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- Hello! First things first, the most glaring thing is that W A L L of text right at the start. It could definitely use some paragraphing.
- Okay, with that out of the way, here are the good things.
- The story flows; your prose is pretty decent; and the premise and setting seems interesting enough to make me want to find out a bit more about this world.
- But throughout the entire W A L L™ of of text, nothing has happened at all. It's a lot of high-level exposition (info dump about the world) with nothing happening. I also don't know who your main character is. While this is an expected and accepted trope in CJK alternate universe webtoons/novels, it generally doesn't vibe well with western EN audiences. If the readers of the CJK market are your target audience, then you can choose ignore this point. (Though I would still argue that it's way too much irrelevant exposition.)
- I opened your Google Docs (good job, I wanted to see where this was going even though I'm not your target audience) and we still don't get any characters until 2 paragraphs and a section break later. You might want to consider starting your story from the section break, and weaving in some (not all) of the details from the first section into this part. Tbh, from the first W A L L of Text™, I would only weave in, at most, the overall visual description of hell. Everything else, I would wait until you introduce their concepts in your story before weaving them in as additional details. The whole thing about angels and their weapons, the different types of powers/ the types of sinners/ people who have powers, the Overlords, I'd remove. You open with all these concepts but you don't talk about them for the next 5,000 words (15-20 pages).
- Once I get to the part where Kris overhears Valentino, it gets a bit better. The pace starts to pick up. There's movement in the scene, a bit of action, some tension, and some spicy dialogue... But then nothing happens. All I got from Kris was that she was looking for information, possibly about the Hazbin Hotel. Why? For what/ whom? Is she a private detective? A criminal? A spy? ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
- Basically, while there are a lot of things going on, nothing important is going on.
- At this point, I'm wondering whether I should have read the character profile you put at the top that you said I didn't need to read. This is a stylistic choice, but imo, I wouldn't include that profile all. It should be for your eyes only. As the author you should know everything relevant about the characters life/ existence, then you distill it to the key parts that are relevant to the story you want to tell. Not everything needs to be in the story. For e.g. when I'm writing something set in an alternate universe, I usually have a few thousand words of historical events that are completely irrelevant to the story I'm writing. They're just good for me to crystallize my vision of the world, and helps to contextualize my characters in their setting.
- Going back to the critique, as I mentioned, the movement that starts after the section break is good. Now it's time to weave in character/plot-important details. Who is Kris? (And/Or the other characters you've introduced.) What is her objective? What is the inciting incident that brought her to this place at this point in time? I get the bits and pieces, but nothing to really sink my teeth into; nothing to hook me.
- Also, that "Text in this font..." footer is super distracting on every.single.page. I CTRL+F-ed 'Alastor' and it seems he says only one line on air. That is a tiny actual dialogue to disclaimer ratio. If you want to stylize his speech with that font, I suggest static-ing the first line he speaks by using the font and making a comment regarding the static. For e.g.
- “U̶̩̼͗̓͝h̴͍̒̀̈̋̄͋́͘ ̶̡̟̹̤̟͍̫̃̂͛̒̐̀̅͂̃̓̊̀ò̷̢̳̱̹̯̟̟̫̹̼̼h̷̠̹͛̒̀̍̇͋͑̉̊̕,̸̧̯͙̖̱̗͙̹͙̟̩̲̓̉͒͐͜ ̴̢̜̩͖̳̇͛̃̎͜t̸͚̬̞̯̘̿̔͂́̑̀̈́͑̈̍̎̕͠͝͠h̵̤͇̣̘̗͍̝͎̦͊e̸͖̥̋̊̈̎͊ ̴̧̢̨̞̲̦̟̹͓̘̘͆ͅT̵̠̝̰̲̖̳̯̲̲̰͎̼̳͇͜͠V̵̢̢̤͙̞͔̮̳̐̾̔̎̈́̅ ̷̧̛̜̓͂̒͊̍̓͗̄̈͊̒̏͝í̶̡̭̹̮͍͓̙̑̈́̋̄͐͐̓̎̅͛͛͝͠s̷̗̼͔̜͛ ̴̧̢̱̝̗͉̥͙̲̙̬̳̤̺͐̂͂͒́̀̅̂͆́̚̚͠ͅb̵̼͉̟̝͔̺͙̭̊̄̿̎͜͝ů̷̡̢̩̥͕̥̰̜͉̏͋̍̐̔̽̔̈́̚͝f̸̛̭͆͑̂͌̑͆͌̕f̵͔͈̳͚̻̼͑͌̏̑̈́̐̉͘e̴̛̤̦͕̬̠̰͈͎̦̘̥̰͔̗̒͑̐̆̿̀͗͛̏̐͝͝͝r̴̰͐̾̿̄̂͒̄̏̓̈͂͝i̴͚̺̳̩͕̰̾́͂̆͂̅̀͠n̸̡̧̛̛̝̣̟̹̟̱̲̅̑̍̀̐̀͒̿̃͂̚͠ͅg̶̡̧̨̬͚̝̪̗̩̹͓̭̩̹̑̒̉̕ͅ!̶̣͖̠̎̿̌̂̈͗̂͐̈́̈́̾͑͜” Alastor teases through her radio speaker, `static distorting his every word`.
- (Please do not use this font, your readers will go blind. I'm just using it as an example lol)
- Subsequently, any time Alastor speaks with static distortion, you can just change the font for the word(s) -- or even the entire dialogue section -- and the reader will get it. (Or if it's rare/ unimportant enough, consider removing this gimmick entirely, and note the static distortion in prose only when it's relevant.)
- There are a bunch of grammar mistakes, wrong word usages, and awkward phrasings, but those are superficial edits that aren't important at this stage so I won't go through them.
- My last point ties back to the first point -- the paragraph lengths. The GDocs is set to A4/U.S. Legal Paper and I'm viewing it on PC so it doesn't look too bad. Even then, some paragraphs still look very blocky. A large percentage of readers nowadays read on their mobile devices. Your intro paragraph will be a W A L L of Text™ literally filling up the entire screen. Consider breaking the paragraphs up. (And/Or removing superfluous details.)
- Overall, your writing style has a decent foundation and the story has potential for its target audience, but you probably need to go through the manuscript a couple of times to restructure things so they flow smoother and a bit more logically.
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