I've been writing this for about a year, it had gone through 4 revisions. While i already have 12 chapters, i thought i'd revise some old chapters first before uploading it here.
The first 3 chapters isn't on the same level as my current revisions of chapter 4, and as of right now I'm still revising chapter 4. I'll post chapter 4 when i'm done.
Actually, just a thought that had been lingering in my mind. When i first started writing this story, i didn't know how to write properly but as i got better its at least decent. And at best all i want it is to be at least readable, im not the best but i keep trying.
All feedback would be appreciated.
Rex was a blood thirsty monster hunter that used to be known as “the night hunter”. On a fateful night after pursuing the mage, he was cursed to become the prince of darkness. A being feared by the people of eldara, a monster that destroyed the world 3 times and nearly...
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Hey, I've read the first chapter briefly and there are a lot of things you have to work on.
First of all you've got big energy and a clear intention, with a solid skeleton.
1.) Your biggest problem is
sentence control and readability.
A lot of your opening paragraphs are run-on sentences with comma splices and fragment stacks. Example:
“The moon casts a pale glow…, its silver glow reflecting…, Cold winds swept…, Clouds covering…, streets filled…”
This feels like you’re trying to cram
five establishing shots into one breath. It becomes hard to visualize because the reader can’t tell what’s the “main” image. You also switch tenses/capitalization a lot (“Cold winds swept…” mid-sentence, “the mysterious figure looks…”). It breaks the immersion heavily when you change the tense -- honestly, I had a very hard time reading, because of this.
2.) "Telling" instead of showing
You repeatedly label emotions and events with summary phrases:
"Panic ensued."/ "The city has fallen into utter chaos."/ "void of emotion"
These are author
statements, not
scene experience. They flatten impact because you’re explaining what the reader should feel instead of making them feel it.
Try trading labels for concrete sensory detail + action. Show panic via choices: trampling, dropped bags, people running into each other, someone screaming a name until their voice cracks, blood on the curb, smoke taste, sirens drowned by roaring.
3.) I find the villain on the rooftop too cartonish.
It's not that a dramatic villain can't work, but you would have to introduce hime differently.
Right now it’s just “I hate them, they’ll pay,” which is very common and doesn’t build dread. Also throwing the artifact “aiming randomly” makes him feel less intelligent than the story wants, I think.
Try fewer lines, more intent. One line that implies history is scarier than three lines of yelling.
4.) World clarity
You drop terms like
Eldara,
realm of darkness,
AMA, and “magic clashed against technology” without giving the reader a clean anchor. That’s fine for a long chapter, but you’re dumping a lot of
proper nouns before the reader even cares about anyone.
5.) Pacing: you're trying to cover too much too fast
This is the biggest structural thing. You jump from:
city intro, villain speech, explosion + monsters, military HQ scene, back to city, child chase horror, emotional brother sacrifice, safe zone banter, reunion with dad, harsh words, and so on.
This is like three chapters worth of beats in one go. As a result, nothing has time to hit fully. The kid scene
should be the emotional core, but it gets interrupted by tone shifts (jokes, coffee spit-take, agents banter) and summary paragraphs.
Try choosing one core POV and one main emotional line for the chapter. If you really want multiple POVs, you can expand later, but for the beginning, stick to one.
Lastly: a lot of dialogue lines are missing punctuation, capitalization, or clear attribution. Also, people occasionally say very on-the-nose lines. Real people don’t talk like narrators.
Hope this helps.
As for your synopsis:
Right now it’s muddy and overloaded. I don’t have a clean grip on the setting (WestField vs Eldara vs “the government”) or how the modern city tragedy connects to the fantasy-darkness mythos, so the synopsis reads like two different stories stapled together. Rex’s arc also jumps too fast: “trauma victim” to “kills for amusement” feels edgy rather than earned, and the AMA trying to recruit him gets buried under jargon and big claims. You throw in a lot of nouns (AMA, prince of darkness, awakening, curse) without anchoring what they are in one clear line, so the stakes blur instead of sharpening.
