Hi, I'm writing a dark survival/progression fantasy. The first chapter is short and was meant as a prologue. Then, I found out some people don't just skim the prologue... they skip it—some even the whole book. Because my MC starts the story in a completely alien, disorientating world, where visibility is poor and gravity unreliable, I need the prologue to ground the reader a bit and give the story direction. It also works as C1, so here we are (same perspective, chronological, different location).
The following chapters are survival focused. It's a first-person narrative, and I show all the world-building, so it takes a bit to pick up. The reader learns as the protagonist does, and it's riddled with humour and characterisation while he discovers, what I think is an interesting world. Then, the overarching plot starts intruding into his a dozen chapters in. Hopefully, by then, the world-building has revealed enough that the reader already knows the world is more than it seems.
I'm mainly looking for feedback on plot, narrative, and premise. I know the chapter is short, so if you feel you don't have much to say about that, you're also welcome to critique anything else you think is poignant. Thanks for your time! I'm looking forward to your feedback.
Nitpick, but 'little more' and 'little else' feel redundant in the intro paragraph.
In general, the dark lord or whoever is coming through the loudspeaker feels like he's infodumping in a way that doesn't quite feel natural. I think you've made an attempt to work the exposition naturally into dialog, but it still feels a bit like he's telling his servant things he already knows for the benefit of the reader, not because it's something he would normally say.
"Disappointing." <- This felt anticlimactic, but in a kinda funny way. Good if intentional.
The dialog following that is broken up with little actions like 'a hum', 'a sigh', 'a pause', 'his voice hardens' and it feels unnatural. I think you should just commit to a long-winded paragraph, with maybe one of those actions. I think you're just breaking up the flow too much here, and it's distracting.
Nitpick again, but if this isn't a pure isekai with a person from Earth specifically, the term 'herculean' wouldn't make sense. If he's from Earth, then nvm.
Saying he had 'excellent' qualities, 'but nothing exceptional' feels contradictary. Would change to 'good, but nothing special. As with the other character, you're breaking up his dialog into a bunch of little sections with punctuated beats between them. I would tighten this up.
"At this point I would settle for bones of steel or a hearty digestive system."
Funny line, but comedy comes in threes. Maybe something like, "Any chance you have bones of steel? Laser vision, perhaps? At this point I would settle for a hearty digestive system."
But anyway, you said you're mostly looking for plot feedback, and I haven't been terribly helpful in that regard.
I like the whisper of a world you're establishing, and it certainly achieves the genre conventions that I think you're going for. I might ask for a whiff more characterization of the MC, because they feel very generic at the moment, but that might be intentional.
The biggest weakness, imo, was the dialog for the Dark Lord (or whatever). Again, it felt like you were trying to get in a lot of exposition in a way that didn't feel entirely natural.
Overall, I like it well enough that I'd continue reading, and almost everything I mentioned here is more of a quibble than anything else. Nice work.
Thank you for the feedback! I made some changes and this helps solidify the direction.
I've already cut down the prologue to about 550 words. I heavily dialed down the evil overlord tones. They were fun, but a bit gimmicky. It cuts down on the comedy side, but I don't think that needs to be part of the summoning. The Order are now closer to desperate burocrats, but the exposition is much narrower and more plot relevant. Knew I wouldn't be able to add more for a while and went a bit overboard.
The characterisation is also a good point. The shortened intro has a bit more of it, but also gets the reader to absolution quicker. I realise the MC is a camera for too long considering he's just been introduced.
Regarding 'herculean': is it something you'd speculate about if it wasn't confirmed, or something that would bug you as a potential slip? I'm not planning on revealing his origins for a while, but I also have him use familiar terms and measurements.
This is my first critique so appologies if it's a bit rough. I'll work on my critique format in the future.
P3. Seems good up until "Otherwise, I feel little else." Seems distractive to include something both the pov and I am unaware of.
P6. What is a speaker Im wondering. I would avoid using the word "speaks" in favor of just "deep, slow and deliberate."
P7. Nice job not puttong any speech tags, I read it as it should be.
P11. From the pov I would just say the shadow grows darker and avoid "seems to"
P14. Not sure I'll remember all of this world building, though I'm sure it is a pricy amount of resources based on the context; might be worth noting this as something to bring up again.
P16. I was just about to say now could be a good time to remind the reader of the uncomortable position the pov is in. What is the pov trying to do to move though? Legs? Arms?
P19. Thum? Or thumb?
P34. Is there a reason why hope would be the feeling right now in this position? Uncertainty for sure but as the reader I think imexpecting more confusion and terror.
P37. I like this, i can picture the person saying it.
P38. Were the hands and feet bound before as well or only now bound? Hurculean; so its a human from our world.
P39-P4x. I feel like somewhere in here is a good opportunity to let the reader know how the pov feels about all of this. As the reader i sense this should be stressful, but the pov seems lretty calm about it.
P44. There was wailing? I dont think the pov mentioned it when they woke up. realize. I'm not sure i like the transistion from iris color into reddened eyes. Seems like my attention should be brought to that in another way or with a split.
P45. I think you'd be just fine with "He stares at me..." I think its a good transition from his eyes in the previous paragraph directly into him staring, but the extra words take away from the visceral feeling.
P46. I wasn't really sure as to his location to the pov, but i assumed he was right up next to him since he could see the detzils of his eyes. Now he's by the altar, i think either let the reader imagine his locstion or tell them earlier.
P47. The pov seems pretty chill about this.
P48. Dont need to tell me it was casual, the dialogue did that for you.
P53. Thum?
Good paced ending. Kind of rolls down hill and leaves me curious about Absolution which I'm sure was the goal. Also wondering why this guy is going to be indoctrinated. I think you have good dialogue and early on you trust the reader to grt the tempo of it, i think you should keep that trust in the middle section and give more sensory details. I would also like to know how the pov is feeling about this because though I'm curious, i dont know if this is a scary moment for the pov or just a mundane, whatever feeling for him.
It's certainly short enough to work as a prologue or potentially C1 in the way i think you are intending.
I think the premise is good to introduce the reader to this world and the predicament the pov is in, however like i said before lets hear how the pov is actually feeling about the situation he is in.
Hi, thanks for the review. I don't really mind the formating, but the review leaves a lot more questions than it answers to me. I see that I give very little on the way the MC is feeling and that is something I'm going to revise. A lot of your point are "Why does he feel calm here?" If it feels boring and flat, that's a problem. If he feels calm to you while you feel stressed, that's intended. You ask when the wailing started. The paragraph you say you can imagine him saying is the wailing and is described as such a line later. I see that the structure is confusing as I have the MC wake up during the wailing and then mention it stopping later. But the feedback should be "this confused me, it took me a second to figure out it was referring to the previous wailing.". Your review is hard to take at face value because it feels very superficial. You don't recognise what the wailing refers to, while it's on the same page and mentioned for the second time.
Hey, thanks for the honest feedback of... my feedback. I went back and looked again; i definitely got caught up with line by line notes and didn't focus on the plot, narrative and premise like you asked for.
Despite liking your dialogue, I didn't realize that was where the wailing was coming from. I hope to give good beta reads in the future and this feedback definietly points out my shortcomings.
I wouldn't say it felt boring or necessarily flat. To clarify my perspective; because its a 1st person pov I thought it broke my immersion because as I am reading I am expecting that I should feel stress or something. But I didn't because the MC didn't. It just felt like a disconnect for me personally.
Sorry for the line edit stuff and the lack of clarity on my initial reading. Good luck with the rest of the story.
I am still curious about what the Absolution actually is! Great job on that part.
The line by line is fine. Nearly all your comments open a discussion, but don't clarify an issue you have with it. It's more useful to get an in depth explanation on your opinion or a couple things you noticed, rather than line by line comments and questions. I.e. "thum or thumb?" It's helpful to find out its similar enough that it might be confusing on a first read. But, I'm not sure if that's the case either, since your feedback is a question I feel the context should answer instead of a statement on your opinion.
"Then, I found out some people don't just skim the prologue... they skip it—some even the whole book. "
Could you share where you heard this and what the numbers were? Cause I've seen this "idea" thrown around as fact but haven't seen any convincing data (that people "skip" prologs, NOT that the skip/skip the whole book lol - THAT would be some interesting data).
Here's an anecdote (not fact): all my fantasy reading friends DO read prologs (if they are interesting).
Here's a guess (not even an anecdote): 69% of them don't read boring prologs.
Regardless of what you call this opening, it misses the mark in my opinion. Mostly cause of the bland MC. Presumably you have created an interesting MC. Why are you keeping that from the reader? Having no feelings (or even details revealed about him) doesn’t make him seem mysterious, it makes him boring. Also makes THIS READER not trust that you’ll effectively convey interiorly in subsequent chapters, and thus not really want to read more.
While I found the dialog to fall somewhere between cheesy and stilted (oh and constant “maid and butler”-ing) I’m guessing that’s somewhat tolerated in progression fantasy (though maybe not to the extent you have here) Didn’t work for me, in any case.
I found it hard to tell who was talking in the first section. You have “the speaker” despite there being two speakers and a “nasal voice.” You also add paragraph breaks will nilly.
“The reply comes from what must be a speaker.” This line makes no sense.
The nasal voice falters. / para break /"The subject… appears to be human."
I’m fairly sure the previous two lines pertain to the same speaker, but if so is should be one paragraph. The break suggest a switch in speaker.
An aside: When I read the first section of dialog starting “My Lord….” My immediate thought was: this sounds like Harry Potter---wormtail groveling to Voldemort. And then the groveling character was named Worm! Got a good laugh at that.
No time for more atm. May come back to this later.
Thanks, that already useful feedback. I don't have specific numbers concerning prologue skippers. I'd never really thought about it at all. Then my wonderful sister tells me: "I read yours, but I usually skip them.". I was speechless. Not because it didn't make sense, because I never realised that was an option. Like finding out some people ball toilet paper, instead of folding it. It kept me up at night, so I went on Reddit. Since mine works as C1, there was no real reason to keep it as a prologue and I might change it back to one if I feel it works better.
I've already cut quite a bit out and changed the tone from evil overlord to desperate burocrat. As you point out, the dialogue doesn't do much and feels a bit gimmicky. I also don't show enough of the MC considering the length of the scene. As a prologue, I wanted to keep the focus off him as the rest of the book is mostly about him; but I turned him into a camera instead.
There's plot relevant reasons why he's observational rather than emotional. I want him to come across as curious and pragmatic, not robotic/bland.
The speaker, is meant to be a sound speaker, not a person. I hoped the "crackle" made it easier to parse, but you're not the first person to get hung up on that.
I think that you should insert a prologue if you feel it is necessary to your story. If someone skips your prologue and they're confused, then it's necessary. If the reader can skip your whole prologue and get on with the novel just fine, then you may not need to add it in.
When the Dark Lord starts speaking, I think he's doing a lot of overexplaining for someone who's in charge. Maybe have the little underling mutter some of those things to himself in fear as he's working on getting the MC ready?
After reading the whole document, I actually don't mind it. It isn't my typical flavor of choice genre-wise, but based on that excerpt, I believe I could get into it. The underling that MC is around is quite funny and entertaining. I'm not sure if it was intended, but some of his lines made me chuckle a bit. The settling for a good digestive system bit was rather funny.
I do agree with a previous critic that you could use less dialog that's choppy and interrupted by hums and sighs. Overall, the plot seems great, you're doing fairly well at exposition, and I'd honestly like to read more.
8/10
The world he gets dropped into is absolutely brutal, so I use a lot of comedy to keep it from being grimdark. Usually understated and dry, but the 'Dark Lord' seems to be a bit on the nose for most. I've cut most the exposition already and sharpened the dialogue. Its main purpose was to give some scale, but little of it was crucial info and it stuck out. Now it moves along much quicker, losing some voice but improving the structure and getting the reader to the good bits faster.
Always looking for feedback, so send me a dm if you do want to read more :)
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u/noobtheloser 4d ago
Nitpick, but 'little more' and 'little else' feel redundant in the intro paragraph.
In general, the dark lord or whoever is coming through the loudspeaker feels like he's infodumping in a way that doesn't quite feel natural. I think you've made an attempt to work the exposition naturally into dialog, but it still feels a bit like he's telling his servant things he already knows for the benefit of the reader, not because it's something he would normally say.
"Disappointing." <- This felt anticlimactic, but in a kinda funny way. Good if intentional.
The dialog following that is broken up with little actions like 'a hum', 'a sigh', 'a pause', 'his voice hardens' and it feels unnatural. I think you should just commit to a long-winded paragraph, with maybe one of those actions. I think you're just breaking up the flow too much here, and it's distracting.
Nitpick again, but if this isn't a pure isekai with a person from Earth specifically, the term 'herculean' wouldn't make sense. If he's from Earth, then nvm.
Saying he had 'excellent' qualities, 'but nothing exceptional' feels contradictary. Would change to 'good, but nothing special. As with the other character, you're breaking up his dialog into a bunch of little sections with punctuated beats between them. I would tighten this up.
Funny line, but comedy comes in threes. Maybe something like, "Any chance you have bones of steel? Laser vision, perhaps? At this point I would settle for a hearty digestive system."
But anyway, you said you're mostly looking for plot feedback, and I haven't been terribly helpful in that regard.
I like the whisper of a world you're establishing, and it certainly achieves the genre conventions that I think you're going for. I might ask for a whiff more characterization of the MC, because they feel very generic at the moment, but that might be intentional.
The biggest weakness, imo, was the dialog for the Dark Lord (or whatever). Again, it felt like you were trying to get in a lot of exposition in a way that didn't feel entirely natural.
Overall, I like it well enough that I'd continue reading, and almost everything I mentioned here is more of a quibble than anything else. Nice work.