This is a project I’ve been outlining and working on for about six months. I have a small demo currently, just the prologue which is about four thousand words at the moment, so this is basically an interest check for me to decide whether or not to turn this idea into a set of novels or to turn it into a CYOA.
The Premise (Without Spoilers)
When you stumble upon a mysterious necklace you find yourself thrust into a world of Godly politics and a struggle for survival. Will you choose to aid your new Godly Patron in discovering why the Gods are dying? Or will you side with those responsible for their deaths? And through it all can you keep yourself, your younger brother, and all those you care for safe?
The Premise (With Spoilers)
You take on the role of a twenty year old college student living in Chicago taking care of your younger brother for the summer while your parents finalize their divorce. After exploring an antique shop you acquire a necklace that was created in desperation when the Gods began dying and no cause could be found. The necklace assigns you a patron God or Goddess from six pantheons. There are seven love interests for the seven pantheons that are the main focus of the story, though you will only be able to be assigned a patron from one of six of the pantheons. This is a more character and intrigue driven story with an MC that has a customizable personality.
What I’m Looking For
Like I mentioned, this is basically an interest check for the moment to know whether or not anybody would be interested in reading a CYOA based on the premise and what I have written in the prologue. After that just general criticism that you’d give any other project on here; spelling, grammar, pacing, how the characters feel, your favorite and least favorite things about the demo so far, and things like that.
List of Changes (10/10)
Stats Screen changes
New Memory in Prologue
Spelling Fixes
Tweaks to Stats
Prologue Updated
Oh, whoa, damn. I was super disappointed when it ended!
It’s so well written that I kinda forgot I wasn’t playing a finished game. I’m actually a bit strapped for time right now, but I’m definitely going to come back to this on Friday to give a more in-depth review, but I still figured you’d appreciate me gushing over what you have so far, lol.
The writing’s really good, especially the descriptive parts. I especially like being able to play the overprotective older sibling, and also the bits of snark and self-awareness, especially the comments about the necklace.
I especially like stories with gods and the like, so I’m very interested in seeing more of this project.
Wording and Grammar Stuff
For other things, I think you should use commas a bit more. For example, these passages get a bit confusing:
I think that the demo is interesting, and I’d be excited to see where the demo goes! I do agree with @EclecticEccentric about all of the wording and grammar stuff he mentioned, which I feel like would help improve the story a bit, and I’d also suggest maybe putting an em dash (—, or even just --) instead of a hyphen (-) whenever you use it to signify a sentence being cut off, because I personally think that it looks nicer. (And I think it’s more grammatically correct too, but I’m not 100% sure on that.)
I’d recommend trying to turn this into more of a CYOA, I’ll make sure to try and stay updated on it!
Seems really interesting, I can’t wait to read more. Maybe add more customization options like skin colour, or hair length. And it would be really cool if you fleshed out the antique shop scene.
A really small request that you can ignore, can you give us options on the surname because I feel really lame when I the only one I can think of is Smith.
Anyhow, my sillness aside. I love this and I’ve pretty much just started.
I can’t decided if I want my MC to be the protective and responsible older sibling or the “I will kill you if you die on me” kind of and aloof kind of sibling.
An em dash is used as an interjection–for example, if you had a secondary but connected idea you want to express–very much the same way you would use parenthesis. They simply are not grammatically correct ways of ending sentences–unless you’re going for style points, of course. Generally it’s just an odd way of ending a sentence–
It almost feels like you were interrupted and forgot to continue, lol, which can work to your advantage but seems out of place in other cases. It’s all relative, afterall.
But yes, em dashes work as you suggest, though I would only ever reccommend them if your grasp on English grammar and rules are tight tight tight, as they can be easily misused and abused.
By contrast, the hyphen is only ever used to connect words together. Example: a creature doctor is potentially a weird looking doctor, a creature-doctor is a doctor who focuses on weird looking patients. Hyphens are never ever grammatically sound ways interrupting sentences. It’s just not what they’re used for.
thanks!!! I’m pretty sure I subconciously knew all of that, but I’m not well-versed enough in grammar to be able to confidentially teach it haha, I appreciate you stepping in to help explain it better
Oh wow, I’m so grateful to everyone who’s checked out my demo and given me some feedback! Judging just from the reaction I’ve gotten so far it’s very likely I’ll write this series as CYOA so I hope you’ll all stick with me as I write it!
To address some of the feedback/questions,
@EclecticEccentric
Thank you so much for going through and finding those grammar mistakes for me! I’ve fixed them in preparation for the next update!
I was definitely considering more in-depth character descriptions for the hair and skin color, so consider it added! I was also planning on revising the antique store scene just a bit and adding a bit more to the apartment scene afterwards so expect that in the next update!
I’ll be adding both gender neutral first name options and a handful of surnames for the next update!
I can definitely see where you’re coming from; I was considering adding the nonbinary option but I wasn’t sure if anyone would even be interested in my project before posting the demo so I didn’t want to get too involved until I’d received some feedback. Rest assured, though, that I’ll be adding a nonbinary option in the future!
Unfortunately you’re not going to be able to romance any of the Gods, at least not in the first book! If enough people are interested though that might change.
Again, thank you all so much for all your feedback and for checking out my project! I’ll try to keep everyone updated on my progress for each week and should have a revised demo out soon!
Generally it’s just an odd way of ending a sentence–
