So I've been exploring a few different paths of my story in here - I'm not sure how happy I am with the newest branch that I'm working on. This is the first time I've tried this kind of writing, so any feedback would be very helpful! Am I chopping chapters up too small? Leaving out too much detail? Just boring? Let me know! I need to know what the bad parts are to improve.
Link to the start of my chapters here:
https://chyoa.com/chapter/Luxara,-female-tiefling-Magus.1563425
First things first, how many times was Lux subjected to the Grasping Tentacles spell by the GM of your game lol (for those not familiar with Pathfinder, Grasping Tentacles is exactly what it says on the tin: the perverted version of Black Tentacles. Not really designed to hurt, but very good at removing your equipment from you)?
Now for actual feedback on your writing.
First tip: try to avoid words like "seem" when combining it with a verb. "Seem to eye?" How? The key to good writing is description, which means if something is important (or if you simply want to troll readers with a non-significant detail such as Tolkien does with a certain tree), describe how it's important. The exception to this are, of course, passive verbs such as to be, to have, etc.
Second tip: use some variety with word choice. If you have trouble with shaking up your word choice,
www.thesaurus.com is free (I use it myself).
Third tip: the one about pacing that you so adeptly picked up on. Especially when coming to scenes, a clever trick you can use is interject the character's thoughts or environmental description between actions if there's time between them. If actions rapidly succeed each other, don't do this. Here's a couple illustrative examples:
"The stout man juts his axe up, cutting the head of the enemy bandit off, the head falling to the ground with a soft
thunk. He pauses, catching his breath from the minute-long battle. The cleric of the group, a lanky elf with blond hair and gray eyes approaches the bandit and starts rooting through pockets, eventually pulling forth a small coin cache."
"The siege accelerates with the addition of the ram. Arrows rain on the defenders, but a loud
bam resounds against the oak doors as the ram hits.
BAM resounds the door as y-
BAM."
You see how length controls timing? Also feel free to interrupt a sentence as I did in the latter example if the action is moving faster than the text. Furthermore, technically it should be resounds through but I opted to omit "through" in favor of pacing.
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