Light Novie Awards 2019 [CLOSED] | The Light Novel Society

Paranormal/Isekai Prelims Results!

Judged by: RainingStorms

(*'Д｀*)

It's here! Apologies for the wait, everyone. It's been a rather stressful start of the new year for me. All the books in this genre were pleasant to read since I was being exposed to something new. As there were only 10 books, the semis were scrapped and we are heading straight to the finals. Sadly, here are the stories which will have to go:

ELIMINATED

akaiseirei → Darkness Left Behind

Title: 4/5
Cover: 1/5
Synopsis: 6/10
Hookline: 5/10
Character Development: 5/10
Grammar/Sentence Structure: 5/10
Plot: 6/10
Small Review: 

Your story is a fanfiction, so I was curious about how well you wrote it, since there are just so many terrible ones on this platform. While it certainly isn't as bad as some that I've seen before, it could still use a lot more work and refinement. First things first: why did you slap your synopsis into your first chapter? Your readers would have already read it before opening your book. They do not need a repeat of it taking up their time. Another thing to note would be your author's notes. Do not write such a lengthy one at the start of your chapter as it can be quite a bore, even though you are explaining the context of the story. Moving on, your grammar needs to be reworked. There were multiple mistakes here and there, including basic ones such as "its vs it's". Tense shifts were also seen—make sure to stick to one tense throughout. Apart from that, there were redundant words which dragged the flow of your story or made your sentences long-winded. In terms of punctuation, some were incorrectly used or were missing when they should have been there in order to give your sentences more flair. Try to look through your chapters again and read your sentences out to yourself to see which areas sound choppy and whatnot. If needed, seek the help of an editor. Character-wise, their dialogues sound quite natural, which is good, but they all feel like cardboard. It's likely because there was an awful lot of dialogues and little descriptions plus internal thoughts. Seriously, at least half of your first chapter consisted of dialogues, including the flashback. There were hardly any actions, and also minimal dialogue tags which made identifying your characters quite difficult, especially since you introduced so many at one go. And speaking of dialogue, keep an eye out for your dialogue tag capitalisation and punctuation. Read the works of published authors and take note of the way they punctuated their dialogues followed by the types of tags they used. Next, I need to bring up your character introductions. Dragging in a whole crew of characters in your first chapter and proceeding to outright tell me who each of them are, including their strengths, professions and some aspects of their personalities? No. What's more, it was a literal string of characters that came in one after the after. Just no. It would work better if you introduced one or two other characters together with the MC in the first chapter, then introduced the rest one by one in the later chapters, giving more time for your readers to digest the knowledge and better know the characters. Not slap everyone into one chapter and expect your readers to memorise everyone in one sitting. Of course, this is a fanfiction, and I don't have any knowledge of your fandom, which is why I'm saying all this. Regardless, you have to better show your characters and what makes them unique from each other. 

Total: 32/60

・・・

zacheema → Darkest Before Dawn