EDIT: I will not re-write them anymore, it will just be a slight edit, the 4 chapters will become 2 chapters instead. Nothing will be lost, so don't worry about it. Thank you everyone for your thoughts.
EDIT 2: I have done it, slighlty edited them, 2 chapters now instead of 4. RIP 45+ Favorites and almost 3k views. Skip this or use this board as a Q & A. Seeing my doubts have been cleared.
Hey it's me again, I would like to apologize for posting it as a chapter but this is something that I have been thinking about for a few days now. So I have to ask.
Should I re-write the first 4 chapters? That being, Prologue, chpt. 0.5 , Side story 1 and 2. Reasons for this being, I think the story starts off incredibly generic. I did not care about story structure when I first started, but now we are here. So I am making myself the question, is it really good enough? If I were to rewrite it, the 4 chapters would probably be condensed into a single prologue or a prologue and a side story, a few things will change, some things will stay the same. So that is my question, I am genuinely curious what everyone thinks about the start.
I can't help but think the story is uninteresting until like chpt. 1, which is the reason I am asking everyone that reads this.
(The next paragraph is uninteresting and can be seen as filler.)
Also I was told I should apply the show don't tell thing, by someone I met quite recently. I got a lot of feedback so hopefully my writing should improve, but I have to say that doing it in first person feels awkward and hard, so I might keep the telling going a bit more. Sorry if it bothers some of you guys, What is show don't tell? Telling tells you what the person is feeling for example, while showing just hints at the person's feelings, through body language or behaviour etc. It's quite hard to explain but it's the most basic explanation I can give (Not limited to emotions, it is just an easy to understand example), anyways thank you everyone for reading.
I owe you all an apology if you think it's a chapter, comment everything you like below. I will keep the daily updates going, which next chapter should be posted at exactly the same time as last one.
I think trying to force yourself to obfuscate details in the pursuit of "show don't tell" would probably do more harm then good. As far as show don't tell is concerned, as long as you avoid long info dumps of things like how the world works you should be fine. Basically if you have several paragraphs that only deal with one of characterization, plot, setting, theme, etc then maybe consider breaking it up a bit or rephrasing it somehow.
Also the story is really fun and I have been enjoying it so thank you for writing it.
I agree with this, if you are comfortable with one writing style that works for you, there's no need to force yourself into another style that might or might not work out (unless you really want to experiment with your story).
It's common for a story to start of sort of generic only thing I'm sorta at a loss for is the item cats charm and why he was asked to not ever use it. Where did it come from? why did he need to use it ? What did he think it was supposed to do cause it obviously wasn't what it did..
This is the vague description of the item, I never really posted, because I did not see a perfect time for it.
[Cat’s charm: The universe smiles upon you. Be careful you don’t have 9 lives or do you?]
TL:DR Protag knew it increased luck and with a bit of faith he thought it would help him accomplish his wish. Might be a bit underwhelming or dissapointing, but it's just a plot device, now if the story actually revolved around the mysterious item it would be different, but it doesn't.
No need to rewrite in my side! Also keep up the good work!!
There are a few things that I like that people wrote they took them down and attempted to rewrite them but gave up and they only exist now as pirated chapters on YouTube which could be taken down at any point in time :-(,
If you're going to rewrite it please make it to where we can still see the older ones (in case you give up I hope you don't give up though)
The thing I mostly dislike in the early chapters is the plot device set up with the inventory. Without a comprehensive list of the inventory contents anything can be pulled out at the right time. Pulling stuff out of thin air cheapens the story. Someone needs clothes here let me get something from inventory. My cat ears are a problem, inventory. Evil aura? Inventory.
For a story with crafting in the title where is the crafting?
How do class levels and character levels work? Yami has 3 classes at lvl 40, and a character level of 120. Does character level depened on class level, or are they seperate? I'm just confused because Yami got the craftsman class, after taking 3 craftsman classes and they merged, then level maxing got 2 more class slots, so really she has 5 classes. Is 120 still the max?
She has stats of a lvl 200 but she's a lvl 120
Maybe
I'd say rewrite if you feel confident you can do much much better. Else don't.
Show don't tell is a little difficult to write, unlike a show where the viewer can literally see what you're doing and it's effects without an info dump thrust down their throats to the anus, a book by definition is a huuuuuge info dump. You are always telling you're readers something.
Now the 'show' part in show don't tell is exploiting this inherent weakness to engage a reader. By saying something like, "the world is split into four continents, named 1 2 3 and 4, magic has four elements, water earth fire air, long ago the four nations lived together in harmony..." And so on, you bore the reader cos it'll sound like a textbook, unless like avatar it's a prologue to set up the story yet not saying anything about the plot.
Instead of you write a mysterious magician or traveller aimlessly wandering the world, and he mutters to himself which country or continent he would like to visit next as he twirls his fingers, the air distorting around them as it slowly colours red and suddenly bursts into a warm flame which he uses to light his way, swinging his hands this time, a green mist forms around his arms as he flings it forwards, the mist disappearing and in its place, the air around it moves faster and forms a blade of wind he uses to mow his way through thick tall grass, and opening his palms this time, a blue mist appears before solidifying into a sphere of water from which he quenches his thirst.
Nowhere did I say that to use magic you need to imbue the neutral nature of mana with an element of your choice, which you must have an affinity to which is decided upon birth and measured during a rite of passage when a child reaches three years of age in the church of the goddess Kiara who is the goddess governing all mana and is sister to the god blah blah blah in that passage nor the universal rules that restrict and govern the usage of it, like full metal alchemist rules of equivalent exchange (ps keeps the rules simple yet vague enough to provide some leeway, an example of such a rule on earth is like the Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and how people get round the rule in actual physics), although you can say it later on like when he's teaching a kid how to use magic, but you can guess as to what's going on. That's showing and not telling.
To tell an interesting story, you have to make the reader think. Not like a textbook would, but like what they would do if they were part of the world. A magician has no need to explain how he uses magic cos it's instinctive, unless he is a teacher or something.
Going to keep this one much shorter than all my prior ones.
Perhaps instead of specifically show don't tell for first person writing, which is indeed incredibly difficult, another look at it could be show and tell?
Anyways, back to waiting eagerly for more desserts and lovely story, <3
Okay, after reading a lot of feedback I have decided. I will not rewrite them, I will do a slight edit on all 4 of them and they will be compacted as 2 chapters. Because honestly 500 word chapters are no fun.
"show dont tell" is a good rule but the allowance for telling might change depending on the story telling medium (novel,manga,anime).
for example imagine a rather generic fantasy world where humans dislike demi-humans and how youd convey this in a novel compared to a manga/comic, in a manga you could have a demi approach a human town and the town guard could be shown to look at them scornfully but in a novel you would only be able to describe this through text meaning that novels will always have to have a larger allowance for telling as often you have to show by telling.
you could for example have a character notice the guards scorn as a way to both show and tell but for novels it's unually more difficult to show dont tell than in other mediums.