Starting your first chapter, I have some mixed signals... While I liked and quite enjoyed the beginning, there were some moments by the end that made me a little iffy about the writing. First, the positive. I like that we start with action. Not much is explained, we're straight into the story and I believe that that is the best way to start a story. A small tiny bit more context could have been added and it wouldn't be too overwhelming, but as it is, as long as things are later explained (why are they after this guy. Who are they? Who is Roger?) then it should be fine. However, as I said, there were some mixed signals for me. One was the tone of the speech and sometimes even narration. You would capitalize all letters in a word for a reason I couldn't really fathom and it didn't help emphasize the tone of the delivery as it just seemed to me like they were saying a sentence normally but just decided to scream one word out. The second iffy moment was at the end of the chapter mainly but I think there might have been other minor instances of this. You would say (not phrasing exactly) "Roger thought about it logically and knew they wouldn't kill him" but then you would take a complete 180 in the next paragraph and say that he was too panicked to think of that. This is especially weird as your writing doesn't come off as omniscient. Now in the off-chance that this is an omniscient narration, technically this could be fine if only sharpened a little, because the omniscient narrator can say what he wants even if it's not actually happening (like giving facts that the reader wouldn't otherwise know), but the wording of the narration throughout the entire chapter made me feel like I was reading third person subjective. Idk, it was just weird at parts but overall, not a bad start.
Chapter 2.
Rip Roger. We shall never know that name.
As for this chapter though... Uhm... I have to say that it inherently suffered the "too many characters in one scene" issue
I honestly could not even name them all off... It doesn't help that they had names like Wrath, Sloth, Envy,... It is clear to me now that you are using the omniscient narrator, and technically, you are doing it right by giving us every perspective that is important but the thing that is missing is context. In the last chapter, I praised you for this, but that was a scene between three characters. It wasn't too hard to really just imagine in my head "okay, this is happening now." but when you suddenly include so many more characters without an introduction, it kind of seizes to make as much sense as you would want it to and I very quickly lose focus of what is even happening. It's a shame as the writing and descriptions are pretty good actually, but I just can't seem to gather up all the information I am given... But maybe this is a one time issue I will suppose. It is an action-packed chapter and perhaps you meant for it to be a moment that is better off on a second read.
Chapter 3
Ehm...who is Ira?
The chapter was about Wrath, then suddenly we get a different name... I assumed it was her real name or something and the sudden change simply needed a bit more explanation, but the second half of the chapter felt like a whole different scene.... Yes, I can tell (or I think) that she was remembering something from the past but one would assume that memory would be more relevant than just waking up? Idk, I can't deny my confusion honestly... I guess I'll just read on but I have to say that the stop in this chapter is pretty confusing.
Chapter 4
I will be the first to admit that I have an issue with naming my characters in almost every paragraph. I do this to make sure that it is obvious who the paragraph belongs to (as I write in omniscient too) but the problem is that I am very insecure in getting my message across so I mention their names multiple times in a paragraph, if it is no longer obvious who I am talking about. Why am I saying this? Well, one to show that it is not necessary to say the character's name in every paragraph, but also to point to the fact that you didn't name the character we are following in this chapter even once... I mean, I can assume that it is Wrath/Ira, but yeah, because of the chapter break, it could have very well just been a whole new scene with different characters. The tone of the story has also shifted significantly, is going from someone murdering a man with a club, to go to a coffee shop where two people are innocently flirting. This shift is not bad per say, but so far, I'm in dire need of knowing what the story is about. It could very well be that I will learn something about this in the next chapter, but generally speaking, the sooner you give your readers a goal to reach, the better. I personally also had an issue where I only really revealed the goal in like chapter 30, but to compensate for that, I gave a fake goal at the beginning and then shifted the attention from that to make way for the actual story. Just giving that as an example, but yeah, so far the story is just aimless. The actual writing is perfectly fine and the scenes are reasonably understandable, but putting them all together, it kind of leaves more questions than it probably should.
Chapter 5
Ahh, Ira finally gets named
good. Anyways, I actually kind of ship these, not gonna lie. They're cute and I like their dynamic. The line by the girl "no rival to kill" was a little uncomfortable, but I don't think that was meant to be anything but uncomfortable. Poor boy probably doesn't know what he's getting into. The whole question game is a bit of a cliche but not one I dislike. So yeah, good chapter here
it's just that as I remember the first two chapters, I get confused but eh, hopefully I'll get some answers soon š¤£š¤£
Chapter 6
I think I kind of realize what I find a bit strange about the updates. The chapters are cut weirdly. As much as I praised you for the question game in the last chapter, seeing it continue in this chapter was a little bit redundant. Like I already had that feeling of "this is cute" but having it continue without a single reason to give a break between chapters made it feel like it was just plopped into the word processor, cut for the word limit, and that's it. Now I understand tapas prefers short chapters. Heck I had to do the same as you! I ended up cutting some chapters to 2,3 even 4 parts! But I tried to edit the mini chapters in a way that they were all pieces of story in itself and could work without the context of another chapter. I will admit, there is one instance where I was not able to do this and it still bothers me that there is an awkward cut and I plan to edit that out when I get the chance... But yeah, I just feel like you could try and maybe give more meaning to the chapters cuts. Otherwise, you are giving your readers no other option but to continue to understand what is happening. This is fine, IF there is a good cliffhanger, but I'm not seeing that yet.
Chapter 7
Ooh we get some lore... It turns out that these sins are part of a family system? Interesting. I'm gonna have a lot of trouble differentiating these characters, especially as for some reason, I always have trouble remembering characters who's names are concepts like Wrath and Envy, but that is my issue entirely and most readers would probably be completely fine with it. Not much I can say about this chapter other than holy, these guys are insane...
Chapter 8
Okay okay, stuff is happening and we are finally connecting what happened in the beginning. I'm just still at a loss as to how these two story lines will collide? My best guess is that what's his face, forgot his name, but the boy Ira was so interested in was actually Archangel (did he wear a mask before? I think Wrath did so they couldn't really recognize each other)... That is my theory anyway, could be totally wrong. But as for the critique part of it, apart for some unnecessarily wordy parts, I'm actually starting to enjoy this somewhat. Kind of curious if I am right or wrong ^^ (oh but Cana in the previous chapter and this one is really annoying, not in a good way yet though)
Chapter 9
I enjoyed this chapter quite a lot actually! Seeing Ira struggle with the idea of forced marriage but also her remembering the guy, what's his face (sorry, I'm terribly horrible at remembering names š¤£). I can't get a firm grasp on Cana yet as so far she seems to be very moody. Pretty good chapter overall!
Chapter 10
As this is the last chapter I am reviewing, I have to say that it wasn't necessarily wowing me unfortunately. We got to meet a new character who doesn't seem important yet and we find out that Ira wants Tristan (I got his name from the chapter
) to be watched. Pretty fair chapter, but nothing too big happening.
The story overall... It started a shakily and I honestly wasn't sure what I was going to think, but I think it picked up later on. I think you need to work on pacing the individual chapters and making them feel like they are not just parts of a larger scene that you need to read all in one go, but make it so that the chapters alone feel like finished chunks of the story. The narration needs a little bit of fixing to definitely set it as omniscient narration. You would sometimes mix up thoughts with narration, or the narration would give wordings that were very bizarre for omniscient. Overall, the writing needs to be better grounded. Make up rules as you like, but stick to them throughout the entire story. Like for example, if you choose to write thoughts in bold, then stick to it. Because the formating was really all over the place. There were other things but I'm sure I have already mentioned those in between my chapter reviews.
But there were a lot of things that I liked! The story was actually interesting and already got me to speculate what could happen next. I am curious if my theory is correct or if I am completely wrong. The characters, though some are annoying, do actually feel like they add to the story in a meaningful way so far. As long as I forget the chapter 2 miss with so many characters in one scene, it works. Also, I still do ship those two lol!
I think that is all... Hopefully my words weren't too hurtful! Know that my intentions are only positive and I only mean to be helpful by giving honest feedback. If you are interested in getting more reviews from me, we can continue but no longer at a free cost. If you want, we can do a reading exchange from now on, or whenever you would like to. Just hit me up!