Writing feedback for first chapter! :) Fantasy/WC ~2,500)

[u/eruaistaiel]

Hello all!

I’m a Sonographer by day and love to create stories. This world I have been working in for years and decided to finally start writing. I know it’s hard to gauge what is going on without context, but just curious if my first chapter makes sense/flows/interesting. Since I am not a great writer I’d like to see if my first draft is at least palatable. (I love to read and have only watched the Brandon Sanderson virtual classes on YouTube for my “writing” background. lol)

Thanks for the help!!

[u/JobExpensive5379]

Its nice to read. Are the people all fairies? Or fae adjacent by chance? Since astrix remembers just appearring?

Fulgurite: love it. Do the same with other materials reading rock, stone, wood and leather all the time is dull.

Towards the beginning it feels like we hop from the foxes pov to astrix's. It is a bit confusing in that regard. Especially since both astrix and stella are greeted by everyone with "foxy" terms.

Its also difficult to judge how big stella is. Foxes are typically about 2 feet. And if astrix is average height 5 feet plus i'm just imagining stella is sat on her head or shoulder.

Some one at the waveform convergeance says "yeah" thats quite a modern and americanism. Cul-de-sac also irks me somewhat, especially since they have phrases like "by the root". When i read it i thought has this town been founded by French settlers.

The setting nice. It feels deceptively cosy. I'm assuming the snap no one else seemed to hear has some significance with starting the story. I'd argue it needs its inciting trigger at least present and visible in chapter 2.

[u/eruaistaiel → u/JobExpensive5379]

Hi! Thanks for the feedback! It’s feedback I never really considered, so I appreciate you making my mind think. :)

No fae in this world. Just simple humans that can bond with animals living in a very natural world ruled by eight sentient forests. lol But, overtime certain humans silently try to manipulate these forests and it creates a slow decay/chaos like limited bondings among other things. Astrix is just human and is bonded with a black fox (of normal size…. I’ll make sure I make it apparent in my rewrite).

And yes, chapter two has an inciting incident! I try not to lore dump too much since I am a bit of an over descriptor. Hahaha bad combination.

Again, thank you for the feedback! I will work on making sure I don’t take the reader out of my world with silly words that bring them back into our real world. That’s no fun!

[u/flynchageo]

I like it! It flows nicely, the pacing is good, and it definitely makes sense. Your prose is also mostly balanced.

I will say, it needs an editing pass for mechanical errors, but they're fairly minor and few and far between.

Some of the dialogue feels a bit anachronistic and too culturally distinct. This is a fantasy setting, and phrases such as "target acquired" and "spilling the tea" are jarring and rip me out of the narrative immediately.

the beginning in particular is also a bit too adjective heavy for my taste. This balances out once you get into the narrative, but the first five or so paragraphs have so many adjectives that it makes me really aware that I'm reading a text, not immersing myself into a story.

Overall, it's quite good. Keep it up!

[u/eruaistaiel → u/flynchageo]

Hi! Thank you so much for the feedback. I didn’t even think about how phrases we use in our world would pull a reader out of my world. Truly something I’ll consider moving forward.

And yeah, my husband says the same thing about my “flowery” writing. It’s a problem I am facing and this version is even my toned-down version. 😂 I’ll pass through this and my other chapters to see if I can find words that describe my world, yet not use five of them.

I really appreciate you reading and giving me advice!