Aug 08, 2021
This story has detail. It has flow, and it has atmosphere. You managed to capture the reader from the beginning, and you managed to present this world in a detailed light. There is a clear description of the context of the story, the context of the characters, and the context of the world for the reader to delve into. The mystery is there, the plot exists, and some of the desires of the characters are either flushed out or can be inferred for future reading.
However, there are some notable issues. Besides some moments of grammar and misspelling, there are some jarring issues about the reading experience. The experience is difficult, it's a very long beginning for a story that can be divided up to give the reader a break and keep them interested. For a novel, this would make a fantastic opening chapter, for a webnovel this is long.
There are some issues with moments that could help change the length of your story. That moment where Marea sees her husband for the first time is strange to say the least, he's been gone for months correct? She would recognize him no matter how deep in thought or how tired she might be. It was a great way to show the audience their raw attraction to each other. However, I feel as if it's a downfall. It's dragged out for too long.
The perspective shift does a lot of strange things for the reader. Being a third person story you have the option of switching perspectives and looking at multiple characters at the same time. However, this is done rather strangely I admit. Separating Marea's story and Blake's story did bring a lot of mystery and cut a lot of the length of this prologue. However, I would rather have the transition be less mechanical and more part of the story.
Another issue with the transition is that we don't get comfortable or immersed enough into either Marea or Blake before the story twists. It's daunting and it's almost a breaker for the flow of reading as you are making your way through this story. Be careful with how you present perspective, there are a lot of details that you want to consider to allow the reader to further immerse themselves within the story without having to worry about breaking that immersion for the plot.
The story takes its subject matter extremely seriously. Fantasy stories tend to treat real life connections as if they were fantasy too. Of course you did not go into full depth on the monarchial system in place however, the setting is still paying attention to how a monarchy works in some ways. However, for the sake of dramatics and thematic value, it cannot be perfectly accurate.
The final thing with this story is that I can already see where it's going, it's not exactly a new plot, more like a seasoned plot with your own interpretation of it. You put a lot of effort into writing this story, and I want to be able to feel it a little more. I want to be able to get immersed and see it as more than a story even from the very beginning. I commend you for your effort.
Many details were well written, much of the content was treated with care, and we got to see many parts of the story which as the reader we will carry onward. Continue the good work, do your absolute best, and be proud you put something such as this out there in the world. Take pride in that work.
