons seems to fit with their character type but none seem to imply a swyzean name to me.
I do like the in-depth aspect and similarly as the names not seeming swyzean to me I don't see how the introductions of the characters seem to imply they are a group but rather a bunch of misfits, which isn't bad but I don't see how they come together. In tone I'd say the same thing, I don't see how any introduction implies a chapter two. It's like they're written separately then added to the existing dialogue. So far my favorite characters are the queen and Garn. I want to like Goat but he doesn't come off as an effective character even if he has his own personality.

Congratulations anon. I've just hit 102,000 words of my first draft (well actually I'm 300 words away but I'm literally writing around making this reply).

Do you think it's particularly important not to go over 120k words for debut? I have material actually planned out that could easily take me to 200k+ words, and un-fleshed ideas for several hundred thousand more beyond.

I'm wondering now if I should cut my story short soon (well not short, but end the first 'instalment' at a reasonable place) and save the rest for a sequel.

I suppose that would make working on my second draft and doing re-writes and edits far more manageable due to the decreased size, but I know it would absolutely bother me because the story would be unfinished.

>>16906298
>>16906420

RoyalRoad and Wattpad are okay, but each have their own drawbacks. It's extremely hard to get anything noticed on Wattpad, and though it's easier on RoyalRoad the culture of the site revolves almost entirely around isekai/wuxia/anime stuff to the point most genuinely good fiction on there goes criminally unnoticed.

>>16906455
Similar boat here. 200k before edits.

>113,569
This seems like a lot for your first novel and may be hard to publish at this size.

>>16901714
There's a lot to unpack here. It's not bad, but it's also not great. The most immediate thing that jumps out at me is that it seems like you are trying to force dramatic tension through cumbersome word choice, like the following passage:

>"Seizing opportunity while the demonkin were distracted, he drew a concealed knife out of his boot. Outspeeding his captors, he launched a final heroic attack against the demon-witch, aiming for her crimson neck."

Immediately the word outspeeding jumps out at me. It's just an awkward word to begin with, but also it doesn't make sense given the sentence before. The first sentence implies he's being sneaky and capitalizing on the demonkin's inattention, but outspeeding suggests he's somehow in a race against them. I found it very confusing and it felt like you were forcing a tension that wasn't genuinely there to begin with. Additionally, you're telling me the attack is final, heroic, etc. but these are qualities the reader should be attributing to the action rather than the writer (especially because in the next paragraph the attack fails, so it's not particularly final).

Also there are a lot of typos and grammatical errors. I think you should have someone closely proof read this vers.

>>16907442
Why would 113k be too much? #writingcommunity?

>>16901714
>Lord Fynhowl have raised
It's "has".
>Seizing opportunity while the demonkin were distracted
This sounds like a child thought of it. The three victims are at their mercy, you've established the demonkin have surrounded almost surrounded them, the witch literally speaking with the one bare moments before. Why would they be distracted?
>holding his wrist
Wrong verb.
>looked him in the eye for moment
for "a" moment. The following clause could be more poetic, "a single heartbeat", "the flutter of a bird" or some dumb shit like that.
>grabbed his neck
Fully picture the action. The guy "launched" an attack (giving the impression he has extended his arm at full length or was intercepted thereabouts). From what direction? How far was he? She then grabs him by the neck. Wouldn't a regular woman's arms be shorter in length than a man? Also, wouldn't the pose be awkward as fuck?
>Defeated, he looked back at her
Why would he look elsewhere? What was he looking at? The point of his knife?
>gave place for an agonizing sensation
ESL here, but I think it's gave place "to". Still, the whole sentence sounds a bit awkward.
>towards his head
Where in his head? His ears? The top? His eyes? From the neck to the head proper there's so little space in between it could be more precise.
>eyeballs burst out in boiling blood, leaving his head completely charred.
It could work a few better more gruesome image. Boiling blood, charred skull. What about smoke? a flame? bloody mist? Idk, but boiling and char (verb) sounds slightly contradictory.
>Resuming then her attention
Pretty sure that "then" is not needed, but I'm ESL so what do I know.

It's not that bad, but it's not great. Keep in mind you've described nothing of the setting for this scene, so it's hard to imagine if it's happening at midday, in the middle of a town, in a clear, a dungeon, etc. You don't have to be super descriptive, but a few details in all of those 500 or so words would help.

Seems like I got a few replies while I was passed out!

>>16906298
>>16906464
>You can also release a chapter once or twice a week on Royal Road or Wattpad
Yeah, those are the two I've heard of. I don't feel like sharing this novel online (at least not at the moment), but I could see myself specifically writing one for sharing on one of those sites

>>16906455
>Congratulations anon
Thanks!

>>16906455
>Do you think it's particularly important not to go over 120k words for debut?
>>16906677
>Similar boat here
>>16907578

Well, from my own perspective, which is very particular and unexperienced, at 128K I was afraid people would find it too long, but no one complained about that. On top of that, whenever I comment on wanting to reduce the word count, readers are like "rly? why?". So that is my personal opinion/perspective

Nevertheless, I watched a lot of videos about writing, and all videos I watched on this regard seems to consistently consider 100K to be the threshold for new debuts, with some genres (such as fantasy) going up to 120K. Simply put, you should be able to put together a decent story within that word count, and if you are going over the top it might mean your writing either have too much unnecessary stuff (from unnecessary paragraphs to unnecessary characters/subplots), or you are trying to go too big/epic to a point agents won't believe a debut author could successfully go

Though that opinion above is not mine per se, I find it reasonable and I've taken it to the heart

>>16907442
>113,569
See above. Simply put, my sources tell me that for a fantasy adult novel, the threshold is a bit higher and 113K is within the expected length for a debut.

>>16901714
unreadable trash but then i feel the same about most fantasy literature including your sacred cow that old faggot tolkein

happy for you as a writer anyway op

>>16907442
>There's a lot to unpack here
Thanks for your thoughts! I will review that sentence

>I think you should have someone closely proof read this vers
I'm going to do that today (Monday) after work by printing the whole thing, and then read it during the week, because reading on paper is a lot better to pick up specific stuffs, especially typos/etc

>>16908019
Thanks for your reply!

>Why would they be distracted?
Interesting! Originally it was "... distracted by their own laughter", but I felt that last part was obvious so I removed it. I guess it wasn't then, so I might put it back :)

>holding his wrist
>Wrong verb
What verb would you use here?

>for "a" moment
I tend to use "a moment" a bit too much, though I also feel like adding "poetry" into bits that don't need it seems a bit pretentious (at least that is what I got from the videos/tutorials I've watched about writing so far)

>Wouldn't a regular woman's arms be shorter in length than a man?
His arm holding the knife would be fully extended, with that arm's elbow being behind him
>wouldn't the pose be awkward as fuck?
See pic related

>What was he looking at? The point of his knife?
He was probably looking at his target (aka her neck). Then he looks at her as in her face/eyes

>You don't have to be super descriptive, but a few details in all of those 500 or so words would help
That's true. I'll try to do something about that!

>>16906325
>Judging from this excerpt, the author needs to read more actual literature and watch less anime and play fewer video games
Felt the same way lol, reads more like a video game script

>>16906420
Btw man, let me know if you read chapters 3 & 4, as well as if you would like to continue reading even further than that. But I can tell you I already greatly appreciate your interest so far :)

>Again I'm enjoying it and it's readable
That's good!

>none seem to imply a swyzean name to me
They don't have swyzan names, but rather common human names. That's because though they are visually/physically swyzans, they are a lot more human in their ways/culture/upbringing

>but rather a bunch of misfits
That's what they are :)

>but I don't see how they come together
They are a bit "forced" together, but the MC even recognizes this herself a few times through the book (on her own internal reflections). Basically, she's with them simply because she's out of options (since the humans hate her), so she ended up stuck with others of her kind (even if she doesn't personally like any of them)

>So far my favorite characters are the queen and Garn
That's good! All these other guys are very secondary compared to the MC, so it would be a big red flag if she was not among the ones liked. If I was to order the characters in order of how important they are, the 2nd and 3rd most important ones are still to appear (which puts the other guys like Garn, Goat & Davvos into the 4th and 5th slots of "character relevance")

>Goat but he doesn't come off as an effective character
What you mean by that? Honestly curious

>>16906455
>>16906677
>I'm wondering now if I should cut my story short soon
Forgot to bring that up, but if this is your 1st novel, my advice is to write it as it is, since it is highly unlikely you will get it published anyways, so you better just roll with it and see where it takes you. I personally wrote my 1st novel (this one) with the main goal of it being a writing exercise, and though I might try to query it to an agent later on, I wouldn't lose any sleep by never getting it published

I say this because I spent literally years trying to pick the best most awesome story to write my 1st novel, but never really getting to it. So instead I just decided to say "fuck it", and pick the easiest one to write (which was this one that I had a few chapters already), and get it done. With that one finished, I can finally address a little more interesting idea with hopefully better writing skills :D

>>16908348
>happy for you as a writer
Thanks!

>including your sacred cow that old faggot tolkein
Honestly, as a fantasy nerd, just wanted to let you know that not all of us are Tolkien worshippers. I personally feel like The Hobbit was quite a fun reading, but I'm pretty meh about Lord of the Rings itself

>>16906325
>you’re at least three years from making anything readable
I disagree to certain extend. "Readable" it was already on the previous version (which looking back was quite bad), as I got a substantial number of people to finish it. But, publishable/commercially readable... is a whole other thing

>>16908450
friend, be honest.. are you from reddit? in any case i'm glad you came here out of all places, despite the autism lit is arguably the best for free constructive criticism that doesnt dabble in ass-licking to avoid offending you or trying hard to force your text into what pooblishers find marketable

>>16907442
>you're telling me the attack is final, heroic, etc. but these are qualities the reader should be attributing to the action rather than the writer
Ah! Forgot to address this point

What is happening here is that I'm inserting the character's own thoughts into the narrative. For him (the knight), giving a final attack and killing the witch would be a super heroic act, even if he gets killed immediately afterwards. I think that is an important thing to bring up front because it's relevant to know why the bad guys are doing the bad things. For humans like him, they're the heroes and she's the monster

I do this quite a lot during the novel (inserting thoughts into the narrative), though 95%+ of the time it is from the MC's perspective (since the story follows mostly her POV)

>>16908459
>friend, be honest.. are you from reddit?
No, I'm not

4chan is the only online community I'm currently a part of, though I'm also not really from /lit/, but rather a nerd from /tg/. As you requested honesty, what I can tell you that I actively loathe most of the people in here (*), and I would probably feel more at home at other online communities, but this one is the one I know and I never bothered trying another one. Nevertheless, I do get decent feedback from here, especially after years of experience in how to extract it from the usual autistic screeching

>lit is arguably the best for free constructive criticism
I disagree (*). I mean, like I said, I don't have much experience with other communities so I don't know how bad they get, and I believe when people say there's a lot of ass-licking and circle-jerking and etc out there. Nevertheless, a HUGE chunk of people here think that "honest feedback" is about honesty, while totally forgetting about the "feedback" part. By that I mean that people will often bash you for the sake of "honesty", though a lot of times they are either trying too hard to attack you just for attacking, or/and they are not really contributing to anything. Basically, "this is a piece of shit" is not honest feedback, while "this is a piece of shit because A, B and C" can be

Though I admit this behavior triggers me a little, I've learned to look past it, so I barely feed the trolls now a days. There's still people out there trying to help, so I take what I can from people's post and ignore the autistic rants

But I like to be nice, polite and use an ocasional ":)", and I don't care if people think that's not "how we speak in 4chan". I remember getting shit about it like 8 years ago when I first posted stuff here (*) about my novel's setting, and it is probably why people often think i'm from reddit or whatever

Also, apologies for the venting, as none of that has anything to do with you specifically. I admittedly do have a lot of unresolved issues from the thread(s) I'm a regular of

(*) => my view of the standard 4channer nerd is mostly from /tg/, so the users here on /lit/ could potentially be different. Though I've wandered into other boards, and the types seem to be quite consistent throughout the entire forum

>>16901590
>fantasy

>>16909076
>wants to write fiction
>can't world build

>>16908490
>What is happening here is that I'm inserting the character's own thoughts into the narrative. For him (the knight), giving a final attack and killing the witch would be a super heroic act, even if he gets killed immediately afterwards.

Just understand that this isn't immediately clear to the reader. When I read through the first chapter I don't feel it's being told from any characters perspective, it just seems like typical omniscient third person. I think if you want to go down this route than you need to make the perspective more subjective and emotional, because right now it isn't that.

>>16901673
ngl who am i supposed to be interested in
the only thing it made me feel is hatred for demons
i hope you gave them a painful and agonising end

>>16901673
>he launched a final heroic attack
If this is a pattern in your writing, you're going to have a problem. I'm not normally much of a rule stickler but the "show, don't tell" is one I observe strictly at almost all times. It's one thing to say an attack is heroic, but the problem is that when you don't demonstrate it the reader essentially has to just take you at your word that what is happening is actually heroic. If you want to show that something is, do everything except call it heroic. What you want is to write the heroic act on a way that the only possible interpretation is heroism.

>>16909076
All fiction literature is fantasy, you dumb cuckold.

>>16910323
>semantics
Obviously he meant the fantasy genre, you sperg

>>16910086
That seems a reasonable point/argument. I think it contrasts with this other sentence (also from chapter 1):
>Just a few more inches and she would be choking on her own black blood, he thought as he pushed harder
The big/obvious difference then being that on this other one, I explicitly say this is the guy's thoughts

With this in mind, I will probably reformulate the other one to be like that, or maybe simply remove any subjectivity from it entirely. Thanks for insisting on this one!

>>16910179
>i hope you gave them a painful and agonising end
That's a lot of anger, man. But yeah, I did ;)

>>16910243
>he launched a final heroic attack
> "show, don't tell"
This is something entirely different, anon. You can read the first bit of this post as I reply to another anon about this. But summing it up, this bit is the knight's own thoughts inserted into the narrative. IMO opinion it is actually more a "show" because it is showing how the knight perceives that killing the demon-witch would make him a hero, even if he dies right afterwards. The "tell" version would be "he launched an attack, hoping to kill the demon as that would make him a hero, regardless of what happens next", or something like that

Nevertheless, that sentence has other problems and will probably get changed

>If this is a pattern in your writing
>What you want is to write the heroic act on a way that the only possible interpretation is heroism
I just Ctrl+F-ed my manuscript and I can tell you that besides that bit, I have 0 instances of the word "heroic", and 3 of the word "hero", though none of them are used to narratively describe a character or their actions

So yeah, that's definitely not a pattern :) it was just a random occurrence that probably don't even belong in the book anyways

>>16910500
>That's a lot of anger, man. But yeah, I did ;)
cheers lad
'ate demons
keep us posted
i'mma buy it if it's like under 20 euro shekels

>>16910500
>>16901714
This may sound unnecessarily harsh, but I routinely critique fiction as a job and have been doing so for years.

It seems to me like you're unwilling to look at your writing as a whole, which is understandable since you've clearly put a lot of work into this. People are giving you valid criticism and you're accepting it, but only enough for their advice to be rendered situational as opposed to symptomatic. I see this a lot when I am reviewing people's work, because it means that they have to revisit the piece as a whole (which requires a lot more effort and honesty) instead of just revisiting the one or two lines that are mentioned as an example.

You're explaining a scene that is meant to be rich with action and tension, without really stopping to show the reader why they should even care. How can a reader become invested in the knight or his attempt to kill his captors without really knowing anything about the character or the scene. What is at stake? Who is affected? Why do we care? How could we ever care?

You're talking about how the story is written from the pov of a character, but that doesn't make sense because that character dies immediately. Literally in the first page. The reader would rightfully never assume that it's being told from the knight's perspective. Because of this, the narration itself is hard to follow because it's continuously crossing a line between objectivity and subjectivity - is this game of thrones or is this the odyssey?

You're talking about showing, not telling, but you're literally telling us how to feel about your characters. It's one thing if a character says, in quotations, "he's heroic" but it's another thing when the narrator, whoever that may be, calls a character heroic. Again, going back to the first point, the reader has no basis to judge this statement since there's absolutely no pretext to the action.

I think you have everything there, in terms of the narrative action, but overall the piece needs a solid top-to-bottom rewrite wherein you appreciate the subtext and reader's journey a little more. As it reads right now, I feel like I'm privy to a story that is meant to matter more to the storyteller than the listener.

>>16910595
>'ate demons
DESU, I'm not super keen on them either. I just decided to write the novel about them because that was the story I had most planned at the time, so I thought it was better to roll w/ it rather than start from scratch

>keep us posted
Later today I'm going to print the manuscript so I can make a last revision before sharing this version with other people. After that (probably by the end of the week) I will send it to 8~10 people to read it

In fact, if anyone want to beta read it, please feel free to let me know. I'm OK with sharing the whole thing, and I'll be making a Kindle version as well for those who have one

>i'mma buy it if it's like under 20 euro shekels
I honestly don't have high hopes for publishing, but thanks for the kindness!

>>16910742
>I'm OK with sharing the whole thing
just make sure you don't get fucked by first time publishing laws or some shit
i don't know much but i heard it's some kinda big deal, would be happy if some anon could shed some light on the subject

>>16910781
>make sure you don't get fucked by first time publishing laws or some shit
What you mean? I'm not publishing anything, I'm simply sharing a manuscript. Also, I don't plan on doing it publicly

>>16911041
then it don't matter anon
keep on doing you and IMPROOVING

>>16911041
I'm not sure of the legality, but I've always heard that most publishers won't pickup a book if it has already been circulated online in some major form, even for the purpose of critique. I've never heard of this actually being practiced, so it may just be a pub rumor.

>>16910725
>This may sound unnecessarily harsh
It didn't, and I greatly appreciate the feedback

>seems to me like you're unwilling to look at your writing as a whole
>(which requires a lot more effort and honesty)
I strongly disagree. In fact, I just spent the last 2+ months doing EXACTLY that. After I sent the previous version to beta readers, I put together all the feedback I got, then I sat down with my friend and we discussed the entire thing thoroughly

That means that not only we made big changes like removing entire characters/subplots/scenes/chapters, but I also went through the entire novel and rewrote every single paragraph. Took me forever to get through the entire thing, but I did visit every single sentence and every single word. Rewrote entire scenes, while also writing entirely new chapters. It was a HUGE amount of modifications, and it affected the entirety of the novel

So not only I'm willing to do that kind of thing, but I also think that's key for making a decent novel

HOWEVER, I'm definitely NOT going to do that right now, for the following reasons:
>1) Since I just did it, it doesn't make sense to do it again without first getting a new batch of beta readers/feedback
>2) I'm exhausted, and push myself into it all over again would certainly take a tool on my sanity, my relationship or/and my job
>3) I'm not sure it's worth it. There's only so much you can polish a project, so I'm not sure if it makes sense to carry on working on the same thing over and over again rather than just start it fresh and work on a brand new project

Who knows what I'll do in a few months, but for now, I certainly need some months away from this project. Small modifications are fine, but for big-ass modifications, best thing I can do is add it to my backlog of things to review (if I ever do another major review)

Just printed (pic related) this bad boy for a last proofreading before I send it out to my beta readers!

>>16913202
>The Forbidden Forest
Rolling my eyes rn

>>16901673
Not to be mean but this is pretty bad, hopefully you’re having fun doing it though
Best of luck