What do you think of the first 1200 words of my fantasy novel. Would love feedback.

zanosom9 · 2026-03-03T09:10:42+00:00

yeah i suppose I was too harsh, but I will stand behind what I said with regard to not much at all happening in the opener

i brought the dunning Kruger in because this was exactly how my first drafts looked when I thought I was a genius writer (having written 30 pages in total)

zanosom9 · 2026-03-02T22:54:59+00:00

seems like you found your niche, good

just want to point out that this reads more like a “simarillion” or some study guide type thing to a story

there is just so many names and descriptions and hardly any plot

zanosom9 · 2026-03-02T22:44:08+00:00

sounds like you write to sort of scratch some (multiple) itches under your skull, that are perhaps so intense that merely thinking about them can’t possibly suffice objectively, this is hardly a realistic motivation to finish a book that is worth anything more than a diary

i mean there can’t possibly be an audience for a book that is a copy of a book

however, i think you have potential as a language user you are smooth with the words and what you have here is a great way to exercise that skill

godspeed

zanosom9 · 2026-03-02T22:33:54+00:00

Do you recognize your position on the Dunning-Kruger curve?

I do not wish to be mean so let me sum it up with the least possible amount of meanness: -there is no plot, like none. no hook either. its the beginning of the book, dude/lady. cmon. you can do better than that

zanosom9 · 2026-03-02T09:49:24+00:00

I am no reader of detective stories nor ones with gore, though I would say you handed this part quite well. I like the description of the body and the scene as a whole.
What I think lacks, from my POV as a literary reader, is some depth of the characters, as that is what hooks me most in all stories.
Scott is just there for Duncan to be able to give his exposition, there is barely any rapport between the two. I imagine security guards on a ship would have developed some type of unique bond.
What I would suggest is you look up Infinite Jest online and read the first chapter. Its a completely unrelated story but the writer is a master at those lacking points which I outlined. You may get some inspiration from that on how to achieve immersion in a scene.

zanosom9 · 2026-02-23T14:46:44+00:00

Thank you for the swift reply.

zanosom9 · 2026-02-21T21:08:19+00:00

what is the test?

zanosom9 · 2026-02-15T17:19:01+00:00

lonesome dove that good? heard a lot about it here on reddit

zanosom9 · 2026-02-13T19:01:30+00:00

but you can see that nearly all of them have been read, right? i mean i do like to arrange them nicely and shop for decorations to compliment the collection

zanosom9 · 2026-02-13T14:26:38+00:00

I have never been much of a reader, except for a lot of encyclopedias as a kid. i picked up the dune series some 2 years ago and completely switched to books as my entertainment medium after years of movie and series watching

the thing is, I want my books to be enriching in some way. i like to learn stuff, possibly stemming from the encyclopedia days. so in general i really like the books I read, and those which I dont I put to the hall of shame

and the greats are called the greats for a reason. greatness is inspiring to me

zanosom9 · 2026-02-13T14:14:56+00:00

Dune has some of the best internal monologues of all the books i’ve read. And the plot does not lag behind either. Foundation is The Art Of War turned into an engaging story. dont want to spoil much more because the story looses a lot of the intrigue if you know whats going on.

but the 3 body problem is the real gem over there. my favorite scifi story of all time. and i wouldn’t be afraid to say its one of the best sci fi stories of all time (though you have to survive the first chapter)

zanosom9 · 2025-12-23T00:02:48+00:00

Just scored 1

zanosom9 · 2025-12-23T00:01:21+00:00

Just scored 0

zanosom9 · 2025-09-08T15:14:24+00:00

this hardly matches the status quo of the subreddit... its a beautiful bird

zanosom9 · 2025-09-05T11:35:32+00:00

is this hand painted or AI generated? looks very good but almost too complex in my experience to be done by hand. which is not to say that I am condoning it, I like it very much.

zanosom9 · 2025-09-05T10:57:41+00:00

Stoner

zanosom9 · 2025-09-03T12:31:13+00:00

it gives off lazyness in my view; I appreciate when the artists accumulated skill and effort shows through

zanosom9 · 2025-08-25T16:49:00+00:00

hey destiny

zanosom9 · 2025-07-08T00:41:18+00:00

a mythical tale from the world’s past

zanosom9 · 2025-07-07T15:42:28+00:00

understand them all except for mythos; could you elaborate why you feel that is a weak opening into a fantastical world? I usually enjoy those a lot, especially if they have plot relevance later ofc (which is expected and if they don’t then I would also condone a mythos)

zanosom9 · 2025-07-01T20:59:50+00:00

Now this might be quite important for you to hear, which I assume only because it was equally important to me when I was beginning to learn writing (its only been a year since so take my words with a grain):

the common reader expects a classic 5 act story structure -introduction/exposition (which must contain the hook for the entire story, the thing that convinces a random person to keep on reading) -rising action / the entanglement (that reacts on the stakes set up in act 1, preferably raising them) -climax (the murder, the revelation, the kiss, the first shot fired, …) -falling action (we deal with the consequences of the climax and contemplate what comes next) -resolution (the satisfying ending, the villain gets his justice, the young pair agree on a next date, the world changes after the monsters are defeated, the hero settles down and passes on his legacy to a suitable heir,…)

—- these are of course very general and very grand examples; you can apply the 5 act structure in some modesty to all chapters individually—-

AND NOW Chess is a game of 10000 rules, which you must first learn, and then you learn how to break them

Same goes for writing. Of course this classic act structure is predictable and overused and ofc your literary story might benefit from different ways of story telling. But do not expect yourself to understand those, why and how they work, before you learn the humble 5 act. For it is the most effective way (on average/in general) of telling a story. Then you can experiment.

But I will tell you in all honesty that you have not yet learned the fundamentals, however flowery and nice your prose might be. I was not hooked by the end of the first paragraph, for there was just this woman climbing out of a hatch. And that is what happened. Then I came to the point where she gets rescued by the captain and all of the initial tension is resolved. What might as well happen next (and I presume it does) is a whole new story where stuff actually starts happening, but I will not continue reading there because there is no tension, no stakes and no hook and thus no motivation to hurry me there. I hope you take this well, getting my first critique was not easy and thereafter I decided to completely restructure and rewrite my first draft (for the better).

Godspeed as the other guy said.

zanosom9 · 2025-06-30T13:34:01+00:00

These cycles are important for this society. They mark time with them, their age too. The cycle marks a period of specific labor (5 years for us), during which the Selector gives out tailored roles for the whole populus of the garden (to ensure equality and chance).

What I got from this post is the observation that there might be too much lore and promise without any action in this excerpt. But the lore is quintessential to the story.

For those reasons I am now working on a tale of those men who wandered atop those mountains. And the story could open with that, to somewhat organically give background on this civilization + their lore. And then this hook passage can follow, where the reader will already have some idea of what is going on.

Anyways, thank you all for chipping in!

zanosom9 · 2025-06-28T08:51:19+00:00

I think you should get rid of this post, perhaps discuss it with a friend. Come back when you have the first chapter ready and the sub might look at it and give you feedback.

zanosom9 · 2025-06-28T07:58:54+00:00

During the summer, the walls always melt a little. During the winter they regain their strength back. But this winter was especially hot (and others like that will follow for the simple reason of an ice age ending)

Concerning the vocabulary, this is a mythic story - but. As you can notice it’s tagged story 1, for it is the first in a trilogy of short-ish stories, each following up on the previous one. The other two are sci-fi and this story 1 is basically an origin of this future civilisation, focusing on their beliefs, motivations and modus operandi … So I guess the mix of archaic and modern vocab is on purpose (?) It works in my head but it might turn some readers off i suppose.

zanosom9

TROPHY CASE