HELP with stories

#1
Hello I know a lot of you don't have the time or energy or desire to seriously edit someone elses work without pay so I am here begging for ANY level of help even if you just read the synopsis and tell me your opinion on that, it would still be helpful as long as it is CONSTRUCTIVE, meaning add reasons why you like or dislike it.  I want to know if the idea itself is too cliche.  I am posting this request on several sites to get as much feedback as possible.  I've had writer's block for a while, though strangely I still come up with new ideas for stories.  I get super excited by a story and sometimes write several chapters and then end up hitting a wall and not knowing what to do next.  Only two of my stories are on RRL but I practically gave up on figuring out one of them.

So please if you have time I will post a synopsis of each story with a few concerns and then links, mainly for google dox though they are 'read only' right now (I am not sure how to fix that).  Give them a look and give me as much feedback as you are willing to.

Main concerns of mine are
Are there plot holes, and where are they?
Is the plot/story interesting or does it feel cliche or boring?
Are the characters realistic/believable and relate-able?
Does the Dialogue feel realistic and change for each person in a believable fashion?
How does the story flow? Is is repetitive, boring, or cliche?  Is the pacing too slow or fast?


Zeltis

Alexander Kent is rich, handsome, and reasonably intelligent But he also is bullied, a bit uncoordinated, shy, and his elitist father is cold, distant, and expects Alex to be perfect.  Alex didn't expect an accident to put him at death's door, or the voice of a demon who wanted to make a deal with him.  In exchange for borrowing Alex's body sometimes, the demon would heal him.  Unsure but with little other choice Alex agrees to the somewhat dubious deal. Despite not remembering when he wakes he slowly gets introduced to the hidden world of the supernatural that was always there but he didn't see it or beleive in it.  This strange new world becomes all too much a part of his life as his normal life is now a mess of mystery, danger, and confusion. 

Concern: I worry most about this story being repetitive and or boring since it basically is half slice of life/school life and half supernatural battles.

http://royalroadl.com/fiction/543 
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AYJcdfmaAxAlEQZ4vxHlXhYDhy0LVY9SgptqbYaeTU4/edit
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Unwritten Page

A young man washes up on the shore of an island with no memories or who he is or where he comes from.  The island locals know based on his language that he is from the Empire that has constantly threatened them for their land and the ores they can mine on that land along with the mystical secrets the islanders know.  Despite their suspicions the islanders allow him to stay and he becomes a helpful part of the community.  At least until more ships from the Empire come.  With fractured memories he can barely grasp it is hard to know which side to fight for but he can't just stand aside and watch the people who helped him die.  So many mysteries surround his past and the only way to find out more is to go to the Empire despite the fact that he is beginning to hate how they run things.

concerns: The pacing is especially hard for this one.  I want to keep the surprise of who he is for as long as possible and give small clues as I go but that leaves the MC in a "Slice of LIfe" kind of feeling for a while and I don't want the story to just become boring.  People often seem to only want fight scenes or action but I want to show relationships more and how people relate to each other so you can see who they are.  

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7K29Sw8ec7bS0pscE16S2ZVVlE/view?ths=true
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Rebirth Worlds

A very ordinary man dies and finds out that because he was so utterly ordinary they don't know where to send him.  They tell him he will be reborn but in the end the God's have other plans.  He might get a new body with interesting abilities but he also has to be in their service and go to anywhere they send him.  He doesn't know how long before he might be finished with all their tasks or even if he can manage his first one.

concerns: I tried to make this into a comedic fantasy with lots of irony, satire, and messing with the MC but not sure how well I can succeed at it.  It's hard 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7K29Sw8ec7bN2NDdHcxX3JjbVU/view?ths=true



I lack a lot of confidence but my dream is to publish a story so please be tactfully honest with what you think with clear points and examples if possible.  I truly want to improve my writing and have received very little feedback.  I don't even know if my ideas are marketable, interesting to people.  It's hard to keep writing something when you rarely get feedback on it, it makes you wonder if the story is lacking and even if you get a few they are often too vague so it's hard to know how the readers truly feel and if they just don't want to hurt my feelings.  Don't concentrate on just the grammar as anyone can help with that.  Please give me as much feedback as you can on things like plot, characters, flow, dialogue, and if the idea/theme is interesting enough.

Thanks in advance for any advice you can give me. I will try to fix the google dox thing as soon as I can but you can still read them I hope so please do that if you can and give me your opinions on what you can.

RE: HELP with stories

#2
This may not be what you're looking for, but these two things will help your flow.

I skimmed over the beginning, somewhere in the middle and some of the end and throughout your work, I see a combination of Filter words and Passive voice which, together, really holds back the potential in a good story. One or the other I can usually sit through and enjoy sometimes, but both together is...well...I just can't read it.

I won't point out specific examples, but instead explain these terms in the way I see them. Sorry if I'm blunt.
•To me, Filter words are a subtle form of 'telling'. When you say 'this character saw that' what I see (as the reader) is 'the character looking at something' rather than 'me looking at what the character is looking at'. You (the author) are telling us readers what is happening instead of showing it.
•To me, Passive voice is simply boring. I want to be in an active scene where things are always happening. When describing anything (a person or a scene) you want to describe things as they're doing something. When you say 'she was wearing a fire-red dress' so what? I don't see anything happening. As far as I'm concerned, time within the story has stopped. What if the dress surrounded her figure like a flame? (That was a pretty lame example, I admit, but you see my point?) Now something is happening, time has not stopped, the story is still moving.

There are maybe a few other things I could find, but it'll be better you focus on these two things for now. My guide might be a bit overwhelming, but here it is if you wish to learn more anyways :P
http://forum.royalroadl.com/showthread.php?tid=52998&pid=524182#pid524182

If you need further help I'd be willing to join you in your g-docs and show you how to eliminate these things one word at a time.

RE: HELP with stories

#3
Don't worry you weren't too blunt at all you were very tactful and I appreciate it.
Showing rather than telling is a constant battle and it's hard when I miss so many details and can't clearly see any other way to word things so it is 'showing' rather than 'telling'.

Same with passive voice. I don't really understand how to notice it and even when I do I have no idea how to reword things so it isn't passive and yet still make sense. Please any help you could give me would be really helpful. I think if I could learn to notice these better and learn how to fix them my writing would really improve. Just watching a talk on youtube on how to write doesn't really help as I kind of need clear examples and how to apply it. I have a few people that sounded interested but having more people help all aspects of the stories can only make them better. I want to make these stories great, not just good and I am willing to do whatever I can to do that even massive re-writing if I have to.

I copied and pasted the three stories into new google docs documents so that now they are available to edit and comment on. Here are the new links. Please do what you can. I will seriously appreciate any and all the help I can get. I am at a point where I just can't get any better on my own anymore.

Zeltis- https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AYJcdfmaAxAlEQZ4vxHlXhYDhy0LVY9SgptqbYaeTU4/edit?usp=sharing
Unwritten page- https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vEzh0zBcdmMbQxOsy-PL_MAVB1qQ4gDsWKen0jKDoDI/edit?usp=sharing
Rebirth Worlds- https://docs.google.com/document/d/18gtc-v6J6INxyXZjdZ8kxznSyG-BXXfrvzBAHPHh1dg/edit?usp=sharing

RE: HELP with stories

#4
If you are curious about passive voice, as it can be confusing to tell if a sentence is actually using passive voice or not, the easiest way I've seen is by adding 'by zombies' at the end of a sentence. If it makes sense, it's passive.

So, sadly, "she was wearing a red dress (by zombies)" is not passive voice. But "she was being eaten (by zombies)" is.

If you want to get the technical definition, basically passive voice is when the subject of the sentence is being acted upon by something else and not actually doing the action. There's two kinds of passive voice, Short form and long form. Long form has the agent, the thing doing the action in the sentence, so "she was being eaten by zombies." Short form does not have the agent, so "she was being eaten."

Passive voice isn't bad, but it can get a little slow reading it. To switch it out, simply make the agent the subject of the sentence. Make it read "zombies were eating her" or "zombies ate her". Then it's not passive voice anymore.

Sorry if this isn't that relevant and much too grammary. I kinda got excited that I could explain passive voice to someone. Hopefully this helps you out at least when spotting passive voice. And by the way, that filler word article is super useful. I need to go back and look at my own writing now lol. The passive voice article isn't bad either.
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