I need help, review my story

#1
No one reads my story, I can't tell why. Help me with a review to see what I'm doing wrong:
https://royalroadl.com/fiction/13461/between-war-and-magic
Specially chapter 7, everybody who didn't leave in chapter 1 leaves after chapter 7, but I like chapter 7. xD (Well, half the people left after chapter 7 and I have two followers, so it's not really no one.)

It doesn't matter if you are cruel so long as you are honest.
Thanks.

RE: I need help, review my story

#3
On the first point, it makes me think I didn't write as much like that on the last few chapters. I need to pay more attention to descriptions.
On the second one, I changed the protagonist three times. So I'm glad you liked him. (The first two were terrible) He is gentle, but not too gentle. Maybe with his grandma he was. Since she was his last living family member. (Aside from his uncle, but he hates him)
On the third one, I don't notice those at all. For me:
'Taking advantage of your own predictability was fundamental for feinting, Takuya knew it full well.' and
'Taking advantage of your own predictability was fundamental for feinting. Takuya knew it full well.'
Look the same. xD I will fix it, but I don't think I will be able to catch that many of those errors.

"just the sentence mechanics, grammar and punctuation could be tightened up."
I felt the same with your story. (Which I will review once I finish reading) You miss a lot of commas and use some weird phrasing. (I will show examples on the review later)
I was a bit busy writing, hopefully I will be able to write faster from now on.

RE: I need help, review my story

#4
@Jokerx7: I think it would be good if you showed more humility for others that you ask to review your story, instead of attacking their works (which doesn't invalidate their critique).

My thoughts:
You're introduction really could use some work, it has nothing except for some generic fantasy (that might be on the darker side from the gore and trauma tags). The only hint I get about what the story will be about is that there will be some magic...

Second, your writing could really use some polish. Extremely short sentences and multiple exclamation marks will at least drive me away from a story very fast. Currently the first chapter almost look like a not-great translation.

I didn't want to finish reading the first chapter.

RE: I need help, review my story

#5
'Ilzhahkha' pid='827887' dateline='1505659701' Wrote: @Jokerx7: I think it would be good if you showed more humility for others that you ask to review your story, instead of attacking their works (which doesn't invalidate their critique).
I wasn't trying to invalidate their critique. It's like Tanaka said, I'm just doing an exchange of reviews with them. I just finished writing mine for Jinn, but it seems that Jinn deleted the post where he asked.

'Ilzhahkha' pid='827887' dateline='1505659701' Wrote: You're introduction really could use some work, it has nothing except for some generic fantasy (that might be on the darker side from the gore and trauma tags). The only hint I get about what the story will be about is that there will be some magic...
Yes, my synopsis needs more work. I'm bad at them. I never read the synopsis of the books I read and I don't want to spoil anything, so I have trouble with it. I will improve it sometime soon. I wanted to do it after I make a cover, and I just made the cover.

'Ilzhahkha' pid='827887' dateline='1505659701' Wrote: Second, your writing could really use some polish. Extremely short sentences and multiple exclamation marks will at least drive me away from a story very fast. Currently the first chapter almost look like a not-great translation.
Yeah, I just notice, some chapters have 20+ exclamation marks, while others have 1-3. (It doesn't help that some are triple: !!!) I will keep it in mind for the next chapters.
About the sentences being extremely short: I don't see it. I mean, some may be, because I don't want to do them unnecessarily large, but most are quite large. I don't see how that is a problem either. If I can say what I want to say in five words, why would I write it on thirty? Unless I can't say what I want to say in five, but I do write the thirty words in those cases.

'Ilzhahkha' pid='827887' dateline='1505659701' Wrote: I didn't want to finish reading the first chapter.
I think you are just angry I "attacked them", but okay. :P Thanks for reading the first chapter at least. xD

RE: I need help, review my story

#6
Okay, I read the first chapter and will stop there. Just not my cup of tea.

Feedback: You tell us a lot, most of it either confusing or something I don't believe is necessary. I would like to see more showing us the surroundings and not tell us about it. The hundred year old hut for example is absolutely obsolete, yet we get a decent amount of information about it.
I would like to see you focuse on the important things like how the main character looks, what he does, what his backstory and motication is. Try to give us some idea on what his goal is.
The village seems bland, we get a bit of information about it but you mostly stick to either dialog or to the main character so we know next to nothing about it.
The combat was a bit to vague for my taste, we got a good look into what is going to come later on with Rayen and Takuya but why they fight or who taught them is a mystery.
In general, you present us with a lot of facts, rather than explenations, or hints. Now be aware that this is just my opinion and like I said the story is not really my cup of tea.

Good things: You got yourself your own world, you seem to have an idea on what it is supposed to look and work like but you struggle a bit with relaying that to the readers, which is easily fixed with a bit of training.
You got a plot in mind and we can see that you work to get there, having direction is important.

All in all you got the bones of a story here, if you do a rewrite or start a new story feel free to pm me and get another opinion from me.

I hope it helped at least a bit.