Engagement Party: Promote Your Work and Get Feedback

[foxnflames]

Choose someone else's story you feel like you can help out and state specifically what you need help with

[Gudfish]

I read the thread but got kinda lost on who is up next / who hasn't had a chance for someone to read their's. So who's up? I can claim whoever is next then I will post mine after.

[foxnflames]

We got off track a little lol. Technically @S.K.O.M is next

[cherrystark]

I'll be more than happy to look at this for you.

[Gudfish]

Awesome I will review @S.K.O.M

[sxxaint]

I'm really glad you found that helpful!

Would more physical description of her pain improve it? Fainting is a very sudden response, which I admit doesn't have a ton of power through words. It's a visual thing.

Both before and afterwards, I'd say. You can use internal thought to show she's confused about waking up after fainting. Like I'd be hella confused about that, and hella panicked when I'm getting image bombarded, those were the main things that felt off to me.

[foxnflames]

I like how you referred to Baolarah as the furball lol. I actually study, in a non creepy way, the way that other people present their dialogue as well as how they describe their character's surroundings. I did like that bit in your episode and when I read other peoples' works I pay attention to the emotions that they are trying to evoke and what tone and diction they use. I noticed that my beginning (prologue aside) was a little flat and reading you all's works has helped me do just so. I may have to comb over my next few updates and fix it a bit more. I know in my episodes for ch 6 (which won't come out for another 2 weeks) I aim to show more of the active description you mentioned.

And everyone tells me how great my prologue is, which is great but sometimes I fee like I can't capture whatever I was doing when I wrote it. I still want that deep level of visual connection to come through with Aderran, especially now since he he'll be learning more and will soon be around more people.

And thanks for noticing his emotions coming through. That's the main takeaway I want from my story.

[sxxaint]

I'm the worst at remembering names haha

But honestly, studying how other people write is by far the best thing you can do, both for what to do and what not to do. I can actually palpably feel how much better I write when I'm reading a book where the writing style impresses me (to do list: buy new book to read).

I absolutely wouldn't say your stuff is flat though! I meant to point out the prologue to say you absolutely CAN do the description, it's only a matter of weaving it in the right place, because your pacing is great! There's so much plot! Sometimes, there's just one bit of imagery that comes so vividly to you that you capture it perfectly - I've writing another novel atm, and I'm just hitting a total wall with the imagery and voice compared to what I get with Casper grunging about the city - sometimes it comes naturally sometimes you gotta be stone cold and do that shit manually.

Your emotions are great though. I think your story is great! I wouldn't have criticised the description at all, I'm just here sprinkling tips on the feedback thread hoping I can help someone out with what they ask!

(i always feel like i sound like im tryna be some writing guru here, every bit of advice i give im regurgitating other advice i've read that works for me, im not tryna make out being better at any of this becaue different stuff works in different ways)

[cherrystark]

I am liking it so far. The story line and I like where you decided to base your story. I haven't seen a lot of supernatural stuff based in Scandinavia. It's either the US, UK, or sometimes Transylvania. I'm going to definitely keep reading.

So far, my only suggestion would be to make part 1 longer, but only by a couple of panels. I think it would be nice to get a glimpse of what kind of spookums are in store.

[Gudfish]

@S.K.O.M This is what I have from reviewing about the two topics your proposed. Firstly though I just wanted to say that I really liked it!! Did not want to stop reading but had to get back to work (was on lunch break), was hard to put down.
Also I have put in some recommendations for the about section but feel free to completely ignore them I just wanted to help give you some ideas to work with.
One comment though is that I noticed quiet a few grammatical errors in the actual story which at first made it a little hard to read. I was not sure if this was on purpose since they are supposed to be Scandinavian (so would have accents potentially) but it didn't seem like enough for a Scandinavian person with a full accent. So if it's on purpose I would recommend to go more all in on it, and if it is not then just something to watch out for when your reviewing the work.

1) Pacing
I found the pacing hard from episodes 1-5 but then it really got cleaned up in my opinion from episode 6 onward (which is where I got hooked around episode 8). So maybe try to edit the pacing in those episodes so that people get hooked in faster?
Also not to do with pacing but I loved the art as well.

2) The about part

I did find this a little confusing and hard to read. I had to read a couple episodes to kind of understand what this section is trying to say. I broke it down below by sentence.
The magic and what lurks in the shadows is no less weaker in the lands of the north. - I found the "no less weaker" kind of confusing. What if you said something along the line of " Ancient magic and the darkest of shadows are alive and well in the lands of the north"
Good thing S.K.O.M - The Scandinavian Royal force against the occult puts out the fires it creates, but also lights a few asses on fires aswell.. - I think grammatically you need a comma after occult. Overall I like this sentence but I think the as well at the end doesn't give enough bang. What about something like "Good thing S.K.O.M - the Scandinavian Royal Force against the occult, puts out the fires it creates, while also lighting a few asses on fire along the way"

[foxnflames]

Every time I try to think back to how I wrote my prologue my mind goes blank, I was probably in some quarantined induced fugue when I wrote it. If I didn't write it, I'd think it was the best thing ever and I want to capture that more. This is why I have a thesaurus tap open on all my devices. Back to dialogue, I think I handicap myself more for my audience than myself because I don't want them to get confused about who's talking. I've read plenty of comments on other people's works where people get confused and sometimes I have to read over some things more than once to see who's talking. But I think I've gotten on the right track to clear it up (should be better in today's update)

Also, I'm glad you think the pacing is done well because sometimes I feel like I'm just winging it! (I promise I know where the story is going). Where the story is now is right before the drama sets in and I'm trying to layer in some foreshadowing and hope that it's not done cheaply or too on the nose. So I thought it was going too slow or not giving enough.

I also hit a wall with ch 5 and 6 because I thought I built up Aderran and Maeren's friendship/half flirting whatever and it got the story off track and I couldn't for the life of me figure out a good cover story for Aderran to come to the village. But I utilized what I'd written to bring back an idea i'd scribbled somewhere so it, hopefully, worked out.

[Gudfish]

So here is mine. I know I definitely have a couple spelling errors and stuff but that is just me being bad at editing, currently working on it.

What I would love comments on are below (plus anything else you see would be great really)
- My character development. I want people to be able to feel attached to the characters and each character to have its own personality
-Would love a comment on if you think it's to wordy or not.

Eats, Shoots & Leaves | Tapas

[franzvanderlinde]

I would appreciate feedback:
- Consistency: my pace of work is slow and I changed/improved my art a lot. I am worried how much visual inconsistency gets in the way of the reading.
- Dialogues, lack of background info: I want to imply a lot of things in images and I put as little lore as possible as I want people to learn about the world as they read the story, should I do a Q&A?

Abismos | Tapas

[Gudfish]

Sorry I realized I should have replied directly to your message so here it is.
This is what I have from reviewing about the two topics your proposed. Firstly though I just wanted to say that I really liked it!! Did not want to stop reading but had to get back to work (was on lunch break), was hard to put down.
Also I have put in some recommendations for the about section but feel free to completely ignore them I just wanted to help give you some ideas to work with.
One comment though is that I noticed quiet a few grammatical errors in the actual story which at first made it a little hard to read. I was not sure if this was on purpose since they are supposed to be Scandinavian (so would have accents potentially) but it didn't seem like enough for a Scandinavian person with a full accent. So if it's on purpose I would recommend to go more all in on it, and if it is not then just something to watch out for when your reviewing the work.

1) Pacing
I found the pacing hard from episodes 1-5 but then it really got cleaned up in my opinion from episode 6 onward (which is where I got hooked around episode 8). So maybe try to edit the pacing in those episodes so that people get hooked in faster?
Also not to do with pacing but I loved the art as well.

2) The about part

I did find this a little confusing and hard to read. I had to read a couple episodes to kind of understand what this section is trying to say. I broke it down below by sentence.
The magic and what lurks in the shadows is no less weaker in the lands of the north. - I found the "no less weaker" kind of confusing. What if you said something along the line of " Ancient magic and the darkest of shadows are alive and well in the lands of the north"
Good thing S.K.O.M - The Scandinavian Royal force against the occult puts out the fires it creates, but also lights a few asses on fires aswell.. - I think grammatically you need a comma after occult. Overall I like this sentence but I think the as well at the end doesn't give enough bang. What about something like "Good thing S.K.O.M - the Scandinavian Royal Force against the occult, puts out the fires it creates, while also lighting a few asses on fire along the way"

[sxxaint]

i feel u, i wrote the original opening of stains coming home from work on the bus and i will never ever surpass myself in sheer vibe for the opening paragraphs.

The worst with thesauruses are when you KNOW there's a word but you can't find it anywhere and you're stuck with [unasked for but not actually unasked for wtf is this word] in the middle of a paragraph....

On the pacing/foreshadowing front, past stuff that's clearly meant to invoke a sense of dramatic irony, I haven't read anything in your work and considered it foreshadowing and nothing but foreshadowing, if you know what i mean? there's been hints, but nothing hamfisted.

Scribbled ideas are like the writer's holy grail haha. I've gotta plot my shit out to the bone these days and I still get stuck if I haven't thought through motivations enough

(i've clogged up this thread so much omg)

[Schwarze_Neko]

I've been having the same problems too! It's like it skips a few pages, hopefully Tapas fixes that quickly.

But anyways, thank you very much! I'm really glad you like it!! ^^ I was worried the art style was too simple, but hearing someone else's opinion eased my mind Also yes, the crow's beak is supposed to look like the banner. Glad to hear that you like the MC! ^^ Thank you very much for the review (& the sub! ) , I really appreciate it! ^^

[foxnflames]

The worst with thesauruses are when you KNOW there's a word but you can't find it anywhere and you're stuck with [unasked for but not actually unasked for wtf is this word] in the middle of a paragraph....

Me every time I try to write. Or a word that sounds like another word but you know that word isn't right. Then it comes to you hours later.

On the pacing/foreshadowing front, past stuff that's clearly meant to invoke a sense of dramatic irony, I haven't read anything in your work and considered it foreshadowing and nothing but foreshadowing

See what I mean about words? I also keep forgetting what's been published and what hasn't. More foreshadowing is coming. Dramatic irony is there. (And I haven't quite figured out when he's going to figure out his past )

And this thread is in absolute shambles but somewhere in there some progress is happening

[foxnflames]

You're welcome! I was confused then looked over and was like...should have looked here first lol. I think the simpler art style lends to the overall feel of the story.

[foxnflames]

I like the slice of life feel of it. I don't think you're really having an issue with developing the characters them selves but I think it would have been better to establish more of how they know each other outside of the bar, especially if they're going on trips together. Like I get the Beaver jokes a lot and the puns are funny.

I think that some of the speech bubbles for those in the background are harder to read, but that may be a formatting issue.

There are some episodes that are wordier than others but overall it's not too wordy.

What threw me off at first was that it look like everyone had their heads cocked to the side, could be a matter of adjusting their eyes.

[Gudfish]

Ya that's a good call on how they know each other. I was thinking of writing like a flashback comic or two but just haven't gotten around to it yet. But I see what you mean, I will need to get to those soon.

I think the speech bubble thing might also be that when I try and get the characters to whisper I write the words smaller but I think it's too small potentially.

I never noticed the head cocked before but now I can't not see it!!! I think its because, as you said, the eyes are looking in the wrong spot. Instead of looking at the person they are talking too, they are looking kinda at the audience ish.

Thanks a ton for the feedback!!