Intro:
Ambrosial Promise was written by CherverLarkville. It is a fantasy adventure story with characters like Sheira, Eamon, and Yuri at the forefront. The narrative revolves around war, but there are emotional centers such as the mystery about what happened to Sheira's parents.
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Detailed Feedback
What Worked:
I like how you immediately start the story with an emotional conflict that stirs within our protagonist. I've always believed the best hooks get the audience invested in an emotional conflict the characters are going through since, well, characters are our vessels for the plot, world, and themes. So starting off with that was a good decision, in my opinion. It instantly got me hooked on what you wanted to say with this narrative.
Moving more generally, I think you have a good hook where you have a balance between plot and character. I like how it starts with Sheira, like I just mentioned, but then it switches to action and getting us familiar with what the overall plot is going to be. It's a good balance between introducing character and plot, which I think works well together. It gives us a well-rounded view of the story since you're introducing two of the biggest elements immediately. One might even argue you're introducing the theme through Sheira's character and the impacts of lost family. It's one of my personal favorite topics, exploring how lack of family can lead to feelings of abandonment and doubt. I'll talk more about Sheira later, but since I'm talking about the underlying themes of abandonment, I'll mention how I think Sheira does a good job elevating the theme and portraying that deep feeling of resentment toward others just for having families, and also how she personally feels doubt and even encourages punishment when she messes up.
While on the topic of beginnings, I think you overall do a good job opening your chapters. For example, chapter 40 opens with you stimulating one of the five senses (sound) and putting the audience right in the tense moment. It was a good way to grasp an audience's attention. The same applies to the other chapters since you often open with interesting dialogue or one of the five senses that immediately stimulates the audience's imagination.
This is a small thing, but I just thought I'd mention it: I like the title. It's pretty and inspires curiosity about what the promise will be. The cover is very nice too, so you have overall great presentation that will draw readers in. That includes the blurb, and I like how you have a quote to start then you jump into a summary paragraph. So you have the best of both worlds where you have a short quote that can get readers curious, but you also explain the story instead of being vague, so that was nicely done.
The relationships in the story are good. Both the relationships between Yuri and Sheira and Eamon and Sheira are interesting, though I must admit I'm a sucker for relationships like Yuri and Sheira's. I love the bond they have and how Sheira has him to lean on whenever she needs advice and help. Yuri is more wholesome than I was expecting him to be, but that's a good thing. Like Sheira, I like how he was introduced to the narrative in the first chapter. He left a strong impression on me.
Sheira works as the main protagonist. I was hooked on her story from the very first chapter, but I think she has an overall compelling narrative that drives the force of the book. She fails, she stumbles, she has doubts, she has likes and dislikes, she has enemies and friends, etc. She's a well-rounded character with a diverse set of emotions and personality. Never once does she feel like she falls flat or feels boring.
In general, the characters work and all feel very different from one another. Giving them that emotional diversity gave them more individuality while also making me care more about them. The cast feels like it hits on many emotional beats and allows us to see different types of people reflected in this fantasy world. It gives us something to cheer for. Overall, solid job setting up the character relationships and characters.
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What Didn't Work:
My main recommendation is to do less telling over showing. Many times you'll tell us how a character feels, like in chapter one there are many lines like "Determination courses through my veins" or "A spark of hope ignites within me" or "Yuri's voice is filled with genuine affection." Individually, there's nothing wrong with using these lines, and there's nothing wrong with using telling over showing as long as it's not too much. However, all of those lines are in close proximity to each other, and throughout the entire chapter, there are many other lines like that where you tell us how a character is feeling. The lines about determination are also a bit repetitive at times since you say the characters are determined frequently.
Another example is: "I can't leave my comrades behind." This line is the one I really want to focus on since I felt it was a moment of unnecessary telling over showing. I say that because the line right after it is "We can't abandon them! We must help!"
So the dialogue of "We can't abandon them! We must help!" is already doing the job of showing a character trait of not wanting to leave comrades behind, so repeating it in a more telling way (in this case, "I can't leave my comrades behind") made it feel a little unnecessary, in my opinion.
While on the topic of telling over showing, I would suggest not using as many dialogue tags, especially since you use almost exclusively tags that aren't said or asked. My father gave me a piece of advice called the 50-30 advice for dialogue, and I think it may help with your telling over showing. The advice states that of your dialogue, 50% or less should be tagged, and of that 50%, 30% or more should be said or asked. The reason is because tags have the sole purpose of telling over showing by telling you who is speaking, so the more you're doing it, and the more you're doing it with tags that aren't said or asked, the more attention you're drawing to the tags and the more telling over showing you're doing.
There are some chapters where you do a good job not using as many tags, like chapter 18, but there are other chapters where there are a lot of tags, like chapter 23. In chapter 23, there are about 34 lines of dialogue. Of that 34, there are 21 tags, maybe 22 if you consider the "I blushed" line a tag since it comes right after the dialogue. Not bad, but that's around 61% of your dialogue having tags for a conversation between only two people. I can understand having more tags for a convo between three or more people, but between two, readers naturally know who is going to speak next without needing to be told, so you can rely less on tags and more on speech, descriptions, actions, etc.
This 50-30 advice doesn't work for everyone, but it is something to consider if you are interested in limiting how many dialogue tags you're using. I encourage you to find what you think will work best with your writing style.
I would also recommend not using actions as tags. Like this, also from chapter 23, "Sheira," Eamon nudged me gently...
The "Eamon nudged me gently" is an action, not a tag, but because there's a comma after Sheira, it is formatted like a tag. It's debated whether or not actions can be used as tags, but in my personal opinion, they don't really work since dialogue tags are meant to tell us how someone is speaking, and you can't nudge words, which is what "Eamon nudged me gently" is implying. That's why I personally don't think they work and I'd suggest not using them as tags. You can still use the actions, just instead of using a comma after Sheira, use a period/full stop. That way it isn't a tag, but it's still there.
The grammar is overall solid and I didn't notice many consistent errors; however, the consistent error I did notice were tense issues. You have tense issues where you flip flop between past and present tense incorrectly. You're writing present tense, so past tense is used very rarely, like to describe events that happened in the past in the story's timeline. Sometimes when things are happening in the present, you're using past tense verbs. For example, in chapter 3, the tense flips between past and present incorrectly a few times. I hope that makes sense.
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Summary:
- Nice start to the story
- Overall good job starting chapters
- Strong character relationships
- Good protagonist
- Consider doing more showing over telling
- Consider using less dialogue tags
- Consider not using actions as dialogue tags
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Overall:
Ambrosial Promise is an entertaining fantasy narrative with heartfelt character relationships topped with an emotional core through its protagonist, Sheira. If you are someone who enjoys reading fantasies, particularly those with familial issues/themes, then I recommend this book to you.
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