Guys I don't know if I'm doing alright or doing badly at writing my story.

[Deleted member 214875]

Well, I went know my flaws and where I could be better.
I welcome any honest review, and I will no take offence.
But thing to note the chapter 3 is edit by chatgpt, is it okay to use it for grammar mistakes or it's not accepted?

A Being of Shadow

He awoke from deep sleep, he found only darkness. Not the absence of light, but a place outside the world he didn't knew. Something had been done to him. His body, once human, had become something else. A shadow. A whisper of who he used to be. He remembered nothing...

www.scribblehub.com

 

[SeaJay]

I don't know if I'm qualified to give feedback, but here's some things.
Number one, the pacing. It's going too fast for me to keep up. He's in pain, then he's in all black with no transition in between. I would prefer you slow down, and the run-on sentences don't help. For example "After all that pain subsided, I was barely able to open my eyes and take in my surroundings and the first thing I noticed was that I was black, my arms were black, even my legs were black, every part of my body was completely black." is at least four sentences in one. You could shorten it and cut it up to make it easier to read. For example, instead of that, I could do, "The pain finally subsided. Breathing heavily, I slowly opened my eyes. Taking in all the surroundings, the very first thing I noticed was that something was wrong. My arms were black. My legs, my chest, my entire body was completely black,". That's five sentences from your one. And I could cut it up further with even more visceral detail to make the reader feel the slow, creeping sense of jarring discovery. Of course that doesn't mean that run-on sentences are always bad or good. There is always a place and time to use particular structure crafts. That, along with creating all the right emotions, is the most vital and hardest part of writing, or so I've found.
And I feel like that it's supposed to be first person but feels like second because of the past tense. It's a little jarring. For example, instead of something like "I was thinking that I wanted an apple" first person is more like "I want an apple".
Then there's the character and writing. To me it's just words on a page. What am I supposed to feel when he says he forgot everything? Am I happy, sad, angry, frustrated, or what? I don't feel anything when reading your work. And I want to feel. Let us slowly into the protagonist's mind, and make sure to balance your tone. In the passage you said, "Wait a moment, I don't even remember my own name. What was my name? Who am I? What is everything? Who is everyone?". Personally, I would have written, "Hold up. Who am I? Why don't I remember my own name?" and keep going like that, but of course that's only if I want the reader to feel attuned to the character's feelings of anxiety. Personally doing that helps the reader, like me, actually want to know the character and his emotions. You don't want the reader saying something like "He's in pain. He has amnesia. He is about to die. Okay. What next? I don't feel anything". You want the reader to say, "Oh no! He's in pain! What's wrong? What's happening? How did he lose his memories? I wanna read more!". One of the best ways to do this is to give the characters, no matter if they are humans or slimes, humanity. Human emotions, human anything. Just give them something. I find that your character feels less human, less 3-d and more 2-d. The same with your synopsis - you could improve it. "Born into a world, devoid of memories, a boy discovers he was not human. This new, strange world is filled with many dangers. Will he survive?" is good enough. And don't put more than one idea in the same sentence for the synopsis unless it's a list.
You also want to think hard about each and every moment in your book - what happens in the moment? What do you want the reader to feel? How can you get the reader to feel that? For example, my book is a tragedy. So I want the reader to feel sad and horrified. That means I need to put my characters in horrifying contexts and give them slivers of humanity in the middle of all the horrific things. That tends to work. Then the problem is writing it - but there are hundreds of lessons out there on writing with tone and mood so after the thinking the hardest part is done. You have to put the reader in the moment. Put them in there with the characters, seeing what they are seeing, feeling what they are feeling. Vivid verbs, strong words, and sensory language all help with this.
So basically, draw out your sentences and milk each moment for all it's worth. Transition smoothly into the next scene. And use tone and mood. The emotions a reader feels while reading is your very best friend.
But honestly, your idea is solid!

I'm a new writer just like you! My book, titled "Who We Once Were" is my very first novel. I like to think it serves as a good example of writing with emotion, but I probably am just kidding myself. I also love reading books, far more than I do writing. I have an entire library of books with authors ranging from Jane Austen to Ron Chernow. So those are my credentials.

 

[Deleted member 214875]

Thank you for the great review, honestly it is going to help a lot, and English isn't my first but third so that is why I'm not the best out there, but I will try to be. I feel like I need to think a lot more before I write, and I wrote this novel on impulse, I going to rewrite it later.
And I one question do think it is good for be in organization and be bound by it, or be free to explore the world around him?
Thank you in advance.
I would like read too, I bought the mistborn first book the final empire by Brandon Sanderson I going to read it hopefully it is good book.
I appreciate your review a lot, I really mean it, I honestly didn't think if I was good or really bad but now I know I have just good ideas, not good writing skills, but so what I going to try away.
I just finished reading your novel, I honestly don't how to review goodly like you.
But here I go, I noticed one thing, you mentioned a name of place. For example you said name of place, you should introduce at that moment, like they are talking about, below it you should explain it. Like bronze lion you have introduced how it worked, for character it is okay at first. But place you should give how it looks.
But other than that it look fantastic, it look the church had attacked the village of the two girls and they run away from there alone but the oldest has developed trauma from it.

 

[R_S_Avery]

Hey, 0Nothingness0 :) First, I want to congratulate you on posting your first work! Kudos!

I have a couple of questions. First, is English your first language? I ask because there is a kind of cadence to your writing that suggests you may not be a native speaker. Second, would you be able to give me a vague idea of the overall, general major plot of the story? No spoilers, or anything, just like 'this is a hero's story' or 'the main character is going to overcome a major problem and grow as a character', those sorts of generalize, overarcing themes/plot goals.

My general suggestions have to do with your voice and tense consistency. Most of the work is passive voiced. What that means is the subject of a sentence receives the action - for example 'My leg was broken.' Where 'leg' is acted upon by 'broken'. Active voice would be: 'I broke my leg,' where the subject of the sentence ('I') acted upon the object ('leg'). Your character does a lot of 'was'-ing. 'I was thinking, I was wondering, I was..." That's all passive voice. Too much passive voice leaves fiction, especially, reading quite flat, dull.

Secondly, and this is something nearly every writer starts out doing and something we all get better at the more we write, you are explaining most of what happens (this is called exposition) and showing very little (action through motion or movement or intent, described as such on the page).

There is a big difference between:

"My head was ringing like crazy, like for real, it was unbearable. I wanted to crack open my head, because it was hurting that much, and my body was hurting but not as much as my head."

And:

'Klaxons rang in my head. The pressure threatened to break bone, split veins. The pain overwhelmed me, and I almost wished my brain would explode already. Put me out of my misery.'

The first is a direct quote from your work. The second is actively voiced. It also shows what's happening, rather than tells.

As for my qualifications, I've spent over fifteen years working as a freelance editor.

 

[CarburetorThompson]

A Being of Shadow

He awoke from deep sleep, he found only darkness. Not the absence of light, but a place outside the world he didn't knew. Something had been done to him. His body, once human, had become something else. A shadow. A whisper of who he used to be. He remembered nothing...

www.scribblehub.com

I’ll give some advice.

First for your chapter titles it would be good to number them, and make sure the formatting you use is always consistent, that includes things like punctuation and capitalization. I prefer to start my chapter titles with ‘Chapter # - Title’ but everyone does them a little differently.

Second just by reading your synopsis I can tell that there is a lot more tags you could add to your story, unlike genre tags you can have a large number of them, so it‘d be good to look and see which ones you can add. I believe there are tags for ‘non human protagonist’ and ‘reincarnated as a non human’ which would be good for your story. Tags help readers find your story better, but it also gives people a better idea what to expect beyond what you write in the synopsis.

Another thing to work on is your grammar. It’s not bad, I have seen much worse, but it still has a lot of room for improvement. From what I read some things you can work on is that you have a habit of using semicolons ( ; ) in places where a comma ( , ) would work just fine. Personally I try to only use it with contrasting independent clauses.

Another grammar thing I would work on is that you sometimes begin paragraphs with a conjunction like ‘But’. Usually it is recommended to not start a sentence with conjunctions if you are a new author, it can be done and certain authors like Ernest Hemingway are famous for doing it quite often, but generally it should be something that you don’t put at the beginning of a sentence if you are just starting writing (at least in my opinion). There is nothing grammatically incorrect about starting a paragraph with a conjunction like ’but’, however if you aren’t careful it can be confusing to readers.

I only gave your story a cursory look, so I can’t give any feedback about the plot or characters, but my best advice is to keep writing. Like all things practice may not make perfect but it does lead to improvement. Another thing I’d recommend if you aren’t already doing it is to read or keep reading the type of stories that inspire you, that is a good way to look at prose, and writing techniques that are directly applicable to your own story.

 

[Deleted member 214875]

I’ll give some advice.

First for your chapter titles it would be good to number them, and make sure the formatting you use is always consistent, that includes things like punctuation and capitalization. I prefer to start my chapter titles with ‘Chapter # - Title’ but everyone does them a little differently.

Second just by reading your synopsis I can tell that there is a lot more tags you could add to your story, unlike genre tags you can have a large number of them, so it‘d be good to look and see which ones you can add. I believe there are tags for ‘non human protagonist’ and ‘reincarnated as a non human’ which would be good for your story. Tags help readers find your story better, but it also gives people a better idea what to expect beyond what you write in the synopsis.

Another thing to work on is your grammar. It’s not bad, I have seen much worse, but it still has a lot of room for improvement. From what I read some things you can work on is that you have a habit of using semicolons ( ; ) in places where a comma ( , ) would work just fine. Personally I try to only use it with contrasting independent clauses.

Another grammar thing I would work on is that you sometimes begin paragraphs with a conjunction like ‘But’. Usually it is recommended to not start a sentence with conjunctions if you are a new author, it can be done and certain authors like Ernest Hemingway are famous for doing it quite often, but generally it should be something that you don’t put at the beginning of a sentence if you are just starting writing (at least in my opinion). There is nothing grammatically incorrect about starting a paragraph with a conjunction like ’but’, however if you aren’t careful it can be confusing to readers.

I only gave your story a cursory look, so I can’t give any feedback about the plot or characters, but my best advice is to keep writing. Like all things practice may not make perfect but it does lead to improvement. Another thing I’d recommend if you aren’t already doing it is to read or keep reading the type of stories that inspire you, that is a good way to look at prose, and writing techniques that are directly applicable to your own story.

Thank you for the review, the story was something I wrote suddenly but I definitely before I decided to write the next chapter I will fix the previous chapters.
I will do keep reading too and writing too.

Hey, 0Nothingness0 :) First, I want to congratulate you on posting your first work! Kudos!

I have a couple of questions. First, is English your first language? I ask because there is a kind of cadence to your writing that suggests you may not be a native speaker. Second, would you be able to give me a vague idea of the overall, general major plot of the story? No spoilers, or anything, just like 'this is a hero's story' or 'the main character is going to overcome a major problem and grow as a character', those sorts of generalize, overarcing themes/plot goals.

My general suggestions have to do with your voice and tense consistency. Most of the work is passive voiced. What that means is the subject of a sentence receives the action - for example 'My leg was broken.' Where 'leg' is acted upon by 'broken'. Active voice would be: 'I broke my leg,' where the subject of the sentence ('I') acted upon the object ('leg'). Your character does a lot of 'was'-ing. 'I was thinking, I was wondering, I was..." That's all passive voice. Too much passive voice leaves fiction, especially, reading quite flat, dull.

Secondly, and this is something nearly every writer starts out doing and something we all get better at the more we write, you are explaining most of what happens (this is called exposition) and showing very little (action through motion or movement or intent, described as such on the page).

There is a big difference between:

"My head was ringing like crazy, like for real, it was unbearable. I wanted to crack open my head, because it was hurting that much, and my body was hurting but not as much as my head."

And:

'Klaxons rang in my head. The pressure threatened to break bone, split veins. The pain overwhelmed me, and I almost wished my brain would explode already. Put me out of my misery.'

The first is a direct quote from your work. The second is actively voiced. It also shows what's happening, rather than tells.

As for my qualifications, I've spent over fifteen years working as a freelance editor.

English is not my first language but third so that why I have problems at writing
The main character is going to overcome a major problem.
Thank you for suggests I will edit the chapters I have posted them so they became a bit readable.
I really appreciate your advice.

 

[S.TrujilloL.]

This story has a raw, surreal intensity that really pulls you into the character’s disorientation. The mix of physical pain, memory loss, and the existential terror of becoming something other is striking — especially the moment where they realize they might be a shadow. That scene had weight.

The voice feels honest and unfiltered, like someone trying to make sense of an impossible experience. It’s chaotic at times, but that chaos matches the situation — the panic, the confusion, the silent transformation. There’s something almost dreamlike (or nightmarish) in how the character experiences reality, especially the loss of sound. That detail gave me chills.

That said, I think the piece would benefit from some tightening in language and pacing. There are moments where repetition or long internal monologues could be more focused to let key emotions land harder. Also, consider breaking longer paragraphs into smaller beats — it helps guide the reader’s breath through the scene.

But conceptually? It’s compelling. You’ve created a scenario that’s both strange and personal — the kind of thing that lingers after reading.

If this is part of something larger, I’d definitely keep going. You’ve tapped into something powerful.

 

[Deleted member 214875]

This story has a raw, surreal intensity that really pulls you into the character’s disorientation. The mix of physical pain, memory loss, and the existential terror of becoming something other is striking — especially the moment where they realize they might be a shadow. That scene had weight.

The voice feels honest and unfiltered, like someone trying to make sense of an impossible experience. It’s chaotic at times, but that chaos matches the situation — the panic, the confusion, the silent transformation. There’s something almost dreamlike (or nightmarish) in how the character experiences reality, especially the loss of sound. That detail gave me chills.

That said, I think the piece would benefit from some tightening in language and pacing. There are moments where repetition or long internal monologues could be more focused to let key emotions land harder. Also, consider breaking longer paragraphs into smaller beats — it helps guide the reader’s breath through the scene.

But conceptually? It’s compelling. You’ve created a scenario that’s both strange and personal — the kind of thing that lingers after reading.

If this is part of something larger, I’d definitely keep going. You’ve tapped into something powerful.

Thank you, do you think I should rewrite it or should I just continue what I have been doing and improve as I write.

 

[S.TrujilloL.]

Thank you, do you think I should rewrite it or should I just continue what I have been doing and improve as I write.

I’d say: don’t stop. Don’t rewrite — evolve. What you’ve created has a kind of rawness that can’t be faked. That chaos you mentioned? It works — it mirrors the panic of becoming something unrecognizable. It’s not polished, but it breathes. That matters more.

Could the language be tightened? Sure. But that’s what later drafts are for. For now, keep moving forward. Let the voice get stronger while staying honest. You’re building something personal — and that’s rare.

Your story actually reminded me of what I’m exploring in my own sci-fi novel: The Story of Nemi. It’s about a world where the brain and machines have merged in dangerous ways, and a character that fights not with power, but with memory. The central question is:

“How far can the human brain be transformed… before it stops being human?”

If that kind of question resonates with you, you might like it:
https://www.scribblehub.com/series/1726481/the-story-of-nemi/

But regardless of that — please keep writing. What you’re doing has weight. And weight is what lingers.

 

[CarburetorThompson]

Thank you, do you think I should rewrite it or should I just continue what I have been doing and improve as I write.

Don’t rewrite it. You only just started, if you only ever rewrite the beginning of a story you may get better at writing beginnings, but you’ll get no such practice for the middle or the end. Writing a story whilst simultaneously updating it can be frustrating, as new readers will always see your oldest and likely worse work first.

This is a trap I fell into quite often. I’d start stories, and then either start to doubt the concept or notice my writing had improved so start a new one instead. Eventually you have to just pick a story and stick with it if you want to see real long term progress. So I wouldn‘t recommend rewriting especially when you only just started

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Unless later developments make earlier story points make no sense, don't re-write until you are done with the first draft of the story (or, if you're writing in large arcs, until you're done with the first major arc). Just plow on ahead or you'll get lost in your own ideas. I've had this happen a few times myself.

 

[Deleted member 214875]

I’d say: don’t stop. Don’t rewrite — evolve. What you’ve created has a kind of rawness that can’t be faked. That chaos you mentioned? It works — it mirrors the panic of becoming something unrecognizable. It’s not polished, but it breathes. That matters more.

Could the language be tightened? Sure. But that’s what later drafts are for. For now, keep moving forward. Let the voice get stronger while staying honest. You’re building something personal — and that’s rare.

Your story actually reminded me of what I’m exploring in my own sci-fi novel: The Story of Nemi. It’s about a world where the brain and machines have merged in dangerous ways, and a character that fights not with power, but with memory. The central question is:



If that kind of question resonates with you, you might like it:
https://www.scribblehub.com/series/1726481/the-story-of-nemi/

But regardless of that — please keep writing. What you’re doing has weight. And weight is what lingers.

Okay, I won't do that, I will continue writing, I will check out it.
Thank you for advice.

Don’t rewrite it. You only just started, if you only ever rewrite the beginning of a story you may get better at writing beginnings, but you’ll get no such practice for the middle or the end. Writing a story whilst simultaneously updating it can be frustrating, as new readers will always see your oldest and likely worse work first.

This is a trap I fell into quite often. I’d start stories, and then either start to doubt the concept or notice my writing had improved so start a new one instead. Eventually you have to just pick a story and stick with it if you want to see real long term progress. So I wouldn‘t recommend rewriting especially when you only just started

Yeah, you know guys say that where you could be improved, I wanted go and improve but if I just focus the chapter 1 or 2, and go after perfection, I won't be able to write the story.
Thank you for telling me your opinion.

Unless later developments make earlier story points make no sense, don't re-write until you are done with the first draft of the story (or, if you're writing in large arcs, until you're done with the first major arc). Just plow on ahead or you'll get lost in your own ideas. I've had this happen a few times myself.

Okay, I won't let myself get lost the ideas. I will continue the writing the story.
Thank you for telling me about your experience and advice.

 

[DearDire]

This story has a raw, surreal intensity that really pulls you into the character’s disorientation. The mix of physical pain, memory loss, and the existential terror of becoming something other is striking — especially the moment where they realize they might be a shadow. That scene had weight.

The voice feels honest and unfiltered, like someone trying to make sense of an impossible experience. It’s chaotic at times, but that chaos matches the situation — the panic, the confusion, the silent transformation. There’s something almost dreamlike (or nightmarish) in how the character experiences reality, especially the loss of sound. That detail gave me chills.

That said, I think the piece would benefit from some tightening in language and pacing. There are moments where repetition or long internal monologues could be more focused to let key emotions land harder. Also, consider breaking longer paragraphs into smaller beats — it helps guide the reader’s breath through the scene.

But conceptually? It’s compelling. You’ve created a scenario that’s both strange and personal — the kind of thing that lingers after reading.

If this is part of something larger, I’d definitely keep going. You’ve tapped into something powerful.

AI?