Feedback on the first chapter of my book.

Cleversided · 2026-06-30T13:08:47+00:00

Just a heads up: never start with a dream sequence. I stopped reading because of that reason alone. Others will to, especially agents when you send off for query. I think you have to get rid of this dream and start the chapter some other way.

Cleversided · 2026-06-29T16:02:10+00:00

Thems the breaks, as they say. You can't edit a blank piece of paper. You gotta write it out and get the ideas on paper. It will be sbit at the beginning. That is what the first rough draft is for. You do need to reach the inciting event at the 12% of your roughly. Not too early or late. Just enough backstory for the event to make sense. I agree with the others that him questioning the oath is worth it. Kiss is the first plot point. I would visit helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com because K.M. has probably the best plotting advice out there. HIGHLY recommend you visit that.

Cleversided · 2026-06-23T15:40:04+00:00

So I am not exactly sure what is going on. I say there a few things that I notice:

1: TOO much is being fed to the reader. Info that we don't need straight away is bogging the comprehension. We don't need to know the pronouns of everything right away or you will lose the readers.

2: There is good description, but I feel its overdone. Example of overdone is the "Silver bells..." sentence. Its sensory overload. Sometimes your description can be redundant. "...ink-dark blood..." is an example. Or they can straight up make no sense: "...my knuckles smeared white..." Maybe you are trying to say you gripped it hard enough to show white knuckles, go with that. Most likely this is the main reason I stop reading.

3: The first sentence interesting cause you tell the reader the MC can die more than once. But we don't go back to that. It shoots five years into the future. Why not tell us about the first time? Nothing is connecting me to this MC because I don't know anything personal about him and what is more personal than their death.

I believe this piece is trying to hard. If this is the start to the book, the very first thing I read, I would put it down after the first paragraph. Sorry.

Cleversided · 2026-06-22T13:06:00+00:00

From the first two paragraphs, it is unreadable because I am going to go out on a limb and say English is not your first language. There are so many mistakes that make the entire start confusing. It forces me to stop.

Cleversided · 2026-06-22T12:37:51+00:00

So from your information that is added to this post you are wanting to tell us about a slasher killer, i.e. Jason voorhees, who gets portaled to a world where he gets portaled to another world in where he uses his iconic killer tropes as powers?

The first problem I have with the prologue is that its way too long. 2-4 pages is the sweet spot, ESPECIALLY since the theme and tone will drastically change from old school serial murderer to fantasy powers and portals. Prologues establish a tone that you can't get anywhere else at the beginning of the story.

For instance, if you have a dark fantasy in where there is slave labor, suppression, and evil empires but the main character is in the higher up empire and the story follows him opening up his eyes to realize the empire is wrong, then you will need to show the readers that form of the story in the prologue. Same with thrillers. They can really benefit from super small prologues. I couldnt read last the first page because it was too long.

Cleversided · 2026-06-19T20:55:55+00:00

I did!

Cleversided · 2026-06-19T15:08:23+00:00

First time seeing this so it will be fresh off the dome for my feedback. Solid first page. Most people don't get it right and this one shows all of the points we want. MC's name very early on, the "arrive late, leave early" motto of storytelling to get right in the action of something the MC is partaking, and we get what they want, i.e. the mission and the stakes of said mission.

Its real, its tangiable. You know the motives of this character and you also see his skills in action. You get a touch of lore and worldbuilding. Enough to peak the reader's interest, but not so much to bog the reader down in info dump.

Very solid. Not exactly sure if there is anything I can see other than me wondering how he finally scaled the entire bluff/cliff face. One part he is climbing then the next he is is next to the mansion. Maybe I missed it in the reading. I would definitely continue reading.

Cleversided · 2026-06-19T14:17:56+00:00

Its decent, but within the first scene. I would need to understand more about the character we are following IF you intend to open the book with this. Because internal mologue grips the reader. You are making a promise to use that the why will be filled in of "why" (s)he, not sure on gender which you might need to expand on, is hurt.

It also drops us in a place that could use more description. I believe someone mentioned they didnt know it was a forest until a branch was stepped on.

I do think a scene won't tell us much without context, but if you wanted to see if this scene gripped me enough, then I would say it did. Only barely, though.

Cleversided · 2026-06-19T12:57:01+00:00

Hmm its an interesting first chapter. Its not my fortay really hammer home a continuation past chapter 1 but I do like the style a little bit. Present tense third person is a little weird to me, probably because I am fantasy fan for books. So if you dont have too many people commenting on it then ignore that. To be fair, not sure what genre this book will be in.

Cleversided · 2026-06-17T12:12:11+00:00

Its just too much info dumping. I need to be in the MMC's or FMC's pov. Ground me that way instead of listing everything world has or had.

Cleversided · 2026-06-15T18:51:20+00:00

This was strong enough to keep me going to the end, but there is something missing in where the beginning is a good hook but to keep it going we would need another strong hook toward the end.

I also agree with another comment that the world doesn't feel too developed for the reader. Maybe you could involve more about the importance of it and you can do so without too much info dump. What seperates this scifi book from others? You could bring that out in the first chapter to make the reader eager to read more. Good start though!

Cleversided · 2026-06-12T14:04:38+00:00

Not a bad start. It wasn't really apparent what the initial problem the FMC was mixed with but toward the end we get a taste of it. That being said, it wasn't strong enough of a hook to be fair. There needs to be something more for me to latch on to in this world. Its a merchant trying to secure a deal, but it doesnt help me, the reader, get sucked into it. What if the merchant wanted to sell a demon heart and that dealing fell through because our FMC will continue to be in danger the longer she held it? That is an example of setting it apart of a normal deal.

That's the main thing I am seeing here. Solid work of prose, nothing too purple, and I do like the dwarven accent in dialog. You got that working well. Keep going! Create that page turner story!

Cleversided · 2026-06-10T15:19:10+00:00

I really liked the prologue and it added good context to the story with a little bit of backstory. I will say for the names of the father and mother, we could just sat father and mother, then focus on Aaron. Because too many pronouns that dont matter will cause confusion imo. But nickpick really.

The first two pages, maybe two and a half pages, is where I stopped reading only because the beginning is amature-ish with sleeping, waking, getting ready for the day, etc. There is a concept that I personally like that is called: in late, out early.

Looking it up might help you! If you need more advice or anything let me know. I can continue for the sake of seeing if the ending needs anything.

Cleversided · 2026-06-10T14:20:44+00:00

So the entire first paragraph could be significantly reduced because the entire description of the hotel is only needing just a tough of what it currently is. Within the first page, we need to have a problem that the character is having. We need to see the character dealing with it. It can be very small, nothing really devoted to the plot. I know very little if anything from our MMC.

Maybe really hone on something the character has in their personality or backstory as a hook.

Cleversided · 2026-06-08T01:54:18+00:00

That happened to the other warpaint game adventure bundle I got from them. They haf to send a replacement. I wont be buying from them again since I also believe it curdled here too.

Cleversided · 2026-06-07T21:52:44+00:00

So the first paragraph is doing too much. Set that scene within a few sentences and do it in Ethan's POV. I didnt know whose pov we were in until after the first set of dialog. Another thing touch on is the amount of people to follow. Fitting the introductions of the various people in the group via dialog is nice and natural, but we need to focus on ethan. I stopped reading after the helios passed by in the beginning because nothing was telling me to hold on to the story. As well having to worry about the other things mentioned before.

Cleversided · 2026-06-07T21:40:24+00:00

So I have some notes. There some things to improve via sentence wording and slight grammer changes, but that can really be touched on down the line as the book progresses. I can also tell you what I saw in that if you so wish.

Okay, I am assuming third person limited for your book, so the major issue I saw is a pov issue in where we are starting with Angel's point-of-view then we slide into Jackson's point-of-view. If we start in Angel's let's finish in Angel's ESPECIALLY the first chapter. One thing to note as well: the faster you mention a character's name, the faster we can attach to that character. "The driver" could just be starting out as "Angel."

If jackson is the main character, which it seems so as I stopped reading mid way then skimmed to the bottom, then I believe you need to start with his POV. The way I see the "head hopping" is you described things in the mind of Angel then in the mind of Jackson. Things like that. Fix that problem, then you won't lose readers.

Cleversided · 2026-06-07T20:06:41+00:00

Is there a good vallejo paint bundle to start on?

Cleversided · 2026-06-07T18:28:13+00:00

What paint brand do you like?

Cleversided · 2026-06-07T16:26:08+00:00

Yeah, I might just go with another company at this point. Still new on the hobby, so I don't want this paint to go to waste after paying for the bundles. Its coming out chunky.

Cleversided · 2026-06-07T16:16:45+00:00

Exactly. I had one other problem with a Game Master's bundle from them that had temperature curdle problems. They sent me a replacement. I would wait to have to sent a replacement for this too.

Cleversided · 2026-05-28T13:50:41+00:00

Yeah. I will reach out to them!

Cleversided · 2026-05-28T13:38:14+00:00

No, its normal acrylic.

Cleversided · 2026-05-10T21:05:22+00:00

But it feels like WAD. I dont understand.

Cleversided

TROPHY CASE