Reviewer: newmark42 Signed [Report This]
Date: October 12 2015 12:34 PM Title: Chapter 1

I just read chapter 1, and sampled some of the last chapter. It's clear you've put an incredible amount of work into this story, and so far the plot elements are quite intriguing. However, the prose is a bit hard to read in its current state. 

I'm going to provide some constructive criticism, which I hope you find useful. You clearly have no trouble writing prose, what the story needs is a ton of editing. Make more passes yourself, or find someone who can help you edit your stories (I volunteer, newmark42 at gmail.com). Besides fixing grammatical mistakes, here are some other improvements which I think could make this or future stories much easier to read:

Avoid repeating the same word or phrase too frequently. As just one example, in chapter 1 you use the word "forest" far too much. At one point, you use it six times in two paragraphs. The reader knows they are in the forest. Usually these types of repitions can be completely removed by phrasing differently.

Avoid jumping around with short micro-chapters, or micro-POV changes. They hurt reader flow and make it hard to follow what is happening, and more importantly, *why* it is happening.

Less is more. If the words or events are not essential to advance the story or characters in the eyes of the *reader*, considering cutting them or having them occur "off-screen". Much like the word-repitition, there is soo much concept repitition in the eyes of the reader. For example, when Maria smells Joseph, you tell us she's memorizing his scent, then a moment later she tells Joseph in dialog that she was memorizing his scent. We only needed one of these. This kind of duplication adds up and hurts flow. Reading a 750k word epic is awesome, but reading a 200k word story in 750k words is laborious.

 

Reviewer: Kusanagi Signed [Report This]
Date: May 27 2014 8:01 AM Title: Chapter 10

Think now's as agood a time as any to post a review. Noticed this story on some of the other places I frequent and never took the time to read, so I felt now was as good a time as any. Just finished chapter 10, so not even close to halfway through it, really finding myself getting attached to the character and setting. Very solid foundation here.

There are a few quirks to get used to, chapters not being chapters so much as dialogue bleeds over into the next one. Nor are there many times where a chapter could end. Given these early chapters were written a while ago it not be an issue. A few consistent typos wrest instead of rest, and ideal instead of idea but those are minor too.

One thing though that I hope is decreased going forward are Joseph's exposition moments. Moments where he talks to a sister or brother and has a lengthy Q/A session. While it's good for establishing the world at times it might be better to show and not tell. Still as you said the writing style will likely change so maybe that element will as well.

 

Author's Response:

I hope that it isn't appearing too many places. I once posted my stories just about everywhere I could but then came to think that was poor behavior so i restricted it to a few sites.  I'm glad that you're liking the characters enough to continue reading. It's quite a bit to read.

True about the issues with the earlier chapters. Well the chapters here aren't really spaced how I normally space them anyway. On my deviantart account the story is actually sectioned into 12 page chunks instead of 30. Plus I like to believe I've improved my writing throughout this story. If I have the later chapters should read more smoothly.

I can't remember the story perfectly but I'm not sure if that changes. One thing about writing a story with so many characters is the massive amount of information there is to get across. If I showed everytime instead of telling the story would have taken even longer to write.

Reviewer: gadgetmawombo Signed [Report This]
Date: May 22 2014 5:49 PM Title: Chapter 1

I don't know dude, this story is REALLY good but I think youd get more people interested if you paced the updates instead of uploading in large chunks. The only reason I even read this when I saw the word count was because it was YOU writting it, and I've been a big fan. Otherwise I would have seen the word count and been like "yeah, I don't got time to read all that..."

I just think most people on this site, myself included, get REALLY intimidated when we see 300,000 plus words. If you paced the updates, like say: a chapter a day or something I think people would be more inclined to read it, and even give you feedback on a per-chapter basis.

This story deserves the attention, but I'm not sure your gonna get it by updating in large, intimidating chunks like this. Of course that depends on whether or not you care about that kind of thing. It shouldn't be that way but these are just things I've noticed from being on this site for a long time.

Author's Response:

You're probably correct but I get the bulk of my feed back from my deviantart account. This story has been finished for several months now actually and I only just recently began to post it here. I wasn't sure if I should due to the very slow rate at which Maria grows. Plus this story does delve a bit into my interest in super fems.

With most of the stories I posted here I had to wait quite a while for feed back so I became use to it. Plus I feel like a bit of a jerk when I keep one of my stories on the front page by posting slowly. Posting several stories feels pretty awkward as well. Feels like I'm taking up too much advertisement.

Reviewer: Jimbob Signed [Report This]
Date: May 22 2014 9:05 AM Title: Chapter 1

Chapter 2 could really use some formatting. It's just a giant wall of text and is really hard to read.

Author's Response:

Thanks for letting me know. I hate it when that happens. Several chapters were messed up for some reason which is odd as they all came from the same document.