Mar 12, 2025
Okay 'tis my stopping point. One comment I would like to reiterate is the pacing. It's too fast, too brisk, and it makes it difficult for me to stay engaged with the narrative; not too mention the amount of characters that flash in front of our eyes (just this chapter alone has Tina, Jogi, Daddy and Bosen).
Another thing you might want to address is the dialogue. It's very overtagged, and you're formatting it in such a way that makes me continuously need to double-check who's saying what. I would suggest that you bunch together the line with the movement the character says. If someone says something and another character reacts to that, the reaction should precede (or succeed) their dialogue on the same line. You should also be mindful not to overtag; the scene where Hoshina gets closer to Tina has a lot of unnecessary scenic movements that feel like they belong in the description of animation keyframes rather than the filmic language of a novel.
As for positives, this chapter offers us an interesting glimpse in Hoshina's life as a bit of an oddball as far as the four great families are concerned. Despite her status, she seems overly concerned with appearances, which is a nice touch to expand on her anxiety; it reasons that someone that doesn't fit in is worried about how others perceive them. As for Jogi, her and Hoshina's dynamic is also interesting, in that you can feel the sororal bond between them, yet also those echoes of sibling nastiness. That's a pretty nice way of capturing it; I should imagine you have siblings yourself.
Well, that's all I had promised to read, so I shall bow out now. Good luck in the contest, and I'll catch you later.
Bubbles, out.
