Hello! I've recently started posting a story on this site (https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/28806/the-flower-that-bloomed-nowhere). It's a fantasy/mystery time loop story in the vein of something like Mother of Learning that I thought would fit decently for the demographics here. 

However, I don't seem to be getting a lot of traction with it so far; my retention is not great, and not a lot of people seem to be checking it out at all. It's very hard for me to evaluate my own writing, but in the story, I employ some sort of unorthodox presentational devices and have maybe a more intense narrative voice than some stories, and also focus more on character-driven moments than just plot-driven ones. I find stuff like that compelling, but I'm not sure how true it might be for the average reader. I don't need reviews or anything, but would anyone be willing to skim the first chapter a bit and tell me if they think it's dragging it down, or whatever other issues you perceive?

From what I can see your story is still quite new and posting a three times weekly at present. I wouldn’t say the story is doing badly really for how far it is so far. You have a strong narrative voice already which works in your if you can get a good voice to make reading through even large amounts of prose engaging. I saw a large comment on the first chapter already, which means there are definitely a few already quite interested in whether your story has potential.

Assuming you want to address the flaws your story/writing might have I do have some feedback to help provide some insight. You’re kind of story isn’t too common on this sight so I am limited how effectively I can advise you. The biggest distinguishing factor is you’re heavy prose, and I only really know of a few authors on RR who focus on writing heavy prose similarly to yours. Kgy121 for example:
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/16779/experimental-dungeon-novel

If that is your worry about intimidating writing then I can certainly say there are large disadvantages to this, at least in terms of popularity among less critical individuals. Most people seek Entertainment over Art and don’t was
Nt to invest a lot of their time in something that might be hard to identify as something easy to engage with quickly. Heavier prose tends to require more chapters being read before you might conclude that the story is enjoyable. You lose people who are easily turned off.

You’re largest issue I would say is unknowns. An unknown new author, and unknown nee book, the kind of plot you’re story eventually will have is also largely unknown from the profile page other than vaguely what genre you are aiming for. You are heavily emphasizing mystery and you’re story is quite opaque at least initially and in the first chapter that I’ve read. Mystery is nor a common genre on RR as far as I am aware. Action, adventure, wish fulfillment fantasy, and other more immediate genres are more common. There are a lot of stories that contain a great deal of the mysterious but they tend to be out aside for action and survival until they become relevant again.

I like stories with a heavier kind of prose, but authors who write that kind of story, in at least the cases I have seen, also have the tendency of being slow to advance the plot and slow to write the story, with hiatus being not unusual. This would be because heavy prose is heavy work. Not just heavy to read. It takes a lot of time and focus to write heavier prose, and I’ve even experienced this myself. Which means that even if I want otherwise, authors who spend more energy on prose than they are able have issues progressing the story.

Simplistic language isn’t lesser in terms of narrative or emotional impact for example. The implications and context of the wording will always have more impact than the vocabulary. You can see this in any story with an immature character, in very simple terms, describes something very emotional and very profound. That difficulty in properly expressing the true meaning can even add to the effect. You are clearly experienced in working heavily on your prose, so if I can make a suggestion it would be to read good Translated novels where every sentence is a new paragraph and try experimenting with the most simple language you can. Give paragraphs a length limit. Cut your word counts. Learn grow.

But those are your weaknesses. Your prose is your strength, and you can leverage it better. To have heavier prose inherently requires the beginnings of a narrative Voice, and having a Voice to your writing helps improve not only the effectiveness but also how you write it. Ot can help you more clearly envision what you will write while and before you write it. And that will help you write faster, more, better. It’s a skill better than any outline. For that you could try writing short snippets (15 minutes max I’d say) and try to embody a Voice in your mind. Get the atmosphere right. The humour, the horror. The Epic, the mysterious.

Tldr; you only have two ratings and you desperately need reviews.heavy prose is harder to review too. I gotta go now, rant prematurely over,

Lurina Wrote: but would anyone be willing to skim the first chapter a bit and tell me if they think it's dragging it down, or whatever other issues you perceive?

No advice on your writing, but a bit of opinion on the challenges you'll have and some small things that may help;

RR is geared towards certain types of stories just because of audience preferences. I like your writing, but it is denser than webnovels tend to be. Actually, I'm coming up blank for an equivalent web-novel style. This is going to be hard to sell, even though it deserves it. In context, webnovels are the types of reading I nearly skim-read (phone waiting for coffee, break time, etc) and I expect it is similar for most. Likewise, I tend to prefer stories that I don't need to remember a lot of details on (or refresh details)... because it is one of thirty stories I'm currently reading. I can't even advise another place than RR because all webnovels are like this and I think RR is actually better than most. A lot of stories here are much more professional here than elsewhere. 

Also, you are at ~100 pages, and you won't see an uptick until closer to ~200. A bit of IMO because of my preferences, but also just the result of so many authors being discouraged and dropping their stories. I think, also, that you will have a hard time with episodic readers due to the style, which means you probably will have to wait to have enough content to get people entrenched. It's like... going to the gym. Hard, but worth it, but still easy to stop going until you have gone enough to make it a habit. 



Things that may help a bit;

1) Expand your description a bit. For RR, it's important to also capture the 'essence' of a story. (High) Fantasy, litRPG, etc. Your description is succinct and great, but it might not be quite enough because of the density of your story. I don't have specific advice, but something like "high fantasy with a more prose" will bring in people who like that. What you are probably seeing is the lack of retention of people who see your story on new/etc. and expect a certain type of story. It's small, but a betrayal of expectations is enough for people to distance themselves.

2) I'm not a fan of the chapter titles. Numbers are great, keep that, but think of the chapter title as an advertisement of your story. They are going to show up on the latest/update, it's going to be what people scroll down to click, etc. 

3) Keep going! It's too early to tell. 

4) Focus edit the plotline and get beta readers. The one thing that can kill heavy prose is a mistake in conveying the story. It's doubling down on the effort to understand an episodic story, and very few will have the time and desire to do that. I didn't see that in your story, but emphasize clarity. Clever writing + heavy prose are for those readers that open a book and slowly explore that world while in front of a fireplace, and there aren't too many of those here.

Having said all that, the story is the story you want to tell. Don't change it for anyone, really, but beware expectations. We, the audience, may very well let you down.

Thanks for your both your replies! I really appreciate it.

The suggestion about the description and chapters is a quick fix and probably good advice. I was trying to do something different with both of them in the hopes of standing out a little (since the site seems to lean towards very lengthy descriptions and fairly literal/long chapter titles) but it might be doing more harm then good? It's kind of hard for me to get into the head of the average serial reader - I'm attracted to things that seem peculiar and stick out, but I guess for most people that's not really the case.

As for the rest, it sounds like most of what you're saying that dense prose isn't bad, but it's still tiring and high-investment, which can make people reluctant to invest themselves in without pre-existing faith in the author? I suppose I knew that already, but was hoping to overcome the problem through just by making it consistently high-quality and fun to read on a chapter-by-chapter basis, but I guess it's not really that simple or I'm not at that level yet, since you're both citing it as an issue. 

Could you make any recommendations as to what I might be able to do to raise reader "comfort levels" in the first chapter, so that it might seem less like a total leap of faith?

Lurina Wrote: I suppose I knew that already, but was hoping to overcome the problem through just by making it consistently high-quality and fun to read on a chapter-by-chapter basis, but I guess it's not really that simple or I'm not at that level yet, since you're both citing it as an issue.

Not an issue, just an explanation on why uptake might not be as fast as you expected! I think you should write the story the way you want it to be! Especially if trying something new. Really, it's quite good. Feedback is fine, but don't over-cater to the audience!

Quote:Could you make any recommendations as to what I might be able to do to raise reader "comfort levels" in the first chapter, so that it might seem less like a total leap of faith?

Hmm... What are the drop off statistics saying? Are most readers stopping after the first chapter? Is it steady after that? 

1) I might suggest dropping the top introduction, or move it to the bottom. Start right into the story with a (the?) main character. That part grabbed me. I think the actual story is a better hook. The first three chapters are fairly "traditional", with the introduction being the exception. 

2) There are a couple of moments of introspection that don't... mesh. The best example is the power segment (the part that starts with "The first thing that any child will learn about the Power...") when she spends mental energy to talk to the audience to explain what she is about to do (and by extension, what power means/does/etc.) I would suggest changing this to a more natural form of explanation (eg: Every student who practices power learns to move small objects, as that is the basis of Power. And every student learns to open unguarded locks the moment they take their first class. ) I would say the same about the self-introduction portion (the part that starts with "There's not much notable to say about myself, really.") I know it's a style thing, repeated in the later chapters, but... it's too juxtaposed as it is. The first time, at least.

3) There are a few technical errors eg:

For them, time and space were somewhat more negotiable concepts then than they were, strictly speaking, for human beings. A simple way to put it would be that they were watching the scene from a quasi-disconnected space, on a frame-by-frame basis, akin to the experience of editing a film. 

Normally this is really trivial for webnovels and I wouldn't sweat it, but the density works against these small mistakes because the reader is already reading carefully. There aren't lot, but at least a few in each chapter.

4) This isn't about the first chapter - there are some jumps in the story that don't help reader understanding. The part in chapter 2 (the part starting with "The Order of the Universal Panacea.") seems like it has an unnecessary jump. The kind of jump that makes me think that we have time-jumped or location-jumped or memory-jumped, or..., but then it kind of flows right back into the story. That may work in some cases, but this is really disruptive to the action-discovery feeling that is going on.  

I find a similar effect at the start of chapter 4. Although it can be assumed, whose perspective are we reading from? How does the reader know?  In part, this is where your style can backfire. You describe both women, intentionally not identifying them, etc. Her name is only mentioned once near the end. IMO, however, style got in the way of clarity. I would compare it to Lord of the Rings, where lots of words, descriptions and so forth are used, but never (rarely?) get in the way of clarity. For instance, your style can still be preserved with the approach "Our Heroine Utsushikome, although she does not yet remember her role, and despite a fairly convincing pretense of effort, learns nothing, and fails completely." This is one of the burdens of a denser style - less forgiveness for confusion/lack of clarity.

Still, this is just feedback based on my opinion. I think it's good, and I don't want to seem like I'm encouraging changing your delivery. It's just about making that delivery better! 

Read the first chapter and 'intimidating' is not the word I'd use. Your style/presentation is different, for sure, but not terribly complicated. A big word here, an unusual sentence construction there, but nothing that would make an avid reader (which I assume describes most lurkers on this site?) shy away.

If you're not getting views or retaining those you do get, it's more likely the content than the presentation. Readers on RR are rather forgiving when it comes to presentation, methinks.

My honest recommendation is that you do some review swaps if you want reviews, or simply study the successful works on the site if you want views.

I've done several swaps and have learned a lot from them. For instance, Elliot Moors excels at depicting hyperbolic fight scenes, and Arthicern is the best dialogue writer I've ever read. Period. There is much to learn from swaps and you could get a better idea of your work in comparison with others.

Another thing to consider is what a normal retention rate is. I have no answer for this. By the end of my first arc (by chap 14), I have about 25% retention. Low? Standard? High? Not sure. Also, in terms of followers, I have about 10% of the Average Views metric. Again, normal? Can't say. In any event, you may think readers are slow to pick up your work, but you might actually be in good shape. Probably not a good thing to compare yourself to the outliers (unless you happen to be one).

Read the beginning of the first chapter and as a critique, it was intimidating to me for two reasons (and keep in mind these are only my personal preferences, so don't take it as an inherent flaw so much as just getting some opinionated feedback).

Typically I read fast-paced fantasy stories, call it ADD or two-second attention span or whatever, but the prologue at the beginning was a bit of a turn-off.  I wouldn't say it was a dealbreaker, but philosophical waxings and rhetorical questions aimed at the reader are a bit of a pet peeve of mine.  

The other problem I had is a much more objective critique, one I'm basing off the feedback I've gotten from my own writing.  There's simply too much description in the opener.  The prose is a bit flowery, but mostly it was the long, adjective filled sentences and the unnaturally big words that swayed my attention.  I was skimming more paragraphs than I was reading and didn't ever feel like I was missing any important information.

Instead of spending a couple of paragraphs describing how average a room is, you might consider starting out with the peculiar woman standing in it to grab my attention and give direction to the narrative.  If you wanted to describe the room from that point, you could contrast her peculiarity with the environment or something.  Doing something like that would give a narrative purpose for the description other than 'it was there'. 
 
Describing details is kind of like the difference between writing "On the hill, twenty archers, thirteen swordsmen, and forty-eight light infantry gathered"  vs  "A small group of archers, swordsmen, and light infantry gathered on the hill."   The latter is much easier to digest since I can form my own exact mental image based on the author's loose description that only handed me the important bits.  To comprehend the former, I have to constantly rearrange my mental image as I read, leading to a jumbled mess of an ever-changing scene in my head.  More than likely, I'd just give up trying to envision the author's exact scene and skim over the descriptions reading it as "There was a small gathering" anyways, with just makes the precise adjectives feel like unnecessary wordiness that detracts from the important bits.  Everyone imagines the same book differently; that's the fun of it.

Just off the prologue up top and the two paragraphs describing the room, I wouldn't have read much further if it weren't for a quick review (Though, I doubt I'm your audience either.  I love fantasy, but never read LoTR just because of the heavy, description filled narrative)


I did like the tone of the omniscient narrator in the middle section.  It felt like an extra character speaking directly to me conversationally.  Certainly wouldn't mind more of that kind of thing.

Thanks for all your feedback! It's really helpful. I'll probably cut out the initial opening of chapter one, and make a few changes to the way things are structured to avoid confusing or putting people off in the initial chapters. It's a good point that it could be clear that the viewpoint character hasn't changed after chapter 3 - I assumed people would pick it up from the fact that they're described the same way in both openings, but that was probably unrealistic. I'll try to make some minor revisions and improve the overall flow.

Oh, there was one thing I wanted to address directly...

Master Jenkens Wrote: Instead of spending a couple of paragraphs describing how average a room is, you might consider starting out with the peculiar woman standing in it to grab my attention and give direction to the narrative.  If you wanted to describe the room from that point, you could contrast her peculiarity with the environment or something.  Doing something like that would give a narrative purpose for the description other than 'it was there'. 

Describing details is kind of like the difference between writing "On the hill, twenty archers, thirteen swordsmen, and forty-eight light infantry gathered"  vs  "A small group of archers, swordsmen, and light infantry gathered on the hill."   The latter is much easier to digest since I can form my own exact mental image based on the author's loose description that only handed me the important bits.  To comprehend the former, I have to constantly rearrange my mental image as I read, leading to a jumbled mess of an ever-changing scene in my head.  More than likely, I'd just give up trying to envision the author's exact scene and skim over the descriptions reading it as "There was a small gathering" anyways, with just makes the precise adjectives feel like unnecessary wordiness that detracts from the important bits.  Everyone imagines the same book differently; that's the fun of it.

The trouble with this is that, while vague descriptions are fine for an adventure story, this is meant to be a fairly hard and deliberate mystery story. In writing it, I've been trying to pay close heed to the information economy of the text, and not waste the readers time with anything superfluous; anything in there serves a purpose, either to elaborate on a character or part of the setting, or else to establish something for later. The reason that the room is described in detail rather than being described in vague terms is that the way the room looks, specifically, is kind of important information - and this is foreshadowed later on in the scene with one of the two characters discussing how elements of the room are "wrong".

You have to be really careful in writing a mystery story, I think, to not make it feel unfair. When a story challenges the reader to try and figure out what's going on, vagueness can feel very cheap. To reference your example, if you had a character who was shot by 10 arrows, and the reader was invited to guess which of two group of bowmen shot them, it would make a world of difference whether you described the two groups as "one small group and one bigger group" versus "a group of 5 people and a group of 10 people". One gives the reader the information required to reach a conclusion, while the other, though more succinct, is just... Fluff.

That's not to say you're wrong to be put off by it, of course - you said yourself that you prefer stuff that's lower detail and more casual, and it might just not be your thing. I guess I'm just kinda wondering how many people might share that perspective? There's a surprising amount of relatively high density fiction in the best rated section of this site, so I'm not sure how worried I should be.

If I would have to give advice to improve any narrative writing, and it is important to not just dump all my ideas on these things as one I have found, then it would be to pay attention to expectations.

Theory in humour is that it forms from a divergence from expectations; you though the chicken crossed the road for a joke, but there was no joke, and that becomes the joke, until expectations change and no one likes that joke. Without expectations for your story nothing in your story can have any real emotive impact. You can be apathetic enough to yawn at any joke if you tried. The experience we seek to create stems from how high we can bring expectations and how well we can manipulate them, ignoring other more specific and circumstantial issues.

Another way to state that is that your story develops “Promises” that the reader expects to be fulfilled, and not doing so is a basic source of disappointment, and there is no disappointment without expectations. You gain no sense without sensitivity. This is important for understanding the mindset of the reader at any point, for that is what you are targeting with the entirety of your authorial capabilities.

There are a few assumptions you can make, such as a reader not truly having “bought in” to the story on the first chapter, especially if they paid nothing, and still needing convincing. The first chapters are a way of filtering through new readers and making them flow into your stream so that the later main chapters have more unified readership in terms of mindset.

I’ve used a rollercoaster metaphor before, but stories really do fit well i to flow metaphors. Narrative has a flow that likes twists and turns in it’s streams, too shallow an incline can cause stagnation and has several issues, too much turbulence can cause a problematic churn. Something that flows badly or is too jarring can break that narrative flow for the reader and spit them right back into that mindset they might have had before even starting to read.

This flow requires several things among them appropriate pacing, an effective tone for the prose, clarity that the reader can access with the effort they are willing to expend etc. This is the focus of your line for line writing even ignoring wider strategic shifts in the plot. If you want to keep your reader’s focus you must focus your writing and understand the focus of your reader. What are the anticipating, what do they care about, what are the paying effort to thing of. Your a magician and the focus of your audience is the most powerful tool you have.

This means you need to always build on what’s already there, draw focus by focusing on what is being focused on. Even if half the text is gibberish and you only understand every third of the language there must be a central thread that is the most coherent that can tie all the disparate components together. The Golden Thread approach is not something I made up either. Your reader are all different, and if your work is demanding their ability to follow completely will be even more varying. The baseline is what is most important as that effects readers the most consistently and every other tidbit is just extras that don’t strictly need clarification until the end or even ever. Don’t give them everything, but always give them something.

Imagery and symbolism aside, there are many ways to let one paragraph flow into another. I once had the idea of baubles that I haven’t yet thought through completely. I’ve seen it done before where hero characters hold a precious mysterious seed and guard it while fleeing with no explanation of it’s significance other that it’s centrality to the plot. If everything was unclear the importance of that bauble was certain. At some later point a great wave pf plot significance pours forth from that bauble. Nothing had promised this, nothing justified this, but the flow of the narrative has built it up even if many characters examined it and declared it without worth. The sheer focus of the plot had invested expectation into that bauble.

And my point is that it doesn’t matter what it is. Object, person, time, place, cloud, abstraction, concept, belief, it is the way it flows through the story that defines it, the way characters pay it attention, or the narrator always mentions it even without any suggestion of relevance.

Contrary to how it may seem, it is not the resolution or the climax that yields the most effect, but the anticipation thereof. That is why I care so much about expectations. Horror is built from the anticipation of the unknown, adventure is grown from the anticipation of the potential, mystery is shaped by the anticipation of possibility and probability and uncertainty. Anticipation is tied to the flow of what will happen, which can break if it flows too roughly when only a few leafs are carried further on the stream. This is something you can keep in mind writing, editing, reading, commenting, critiquing, and you can only learn from experiencing and not from simply knowing. The coherence of your writing is crucial to how it is experienced, and superfluous detail is like debris at times that a strong stream can ignore but a weak stream damns upon.

This is especially important with exposition and description. Exposition is the band of stories some say. I often get lost in descriptions of characters beyond details like the colour of their hair. Obfuscating detail is only effective if you control what is focused on, and you can still focus the reader’s attention on the obscurities when necessary. The best is to deliver large descriptions of detail as if they are under a heading so that it is all fully clarified within the mind within one place, which is easier to remember for various reasons, or to tie in the unknown thing all the way to where it was revealed, so that the image can immediately be fully assembled. If your intention is to reveal mystery into factual clarity, then it must be delivered in full clarity. If your intention is a mystery hidden in mundanity, place it beside something that draws attention instead of letting be alone and drab. Place the shadows next to the light i stead of dragging the camera through the dark.

Most simply, give the reader something to know, something to expect, something to believe, and something to anticipate with dread and excitement. They can carry themselves through the story, but it is better for you to carry each other.

My rants tend to lose direction and I write them, so whatever you do don’t do that.

I checked the first chapter, and it looks like the others have already captured the heart of the matter, but here are my two cents. The opening is indeed heavy with raw description, which is not exactly ideal. You introduced the story as a mystery, so I began to wonder if you weren't expecting me to actually memorize all those little details in one go, without even knowing their significance, which is likely impossible for anyone without photographic memory. This dealt admittedly critical damage to my motivation to go on. In this sense, yes, it is intimidating. And after giving all that attention to an impersonal room, you introduce the protagonist with a halfhearted profile box? Are you sure you have your priorities in order?

Don't take this the wrong way. I don't normally comment other people's stories. I did now, because I like the idea under it all and think it could become something special, if you give it some more thought.