Hi, from time to time I've been updating and writing a story I felt connected to, but I have a feeling it's not the best it can be, some of it due to what I feel my cumbersome writing style and some of it since I sometimes feel some of the chapters are forced. the story is World's greatest detective A quick summary: A story set in the Batman universe, but takes a lot of liberty with the characters and setting. A police lieutenant joins the Gotham city police Special Crimes Unit, he moves to Gotham from Central city together with his younger sister after their reconnection after a few years gap when each went on his/her own way, due to a falling out. They were orphaned in their teens, and this impacted their personality since their mother died an unnatural death caused by sinister forces operating from Gotham city, unbeknownst to both siblings. The story starts and continues to unravel the siblings' connections to the Bat-Family This story has a basic skeleton with specific nodes or events I already have planned out, it diverges into three paths, each having its own ending, theme and villain. What I'm concerned about, is that this actually hampers the story, since some chapters can feel a bit like a filler until the next event (The same as happened in the final Game of Thrones season in my opinion), and I fear it hurts enjoyment of the story. But, I do try and have either new information or a character point in each chapter, so to not have useless unsatisfying chapters. I would really love some constructing criticism and advice on the following topics: The introduction, I'm aware it's cumbersome, and I want to improve it while retaining the information and set up already present. The protagonist, I fear he's too reactionary, and even in the skeleton, he doesn't really take the initiative until chapter 39 (Which is still unpublished at this point), I want him to be formidable, yet not OP or incompetent as sometimes happens in stories. Conveying emotions, I'm interested to know whether or not I succeeded to convey the desired emotions in the following chapters: Chapter 5, Chapter 8, Chapter 31. For 5 I want the reader to feel that Helena's past demons still haunt her, for Chapter 8 I want to see if the story has any emotional impact, if both their stories managed to find the somber tone of understanding the characters deeper. For chapter 31, I would love to know if the notion of despair and terror that everything changes from now on is conveyed to the reader. The general writing style. The filler chapters, how obvious are they? Any advice on how to avoid them? If you don't mind with spoilers on where I'm going with the stories, I want to turn the sister into the main villain, is it clear that that's the direction I'm taking her? Thank you in advance.
Let's take these out of order. The General Writing Style Longer chapters are to my liking, and no one can say you don't have good length. That being said, presentation could be better: big, chunky paragraphs, sometimes with multiple people speaking. I notice a couple of reoccurring grammatical/punctuation errors. For example: Instead of a ".." you want an ellipsis "..." or an em-dash "—"; the ellipsis indicates unnecessary words that are omitted for brevity, or to indicate the character trails off; em-dash is more forceful, indicates the character was suddenly cut off. This is a bit of a mess of a paragraph, the individual lines of dialogue really should be broken out instead of crammed together. Likewise, you sometimes have a period after the quotation marks, which is unnecessary: punctuation at the end of the sentence inside the quotation marks is fine to mark the end of the sentence. You also have an issue with sometimes starting sentences with the same word repeatedly in short succession, which drags on the reader. Change it up a little! Use her name, a description, shift the sentence around a bit. Variety is the spice of life. You might find it a good idea to use grammerly or a similar program to just give your text a once-over. The Introduction It's a fairly long introduction, and it seems to take a long time to set up the scenario. While I like length in a chapter, introductions should ideally be short: they need to hook the reader and draw them in to click the options and find out what happens next. I know you're not going specifically for a porn-without-plot fic (quite the opposite, really), but the long intro drags a bit, which doesn't help the overall mood of the story. Filler Chapters I'm going to guess you mean something like At a cave somewhere in the hills overlooking the city, which cuts away from the plot to focus more on sex...they're okay. I think the titillation is a bit lost in how cramped they feel. Remember that there's no hard wordcount here, but each chapter should have the focus to accomplish something, and a dedicated sex scene should focus on the sex. A lot of these feel like half-finished asides...things that should be options to click to and then to jump back to the main plot. For your sex scenes generally...feel free to indulge a little. A lot of these feel a bit too rote, like ticking off boxes. For example: First line is solid. Second line you could expand into a paragraph or two. Instead of telling the reader that's what she's doing, show them. Let her sniff and nuzzle at his crotch, play her lip over his glans and tease his piss slit, bob her head up and down on his shaft like it's her favorite lolly (or none of the above, but you get the idea). Describe the feel and taste of it, how she stares into his eyes the whole time, whether she gets wet and dripping and why - let the readers get a glimpse of both her physical reactions and her mental state. It makes a difference if she's sucking his cock and feels dirty or guilty because of it, or whether she loves to submit herself, or if it's just a natural thing for her that she doesn't think twice about. Which all goes into... Conveying Emotions Again, show instead of tell. Memories are fun, past episodes give us a little insight into how characters got to where they are. But that kind of exposition has to be teamed with examples of how the characters are feeling, both in what they say and think, and what they do. I'm not sure if chapter 5 really communicates "haunted demons of the past" as much as "I need to get off in the shower and wish I had some help." Chapter 8 is an example where talking about how smart he is doesn't make your protagonist sound smart: it makes them sound like a conceited asshole. Perfect protagonists are less interesting than those who recognize their flaws and strive to make up for them; the idea of circumventing or overcoming their weakness gives them drive. Which brings us to... The Protagonist I haven't read the spoilers yet, but this is a guy that needs to focus on the present. It's okay to have a reactionary protagonist, but a "detective" that stumbles through life letting things happen to him rather than finding out why they happen or trying to get ahead of them is a victim, and the story becomes a tragedy. If that's what you're going for, that's fine - but otherwise, it wouldn't hurt for him to try and use that big brain to think ahead, catch a lead, maybe make a pass before somebody else does. The Villain A great villain has to play to the protagonist's strengths and weaknesses. If you have a full understanding of the characters and their backstories - not all of which needs to go explicitly on the page as long blocks of exposition - then it makes for a much better interplay between the characters. Are they much alike, or are they very different? This is sort of a crucial aspect to explore. If brother is passive and sister is aggressive, then their adult interactions can play off of their childhood interactions, she can push and he'll bend, which is an interesting dynamic as he strives to find his spine (or enjoys being dominated) and she strives to maintain her power and position - and if he suddenly becomes dominant, that throws her off, changes the dynamic between them.
