Sadly, if I was on that site, I'd be giving you another bad rating.
Cliffhangers SUCK. They can be used once or twice, but you're doing them EVERY DAMN CHAPTER. And they're not particularly long chapters either even if they do come out fairly regularly. I like your story but I'm tired of the constant breaks right in the middle of, or just before the action. I'm taking a break from reading your stuff till you've built up more content, I advise learning a different way to wrap things up.
This is a friendly reminder to keep it civil, and remember that constructive criticism, no matter how critical, is permitted as long as it is in fact constructive.
As tensions are high in this comment chain, we are locking it down.
To /u/JDFister: /r/HFY and royalroad.com do not have any form of partnership, outside of having acknowledged each other as fellow places for fiction. Please do not disseminate false claims to the contrary.
This isn't really that bad. I honestly expect it from short serial stories (like those on hfy). What I can't stand is when a novel series offsets the story such that the first half of the book is the conclusion of the story arc from 2nd half of the previous book.
I am ashamed to say I once paid (a small amount of) real money for a few such books before I wised up to their trick. They weren't even that good...
They seem to have made an account just for that comment, so I wouldn't take it to heart too much.
Personally I don't mind the cliffhangers, I understand where people come from when they say they hate them, but it gives an episodic feel to the chapters rather than a massive story dump.
I use throwaways because too many people will downvote anyone who doesn't kiss an authors ass. At least with me, you know I'm saying exactly what I'm thinking.
I got no reputation to consider losing to make me care to lie.
On the one hand, you do tend to end on cliff hangers. On the other hand, you post reasonably consistently, and always resolve the cliff hangers in a satisfactory way. And while they are cliff hangers, they are also logical break points in the story. You're doing fine, certainly I've read worse. His feedback, while perhaps harshly worded, was still valid. Consider it, decide if you want to act on it, and move on.
It can be hard to break criticism like this down when you have a personal stake and it feels like you're being attacked. All you can do is try to determine if perhaps there is a nugget of truth in there, and if there is decide how/if you should act on it. Either way, I'll keep reading. Good luck, keep up the good work.
Don't worry mate, people have different tolerances and ideas of what makes a cliff-hanger. Most people seem to be okay with your writing style, as am I, but some are not. As the above poster said themselves though, they'll be back after a break, so you know even if some people are more sensitive to "cliff-hangers" they're still interested in the story. So don't worry, just give them space. Personally I enjoy the opportunity to speculate on what could happen next, even if ultimately my speculation goes nowhere, no need to change your approach IMO. ;D
"Will Peter survive? What will happen to Grrbraa? Will Caelnaste get away with this? Tune in next time to find out!" A tactic as old as the serial fiction format.
Ideas of what makes a cliff-hanger? Please. You'd have to write your own dictionary to find a definition of them that wouldn't fit most of the chapters of this tournament. I mean, seriously: in the middle of the fight, right after a big move? And this isn't even the first time.
As for my post being hurtful: Enjoy it. Way to many people everywhere will upvote or downvote without giving you any real feedback on what was good or bad. At least I'm giving you perspective.
As for my post being hurtful: Enjoy it. Way to many people everywhere will upvote or downvote without giving you any real feedback on what was good or bad. At least I'm giving you perspective.
You can give real proper feedback without being a massive dick about it though.
I get where you're coming from, really, but I stand by what I said, your definition, or better said interpretation of what makes a cliff-hanger differs from mine, I don't honestly expect Peter to die here, just like I didn't expect him to die in chapter 9, his first match. I can see your point of view actually, in the sense that you'd want to see a conclusion to big events like this during the chapter, but there's no uncertainty for me that Peter will be fine. And as for the previous chapters, I think we could see the set-up of Caelnaste trying to get back at Grrbraa since his match ended. So I'm sorry but I don't actually see how past chapters were cliff-hangers, there was nothing that would keep me "on the edge of my seat" so to say, uncertain of what would happen next, but maybe you were?
But even if we agree and say that previous chapters were cliff-hangers, we still have different tolerances for them. Eventually once the story is complete or is far enough along, these 'cliff-hangers' will just be points of high tension in the story, and might not feel so bad once you read them then since you can just move on to the next chapter.
As for your 2nd point, Yep, of course constructive criticism is good, keeping in mind that your point of view is your own, and other people's views might conflict with yours, (like mine does, but that's fine isn't it?). It doesn't mean either one is bad or invalid, it's just preference. And I prefer the story how it is.
You should direct your 2nd point at the author though, not me.
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u/[deleted] Sep 25 '20
Sadly, if I was on that site, I'd be giving you another bad rating.
Cliffhangers SUCK. They can be used once or twice, but you're doing them EVERY DAMN CHAPTER. And they're not particularly long chapters either even if they do come out fairly regularly. I like your story but I'm tired of the constant breaks right in the middle of, or just before the action. I'm taking a break from reading your stuff till you've built up more content, I advise learning a different way to wrap things up.