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The Lost Chronicles of a Villainess - Detailed Feedback

Rowen is absolutely a jerk, but I honestly kind of like that and the way it pokes fun at the stereotypical male lead in romance novels without feeling too meta or immersion-breaking. You poke fun at it but make sure to stay in the moment instead of constantly joking about it or anything like that. The narrative takes priority. Along with that, you give Rowen character, which is why I actually like him despite how he's not exactly a likeable character.

While on the topic of characters, I enjoy Naomi so far. She has a lot of internal conflict and pressure on her from both the System and her own desires. The way she battles herself and what she wants (particularly later in the story, after the unknown variable is revealed) makes for an interesting read that was hard to put down. I can't wait to see how she progresses as the narrative continues.

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What Didn't Work:

With your descriptions, I caution you not to go too over-the-top to the point where you forget what you're writing. There were many sentences where it felt like the flowery language was there just for sake of being there and not to elevate the story, which led to many awkward and overly wordy sentences along with some repetitive sentence structure.

Ironically, that was a word sandwich, so let me break that down.

Let's look at this sentence from the prologue: "At most, her job was to separate him and the princess and to keep them apart to prevent any renewal or negotiations of an engagement contract."

I would strongly recommend reading sentences out loud and/or plugging your text into a TTS generator. That way you can hear how wordy some of the sentences are. That example I gave is very hard to read due to the presence of "and to keep them apart." You already said "separate," so using "and to keep them apart" is adding five unnecessary words to the sentence when it can simply be, "At most, her job was to separate him and the princess to prevent any renewal or negotiations of an engagement contract." If you read that out loud, you'll see how much smoother it sounds.

Similarly, the paragraph after that was very long. It was: "But one thing led to another, and she suddenly found herself married to him, her soul bound to him in a vow that was transcendent to a god's power." Do you see how it feels like you're trying to do too much with one sentence? That sentence uses almost 30 words to say, "She married him."

I'm not saying those types of descriptions are inherently bad, but when they're constant, it can wear on the audience. I'm also not saying to change that sentence. I chose it as an example of an area where you use a lot of words to describe one thing, but that doesn't mean it's a bad sentence, only an example.

To put it more simply, there were many times you used multiple paragraphs to describe one emotion or idea. That's fine and there's nothing inherently wrong with that, but be careful when you start doing it often or even many times in a row. That can make the story less engaging and it can make the formatting a bit repetitive.

For example, you often take two sentences to make the same point. From the arc one chapter: "Naomi's grimace dug deep as a series of unnamed emotions surged up within her, making her heart swell uncomfortably inside her chest. It fluttered like a bird stuck in a cage, helplessly trapped in an impossible situation." Do you see how both sentences are saying the same thing just in a different way?

Here's one potential alternative: "Naomi's grimace dug deep as a series of unnamed emotions surged up within her, making her heart like a fluttering bird stuck in a cage, [helplessly trapped in an impossible situation]." I put the second part in [ ] because I feel it's optional and it depends on if you want to include it or not. Now instead of having two sentences doing the same thing, you do it all in one sentence with significantly less words without losing the original impact you were going for.

I understand that's a big change, so I'll recommend some smaller stuff too so you can pick and choose what you think will work for your writing.

A smaller thing you can do is remove filler words. Most notably, "that." Let me give you an example:

"Naomi thought it was pretty tame at first, considering the other circles that she had visited before." (chap 1)

W/o the "that:" "Naomi thought it was pretty tame at first, considering the other circles she had visited before."

Grammatically, there is no change and there's nothing wrong with using or not using "that." However, do you see how it flows better without it? Yes, that's a very small change, but the small things can go a long way. That's why I recommended reading out loud or using TTS.

You use "that" very frequently throughout the text, and I'd argue you can remove most of them. To give you a later example, here's a line from chapter 11: "Others would say that it was karma..." The "that" isn't needed. If you read it first with the "that" then without it, like with the previous example, you'll notice the second flows a tad better.

Like I said, that's a small thing, but it's something worth considering when writing future chapters and books.

Lastly, the beginning is very exposition heavy. I'm talking about the arc one chapter. First you have several paragraphs of exposition about the eleventh circle, then several paragraphs of exposition about the System. Five minutes into that chapter, about eighteen paragraphs are exposition. Do you see how that can be a bit much? There was not only more exposition than scene, but significantly more so.

This is a story that needs more exposition than average, but I would still recommend picking and choosing what absolutely needs to be told to the audience and/or spacing out the exposition more to give the audience a break from all the new info.

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Summary:

- The story has nice presentation

- Great concept

- Nice small details present in Naomi's character

- Cool twists and turns + interesting plot

- Consider picking and choosing which descriptions to use more carefully

- Consider narrowing down the focus of your sentences

- Consider using less exposition and/or spacing the exposition out more

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Overall:

The Lost Chronicles of a Villainess is a creative book with twists and turns that will keep you guessing. With an engaging protagonist and a plot that's fun to read about, this story will hook you in by the first chapter. If you are someone who enjoys an entertaining plot with unexpected twists, then this is the story for you!

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