Sep 08, 2023
To:IceDonut
I am certainly glad this made your day and could be motivating!! Honestly, I was worried it would still be too harsh 😅 I think if I were to do reviews again, I would like to ask the author what *specifically* they're looking for when it comes to feedback...that way I can know if I'm providing the right feedback for their current stage in writing. Some people just want technical help (Did I make typos? Was it legible?) while others are looking for higher-level reviews (Does the worldbuilding match the message I was trying to convey? Are the characters multifaceted enough?)
I must be honest and say that the anime you listed as inspiration ("Your Lie in April", Horimiya, Anohana, and "Your Name") are all shows that I dropped within 1~2 episodes. So that may tell you more about my tastes, and why I was worried about my personal bias getting in the way 😭 I don't have a lot of free time in my day, and I simply prefer to watch anime that are more lighthearted and fantastical, that cheer me up and help me get through my work day. Overly-realistic or drama-focused love stories just aren't my thing.
(And I also believe all of those stories listed would be better if set in University, rather than High School 😂 but I feel this way about most anime, even some of my favorite shows. "Prince of Tennis" for example is set in Middle School, and has those kids constantly executing Professional Tennis sports moves that are way beyond the ability of 14 year-olds!!)
Regarding Scene Break Symbols and First Person Narrative:
I see your point. Both of these techniques are frequently used (and abused) in amateur writing settings. However, just because they are often poorly used does not mean that they should be disregarded as tools only used by "lazy" writers. To me, this is like saying "Well crayons are only used by children. You can't use a crayon to draw a real piece of art" -- when in truth, a crayon is just another drawing tool. In the hands of the right artist, a crayon drawing can look just as good as any other. To emphasize this point, I looked up literary examples. Scene Break Symbols are harder to search for in writing…so this list isn’t even the best possible examples, just what I could find in a short amount of time. (Most of these are American novels, since that is the literary background I know best and can most easily search.)
Critically Acclaimed Novels that use Scene Break Symbols:
Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll
Ulysses, by James Joyce
Painted Veils, by James Huneker
Don Quixote de la Mancha, by Cervantes (in printed versions of the novel)
Used frequently in the Bible and many, many other religious texts
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinkus (for example pictures and further study)
Critically Acclaimed Novels written in first person:
Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Notes from Underground, by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë
Gulliver's Travels, by Jonathan Swift
So these two techniques are by no means limited to Web Novels, and I encourage you to read other works outside of the Web Novel context to see how the techniques are used in literature, if a ["real" older paperback book] is your comparison point of skilled writing.
And for your novel specifically, I would indeed highly encourage you to include some sort of line break symbol. You mention this: [With real, visual cuts like these, you usually have a shot moment of disorientation as well, so I also liked this effect when reading]
But the part I think you’re missing is that with real, visual cuts you also usually have a change of camera angle, background colors, time of day, lighting, and general setting. All of these subtle shifts in visuals clue in the viewer that the location/scene/time has changed.
None of that exists in written word, unless you describe it. And most of your cuts do not have any description at all – they are simply in one place, and then immediately in the next, often jumping between dialogue. The best way to achieve this “visual transition” (without having to do any extra description) is with a symbol. The break symbol achieves the same effect as suddenly changing camera, and is more consistent than hoping that your reader will visualize things the same way as you.
Anyway, that's all you'll get from me now 🤣 No more rambling, I still have other books I need to finish reading!
Thank you so much for stopping by and reading!!! I'm hoping the premise is engaging! I know the first few chapters of my book are mostly about setting up the world and the conflict, then we really get into the meat of things once things are more defined! ❤️ Also I've seen your novel on the front page of HF quite a lot, so it makes me really thrilled that you would take the time to check this out!! <3 Thank you! My schedule has been crazy busy lately, but I will pop over and give your first few chapters a read here soon when I can ;v;
but the goal with this journey is to help him learn and change!! (He does get better, I promise 🤣👍)
