constructive criticism

02. the last philosopher

by NickfEast

disclaimer: i didn't read the whole 103 chapters, because i have other stories to review and i'm very behind on the list. i read the first 30-something chapters or so, excluding the story arc holders, so my commentary will be based on the chapters i did read. 

THOUGHTS ON THE COVER;

the cover doesn't look very good. the font used for the author's name and the summary ("nothing is everything") are very unprofessional, the font used for the title doesn't go well with the picture. the white triangles also don't look good on the cover. i'd suggest using the same font for everything and removing the triangles. also a list of fonts that work well as covers:

- chasing embers

- surfing capital

- century gothic

- code-bold

- dolce vita

- blacklisted

- lemonmilk

(italics = would probably suit the story itself more)

there are, of course, many more that look good pn covers, but i can't really think of anything else right now.

THOUGHTS ON THE GRAMMAR;

there were a few mistakes, probably out of not paying attention. nothing a simple edit can't fix. also, i read up to chapter 30-something and the dialogue format is wrong. 

how the author wrote the dialogue: "Blah, blah, blah." Said somebody.

how the dialogue is supposed to be written: "Blah, blah, blah," said somebody.

i've no idea if this was ever fixed later-on, but it should be corrected in the earlier chapters! other than that, no complaints. also, i don't know if you spelled magic as magick on purpose, but i'm giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming it was purposeful. that's not a complain, but more of a side-thought.

THOUGHTS ON THE PLOT;

thing is, the chapters i read were mostly story-building and character introduction. we're first introduced to herschel, who's going to run away - and does run away - from prison. because he's the first introduced, a reader's guess is that he's going to be the protagonist. yet, up until chapter 30-something, there's no protagonist whatsoever. the only characters i felt attached to were earl and charlene, and everyone else from their arc, basically.

we're also introduced to the warden, who's supposed to be some sort of bad guy (?), but we don't hear much about him after... 

the story-building is impressive, i must admit, but if for the first 30+ chapters that's the only thing happening, no wonder the story is 100+ chapters. i'm not trying to be rude, it's just the harsh truth. i think the plot would've went on more smoothly if the story-building was more subtle and the characters weren't introduced randomly. why are we hearing about lyeasrakardsul when herschel is running away from jail, while lyeasrakardsul is doing nothing interesting except an excuse for more story-building?

i know that you spent time on the maps, countries, history, politics, etc, but the way it's introduced is, dare i say, clumsy. unlike the grammar, this needs major editing. it hurts me to say this, because it's easy to see that you spent a lot of time on this story, story-building, characters and so on and that you love writing, and i hate to shit on your hard work but it needs improvements.