some dum ol story

[guyfaux69]

This is something I wrote for NaNoMo, and I thought some people here would like it.

[oops, link broke]

Don't be put off by the length, you'll know if it'll interest you within a thousand words.

I would, of course, be happy to hear your thoughts regardless of how far you make it.

 

[mazgrenan]

I'll level with you, I only read the first chapter - all 67 pages of it. My irreconcilable issues are with the abysmal pacing, lack of conflict, and the passive main character. Also, your pitch betrays a lack of confidence in your own writing which I find distasteful. To make matters worse, you did not give a plot synopsis, which is not doing yourself any favors.

The milquetoast MC - an aimless low achiever and prime NEET candidate is a poor choice of viewpoint character. He is reactive and more importantly, seems rather disinterested from the literal impossibility of transforming into a Nekomimi. 67 pages for an intro that fails to establish our main character, his capabilities, or even the stakes of the fiction is unacceptable. Hell my copy of A Witch Shall be Born establishes conflict, core cast, and locale in 12 pages flat.

The work has definite pacing issues. Over 67 pages to detail the dull minutiae of our MC's banal morning routing - literally wake, eat, and bitch about his life. Then he randomly gets transformed into a cute cat girl, handwaving the TF sequence and coping with physical changes - omitting the main draw of TF stories. He then buys clothing and is adopted by his boss circumventing all possible tension of being homeless, coping with his new ID, and again - the draw of TF stories being the slow burn descent into the new persona...

At this point I'm not sure of your target audience or genre. It does not appear to be fans of TF or mind-break, and H is ruled out with the glacial pacing. You spent so many words to say absolutely nothing of substance. I mean your average paperback would be nearing the climax at this point!

I would ask that you reconsider the purpose of the work and reupload after heavy edits, trimming the fat and getting to the real content. Have you considered the serial novel format? Tailored to maximize the medium with smaller but more frequent uploads. It might help to focus your efforts. I hope you take my words into account and look forward to more of your content.

 

[guyfaux69]

Thanks for the feedback.

You have answered a few important questions for me.

The story is actually a thriller (along the lines of a Dean Koontz novel), but I clearly spent too much time on the intro. I thought that might be the case, but it's hard to tell from my perspective (knowing how everything goes, and all).

It's funny that you suggested a serial novel format, because it kind of already is. Each part has its own arc, and is theoretically self contained.

Anyway, thanks again for your advice, I'll be sure to keep it in mind for future work.

I do have one question, when you are talking about my pitch, did you mean specifically the note at the beginning, or just in general?

 

[mazgrenan]

The author's note at the beginning was a major red flag. You are missing a synopsis. I was left with the extremely vague "Sci-Fi" label and considering the forum you shared it on - it was pretty much a shot in the dark. When I suggested the serial I was referring to breaking up the post length to benefit e-reading/screen reading. IE 300-500 word post > 67 page text wall. At the very least it could use a bookmark system or scene separation.

 

[guyfaux69]

Thanks for elaborating

I get what you're saying about the note. It's technically a joke, although it's probably too subtle to come off as anything other than self-deprecating.

I see what you mean by serializing it, kind of like turning it into pages of a book. I'll have to think about that... might require some creativity/posting to a different site...

Anyway, thanks for taking a shot on reading it

I'll have to work on my synopsis writing skills, because I definitely didn't use the jokey note as a cop-out for writing one (<-obvious lie).