Hi everyone, I just got a 1 star review on this and it was pretty brutal if I'm being honest (the writer said don't bother reading this at all because there's better stuff to read) but there were a few things in the review that I felt needed to be addressed and that perhaps because of context on my side, it seems like things aren't quite right or written poorly, so I'd like to clarify those points.
UPDATE: Right as I posted this I went back to PM Eyesight to check this and had gotten two more 1 star ratings, making it 3 1 star ratings and a single 5 star. Talk about motivation killer!
UPDATE 2: it was confirmed by the man himself (Eyesight) that there is apparently some hidden cabal of people using this website that like to go after authors as a group, that leave 'negative comments.' (Apparently pointing out plot holes and telling an author why you dropped their story counts as such. Who knew.) That's where the bad ratings came from. And I bet I know a certain Cupcake that instigated it. Well- now you know why I won't be continuing this story here anyway. Not until Scribblehub addresses this toxic problem.
Before I say anything else, I'll also add that I really tried to go in with as neutral as an opinion as I could.
The reason I did this is because I'm part of a group of authors and readers (quite a large number honestly) , and today we got a warning that basically went "Block this guy, he's just leaving scathing comments and ratings on stories while overall being rude". This was mostly for the authors there, as blocking someone prevents them from commenting and rating your stuff. I'll add that no one asked for bad rating or anything, I don't know who did this, but they were acting of their own volition.
There are definite spoilers below so if you're not interested in having some stuff spoiled, stop reading here.
My counter points are in spoilers beneath each point.
I tried giving this story a honest and unbiased read, and I can say that it has a lot of problems.
I'll start by describing what's good in this. The concept is interesting, I'm not a big fan of LitRPG but I can appreciate it when it's done well. The concept of having several points of views coming from the same apartments is really intriguing and opens a lot of possibilities in regards to how the reader perceives everything that is happening. If you ever consider rewriting this, I'd suggest keeping this as a fundamental core of the story.
With that being said, there isn't much else I'd keep, unfortunately.
The characters are a complete loss. None of them are likable. Ethan is an edgy kid who believes himself to be more intelligent than anyone else, casually kills his goldfish for personnal gains, and plots a world takeover only moments after being transformed. He feels more like a strange self insert of a teenager believing himself to be superior to everyone else than anything. Byren is rude and a thief that apparently no one likes, and Mr Rajesh is a man who refers to his penis as "a spear".
- Ethan is in his 20s, not a kid. Yeah, he's pretty anti-social and does believe he's superior to other people, it's part of the reason he shuts himself away from everyone else because he thinks most people are irredeemable. (Like a certain Being does.)
- Ethan did not kill his goldfish on purpose, his chair smashed the fish tank and the fish died from being out of water during the change.
- He doesn't 'plot a world takeover' he remarks that it would be the likely outcome if his life were some kind of novel because of his 'cataclysm class' species (Spore Lord), which is a poke at the fourth wall, but generally he's not trying to take over the world- he's trying to understand how he's changed.
- Byren is intentionally made to be disliked, in the next chapter (14) he gets redeemed from most of that when he saves women from being gangraped. Byren has had a pretty shitty past and grew up without parents, bouncing home to home with abusive foster parents. He didn't turn out to be a nice guy and all he really gives a shit about in his dead end life is doing drugs to numb the pain and forget his past, which is why he steals, to get money for it. Most people don't see his circumstances (and I haven't written them out yet) so they just think he's an asshole and write him off, as you did- glad I got something right at least.
- I'm not sure why you have an issue with how someone avoids saying dick or cock? He comes from India and has actually used spears before, he's from a rural village and took part in religious ceremonies where he had to use one and do spear dances. Would you rather he walk around and say things like "My cock" or "My dick" ? That would be out of character since he tries to be respectful and polite to people; he is generally well-liked in the apartment building.
- This is a bit of a slower burn than I thought it was going to be when I thought of it, I'm sorry that 13 chapters of 1.7-4k words weren't enough to tell you the life stories of some 15+ characters. I guess I spent too much time on actually moving the story along than telling you everything about everyone and not just the relevant parts.
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Now, having an unlikable character isn't a flaw in itself. Having good antagonists or even unlikable heroes can be very beneficial to a story, but the problem here is that none of these characters have any interesting qualities. You don't "love to hate them", you just "hate them", and that's it. It makes them really bland, as there is nothing special about them, they're just horrible people with no personality outside of their disdain and hatred.
- That's a matter of opinion, I find many of the characters to have interesting qualities or I wouldn't have written them. Guy who is slowly assassinating people one at a time? Check. Guy who accidentally created a zombie pandemic? Check. Guy who became a hulking lizardman? Check. Chick who can read minds? Check. Really haven't even gotten to the really interesting characters yet- you seem to want every character to be some radically changed person, but it was said before that not all Gifts are equal. Most are complete dog shit actually. Like longer limbs or the ability to hear further away. Specific characters got really good ones and those are the ones I try to focus on- and they're not all good guys (Like Aaron the [Man Eater]) they're just people. I can't focus exclusively on the people with the good gifts, then it'd be boring and you'd never see the world in a normal way. Since you'd always be following these people with powers, all the 'normal' people would stop existing, like Sienna and her father.
More than that, their behavior isn't realistic. The world just drastically changed, and in seconds, Ethan and Rajesh both have accepted that people have turned into monsters. No doubt, no panic, nothing. Sure they do say things like "This feels weird" and "What is happening", but none of it really shows the impact the transformation should have on them.
- When people get power, the majority of them abuse the shit out of it for personal gain- that's realistic. Maybe you have a naive world view or something.
- The world did drastically change however in the apartment not much has changed during the time when Mr. Rajesh and Ethan are interacting.
- Monsters have yet to reach the building and those who are actually freaking out are hiding indoors (It was 11:11pm in NYC and most people were either home or out and those who were out were vulnerable to monsters, some were straight up sleeping and missed the Judgement altogether.) Some people are in complete denial and think it was a dream or something and those who know it wasn't are busy trying to figure things out.
- Mr. Rajesh, having concerned himself with what's going on in the building isn't aware that SHTF proper, he just thinks the power has gone until he sees Byren and when he sees Byren, his instant mentality is that it isn't Byren but a monster. It's only after speaking to Mrs. Kim and Jerome (and others) that he realises his own Judgement wasn't a dream so it's at this point he accepts the world has changed but still believes people are people and he needs to check on people in his building. He doesn't think that society will break down and hasn't seen the actual monsters yet. As for the few muffleds screams he heard he thinks it's people stumbling around in the dark.
- Not everyone wears panic and fear on their faces and often in such situations the fear and panic subside quickly at the idea of power- I think the bigger thing to be scared of is the fact God is real and obviously the religious people are freaking out about it. I could write about a few churches doing mass suicide if you really want to see the freakout. Unfortunately that's not anyone in the building.
Writing a mundane world suddenly gaining supernatural or magical elements can be really challenging, as the characters do not have the time required for them to get acquainted to their new reality. Still, authors will usually have them panic and struggle with the changes even a little bit, which you absolutely haven't done here.
- I think this is just a matter of opinion. Or maybe you missed where I wrote people freaking out. In fact, most of the freaking out happens right after they wake up (as it does with Ethan) so we don't see it because we saw Ethan's rather lacking 'freakout' in which he doesn't really know how to respond, so he doesn't, he just goes with it, he thought his life was shit and boring anyway, he's one of those folks who want a zombie apocalypse so he can have some excitement in his life.
- There weren't many changes for most of the gifted, like I said, the majority of people, probably 80-90% got shit and miscellaneous gifts that have very specific or pointless uses. Like growing a tail out of nowhere or being able to glow on command.
- I covered two of the 'wake ups' of three of the species changed people in the building, Ethan and Byren. I didn't cover Aaron's since I thought the fact his species literally alters how he thinks so his Judgement/Gift was more like an "oh, I'm hungry." Most species changes cause brain changes too, in chapter 13 Byren is being a bit less intelligent and lacking in forethought than usual, like when he throws the sack of jars down and they break and he's slightly more violent than before, with hitting himself as punishment for messing up. In fact the 'plotting to take over the world' thing was Ethan's Spore Lord race pushing him to do it. There's a reason Spore Lords are Catalysm Rank in the multiverse. Yes, it's a multiverse. You would've found that out eventually.
It's thus really difficult to empathise with them. Why is Rajesh worried about minor water damages while the world is being thrown asunder? What is he actually thinking, why is that so important now?
- Mr. Rajesh is unaware the world has upended, he believes in society because he spent his life in it. He doesn't quite grasp that Judgement was a literal apocalypse and it has yet to touch him or his building. He understands however when people run to the sixth floor when he's there screaming about the Goblins making their way up the building and partially leads to the construction of a barricade at the stairs to fight them off. I left a lot of information out that could be reasonably deduced and inferred from other things going on. Like if I wrote that Byren lit a match and then wrote from another perspective that Dale had somehow messed with the gas system in the sewer then three chapters later wrote about a sewer explosion. I would hope the reader to infer what happened without me having to write the how and why. Maybe I'm overestimating some of the readers.
The world building also has issues that need to be fixed. Chapter 2 is almost unreadable, as a literal ton of information is dropped onto the reader, most of which we do not need to know about right away. Information about the characters' powers should be given in small doses throughout the chapters, as they become relevant, not just dumped into a single chapter. Doing this makes it really hard to remember everything and made me feel like I was reading a textbook rather than fiction. Other than that, as I said in the introduction, the world is interesting. I'd probably criticize the spontaneous orgasm you gave your MC, as I don't really understand why that would be important, and the gore and egg laying seemed really gross and unnecessary. What were you trying to accomplish?
- Yeah I hate it with litRPG when you have chapters and chapters of info dump. So I tried to quash it down into one but it wasn't gonna cut it because I couldn't fit his speculations into one chapter if it had the litRPG stuff. So I thought I'd make it two chapters right at the start, get it out of the way, then we'll be able to move way past it and I can refer to it later with isolated elements rather than the whole status screen. Basically I was trying to get the shit part out of the way so we never see it again.
- I disagree, I feel like you do need to know right away; context. Specifically you need to know he can't move his body, he is 'rooted'- you need to know his skills- you just need to know. Most of the context of WHY or HOW he's doing things is related to his status. For example my use of the Warlock is bloodline magic that Ethan can cast instinctually, otherwise it just looks like he's pulling magic from nowhere with no teachers. You need context otherwise you'll just be questioning why the MC is doing what he's doing and then spam angry comments like "Why did MC do that? Dumber than my cat" etc.
- The orgasm was actually important also, he's just literally had his body folded inside out and entire DNA rewritten. His body is sensitive and he can feel with all his roots. He had that orgasm when he attempted to feel all his roots at once. It's like if you had a hundred dicks and they all got stroked at the same time. It'd probably almost knock you out if it doesn't actually do it. The reason why it's important to have this was I wanted the MC to have a reason to avoid micro-managing his roots all the damn time. You really want to sit and read about how he made X root do this and then Y root went over that way? That's another thing; he has a subconscious system controlling his roots, they will spread just like a normal fungus without his input but he CAN control them if he tries.
- The gore was meant to be gross.. it's gore? Wtf? "I hate yellow cus it's yellow!
- The egg laying is actually an important point for the third day in chapter 15 when they hatch. Ethan no longer has minions to bring him food. When the maggots hatch (scaring the shit out of Ethan who forgot they were there) he'll use them as a resource and further experiment with his spores.
Another point to address is the way you have to suddenly describe events happening in different places, like you did in your prologue chapter. It's an interesting tool to use, as it can give a wider view of the world, but it's also really confusing as you keep doing it again and again. What do we gain from knowing someone transformed into a specific creature and ate someone if that character won't become relevant? Why do I need extremely specific examples of people being monsters? What does it bring to the story? The answer is nothing much.
- The answer is nothing much- YET. I've said it before, characters do not appear unless they are relevant to Ethan. Glowy hand guy from the roof? Later killed by Ethan when he tries to stop the Funghoul outbreak along with his party. I feel like I'm going to spoil too much responding to you, but it's all about context. You're watching me cook you a meal and you're complaining because you can't tell what the dish is gonna be when you haven't even seen me get all the ingredients out yet. I think it's pretty unfair of you to even write a review at 30k words when this is obviously a slow burner and not a rushed story; it's still the second day for Ethan, ffs.
- Every character that transformed or was written about WILL make an appearance, it may not be the same creature for the non-humans but it'll be similar. Like when I wrote about the bat turning into a man, that was to tell you vampires exist now. But you probably didn't infer that since you seem to have taken all of my writing literally and not done any thinking of your own. Lightning Guy on the roof, girl who can walk fast, Kobold in the subway, fisherman trying to save his boat, etc. They will all appear again and in greater detail and relevance to how the world moves and ultimately comes back to Ethan as either a friend or a foe and sometimes, just sometimes, as a neutral party.
- It bugs me that you think you can say shit like "these characters are useless to the story" when I haven't even written the story. Are you a fucking precognitive Psychic? You seem like an utter Dipshit.
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Similarly, let's talk about onomatopoeia (Clank, boom, crash, that sort of thing). These sound effects are very interesting in a comic book, where you cannot dedicate a lot of space to descriptions. They get the job done when combined with visuals. In prose, however? It just looks childish, like you do not know how to describe what is happening and would rather just let random sounds do the job. Please write actual descriptions, they are much more interesting than something like *CRACK*
- Okay you have a fair point about this. I was questioning on whether I should do it or not, but I decided to go with it because it's the best way to surprise the reader with something. If you actually read the novel- you would've also read the description EVERY FUCKING TIME afterwards that described what the noise was and where it was coming from.
- As for whether it looked childish I agree with you, it does. But I felt like given how dark the story is going to get I needed to have something that was a bit light and childish in theme to offset the grim scenes being depicted. I also tried to put some lightheartedness into the story, Rajesh for example is one of those 'good' people that kept the group from infighting each other and breaking down into a fight over power and resources.
- In my other novel I didn't do it this way and I also decided not to go litRPG, it's too annoying to do all the windows.
There is much more to be said, but I'm going to leave this as is. I wouldn't recommend reading this, as there are much better works on this website, some very similar to this one, which do everything this story is trying to do, but better.
- Yes, and I'm sure those 'much better works' had time to get the story rolling before some Dipshit comes along at the start of the story with a 1 star rated review and complains about it, whilst telling people not to read it. Also link these better works so I have something to read since you basically crushed any intention I had of writing for today, might as well read from something better.
- As for stories done what I'm trying to do- if stories had done what I'm trying to do, I wouldn't be writing this in the first place. It was two years of waiting for someone to write this that I decided 'fuck it I'll do it myself.' I don't even really like writing.
I don't think it gonna continue my fellows
Any plan to continue?
hope to see you back as soon as it's adressed!
Sad, I knew there were idiots on scribblehub but I didn't realize they killed author motivation as thoroughly as they did for this story. Hope you continue sonetime!