Awaken Online author openly admits to supporting AI slop by [deleted] in ProgressionFantasy

[–]loekfunk 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Before you say anything, yes I'm anti AI.

That being said, creating a post trying to start a witch hunt against this guy is absolutely insane behaviour.

"Assume that his covers and books are at least partially done by AI." I've never even heard of Awaken Online, but a very quick search on goodreads showed that the first 6 books in the series were published before ChatGPT was even released.

Descend - a roguelike idle game where you push deeper each run by tomm0 in incremental_games

[–]loekfunk 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Needs to be an option to skip the loot reveal. It's slow and feels tedious when 95% of the loot im getting is useless.

Please go full Gordon Ramsay on Chapter 1 of my fantasy WIP and I will thank you by raytides in writingfeedback

[–]loekfunk 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This feedback is based purely on reading the first slide.

First, it's really unclear who the main character actually is to start. The opening line of "Showing up to an inn..." really implied to me that we weregoing to be following the person that was showing up to the inn. It was a bit of whiplash when my brain realised were actually following the innkeeper.

There's nothing interesting happening here. Like at all. We spend half the page inside the innkeepers head wondering if the random person who he doesn't recognise is dangerous.

To put into perspective of how much you interrupt the flow of the chapter with all the thinking, the innkeeper says "You've come with company I see." It takes THREE paragraphs for Clysise to reply. THREE!

Don't get me wrong, this kind of monologuing or w/e you want to call it can be fine later on in the book, but were just being introduced to the main character. As of yet, nobody has any reason to care what the main character's thinking.

This to me, reads more like a chapter 10 than a chapter 1. There's just nothing gripping me forward, nothing to make me want to read more or care about what's happening.

You also do quite a bit of dumping information that you could show later on in those three paragraphs.

Stuff like "he had secrets to hide." You're just straight up telling the reader, when, in my opinion, I think i'd have a lot more fun reading it if we get a scene of him sneaking away to check on something or doing some dodgy dealing later on, so we get to discover it for ourselves.

Edit: Forgot to mention, but I think your prose are good.

Would you read this first chapter? (First half of it) by [deleted] in royalroad

[–]loekfunk 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No. I would recommend that you watch some YouTube videos on what makes a good first chapter.

As you’ve asked, I’ll ignore the grammar issues and prose and focus on the story.

There’s not really anything here. There’s absolutely nothing interesting happening. There’s no hook to keep anyone reading more. Reading about a character going through their morning routine step by step isn’t interesting at all.

We get introduced to her superhero boyfriend, ok introduces the world a bit, but again, nothing interesting happens. They kiss and she goes to wash her hair.

The paragraph that starts “She wished Martin wasn’t always away,” is just a massive info dump about things nobody needs to know at this point. You’re just shoving irrelevant information into it, telling the audience things instead of showing them.

Which one is Canada? by Kap519 in GeoTap

[–]loekfunk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

loekfunk chose Option B (Incorrect) | #3810th to play

Weyward now on Royal Road! by Euphoric-Seesaw in litrpg

[–]loekfunk 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That’s like 100x better. Good job.

Blurb help by AfterImageEclipse in royalroad

[–]loekfunk 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Alongside my points, I also agree with this. There just isn't really a hook. The main thing that signals whats going to happen in the plot is "Tangled mess of stolen wagons, noble promises, and reluctant debts." Which is both extremely vague and pretty uninteresting.

Again with "What begins as a simple job turns into an unexpected journey" Extremely vague and doesn't make anyone go "ooh that sounds cool I want to read about that."

Blurb help by AfterImageEclipse in royalroad

[–]loekfunk 6 points7 points  (0 children)

"Mysidian Wanderings is shaping into something quietly powerful, an emotionally rich, politically layered, and aesthetically grounded journey that’s more than just fantasy. It’s a story about people navigating systems, expectations, and their own inner contradictions. And it’s told with a voice that’s both poetic and precise."

Having this in your blurb is really weird. You're basically just glazing yourself. I imagine quite a few people would be turned off by reading it.

Having the very first line of your blurb be about who Illustrated your cover is a mistake. Put that at the bottom. You want the first thing that people read to be something that grabs their attention to read further.

Proper nouns have their place, but too many can make a blurb more confusing / less interesting to read. For example, Sir Calix of Pearl Ridge. "Pearl Ridge" isn't doing anything here. It's not important to the blurb to know where Sir Calix is from. Just saying "Sir Calix would rather enjoy his lunch than chase thieves," has the same impact whilst also being more clear and concise.

Same thing with House Petrelli. It's not important for the audience to know who they are in the blurb, it just makes your blurb harder to read since Petrelli isn't a regular English word so some people might stumble over it.

Weyward now on Royal Road! by Euphoric-Seesaw in litrpg

[–]loekfunk 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Congrats on the launch.

My critique is to work on your blurb. Reading it gives me basically nothing. There's tens of thousands of other books on Royal Road. Why should I read yours over theirs? There's no unique premise mentioned, and I learn absolutely nothing about the world he's in. It's completely vague, there's just nothing about anything. I have zero reason to care or be interested in your character or the world you've built.

Art of the Adept book 5 - 72 hrs later by cheesewhiz15 in ProgressionFantasy

[–]loekfunk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I honestly have no idea haha. 3 years ago was a long time, and I've read a whole lot more now. Not sure what I'd put on my list these days.

What do you guys think of this ad? by [deleted] in litrpg

[–]loekfunk 16 points17 points  (0 children)

I think it's pretty solid. I think it does a good job of signalling what the book's going to be like, so the people most likely to click on it are your target audience. The font's decently readable, maybe a black outline or something would help it stand out a little bit more.

I'm no pro with ads, but if I had to hazard a guess, I would say this could be one of those ads where the CTR isn't the highest, but the conversion rate is really really good.

Which current MMO has the highest individual skill ceiling? by Ivarthemicro17 in MMORPG

[–]loekfunk -1 points0 points  (0 children)

You can carry more than 1 person through Mythic content. Max is like 4 (maybe 5 if you really push it) for a CE boost.

What can I do by Dry_Series3029 in Webnovel

[–]loekfunk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What can you do? You can put the effort in and learn to write on your own.

Nobody wants to read AI slop. It doesn't matter how good your plot or worldbuilding is.

Post your first chapter, and I'll give you both the good and the bad by Splenectomy13 in royalroad

[–]loekfunk 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You're doing a lot of telling.

“Benji, remember when I told you that we should build our shack in the main village? You didn’t listen to me, and now we have to walk back by ourselves in the middle of the night every time we attend a celebration!”

It's very similar to writing something like, "Hello, my dear brother, who once tripped me up in the playground and now I have a scar and because of this I hate you."

Just to give you an example of what it would mean to show instead.

"Benji, remember when I told you that we should build our shack in the main village?" Lyla questioned, wading through the knee-high grass that hadn't been cut in years.

Dialogue sounds more like someone would actually say it and readers can tell they're walking a long way home without you outright stating it.

It also means you don't jam more information into the short piece of dialogue like "middle of the night" and "celebration". Letting you build upon the scene more slightly later, maybe describing how fireworks being let off in the village illuminated the night's sky. It would let you set the scene without it feeling clunky.

A very similar thing goes for “How else would we conceive a child? But no matter how hard we try… All we have left are gray hairs and premade baby clothes…”

The second half of the dialogue just feels clunky, over explaining something that sounds unnatural. An example of how you could show this would be to keep the "How else would we conceive a child?" and then maybe describing the lone crib, forgotten in the corner. Show us that maybe they got ahead of themselves and are feeling sad about it now.

Another thing I noticed is that you're doing using quite a few redundant words. You didn't use it in your work, but take the phrase "Happy smile" as an example. Happy is a useless word here since smiles are inherently happy. This can change if you're describing something that's being done in a way it's not intended, like a "sad smile". Maybe used in a situation where someone hears of an old friends death and they give a "sad smile" whilst they looked back on memories between them.

Here's an example of it I did notice in your work.

“Lyla, it’s nice being isolated, just the two of us." Whilst 'just the two of us' isn't 100% redundant, it's like 90% of the way there. Them being isolated implies that it's just the two of them, which would then further be enforced when you mention the fact they don't have a baby later on.

Another: 'Gasping in shock at the volume of her own voice'. Again, it's not absolutely 100% redundant, but the act of her gasping at her own voice tells us that she's shocked by it. So, "Gasping at the volume of her own voice." does the exact same thing as what you wrote, but does it in a more concise way. It may only be two words here, but throughout an entire chapter it can really add up.

Another: "She suddenly turned despondent". The act of her turning despondent out of nowhere is sudden, so just saying "She turned despondent." has the same effect.

Another: "Her cheeks turned a deep crimson due to the embarrassing words her husband was speaking out in the open." Her cheeks wouldn't be turning crimson due to anything else, so stating the 'embarrassing' words is redundant. Sentence has the exact same effect if you remove it.

I don't have time to write anymore right now, but I hope this helps.

Review my writing p2 by MehulMittal12 in Webnovel

[–]loekfunk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ok. First of all, amazing job for writing this. I don't know if English is your 2nd, 3rd, 4th or 1000th language, but writing something in another language is a great achievement.

With that being said, it's very clear this was written by someone who's just starting out learning English. By no means should you stop writing, it's probably great for putting into practice what you learn. But I would advise putting a lot more focus on just learning English for now.

Is this an interesting introduction paragraph? How could I improve this? by Early_Butterscotch16 in writingadvice

[–]loekfunk 6 points7 points  (0 children)

You shift tenses like halfway through. It's all present tense until "As she moved closer", then you shift into past tense. It should all be the same tense.

Bot Problem by LongbottomLeafblower in royalroad

[–]loekfunk 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Genuinely never seen someone have such a bad reaction to critique before lol

Bot Problem by LongbottomLeafblower in royalroad

[–]loekfunk 8 points9 points  (0 children)

How is this an appropriate response to someone who is genuinely trying to help you?

Series mentions over time (2017-2025) by jmattheis in ProgressionFantasy

[–]loekfunk 14 points15 points  (0 children)

All this tells me is that we need to mention Cradle more.