The official unofficial SV female lead Isekai contest

BiopunkOtrera · Apr 21, 2018

Welcome to the SV official unofficial female-led Isekai contest.

Isekai - Wikipedia

Isekai, which means literally "different world" is a genre of fiction in which a character is transferred into a different world, often by being hit by a truck, but sometimes in other ways, such as being kidnapped, or stuck in a video game.

In this contest, interested parties will write up to 10,000 words of an Isekai story with a female protagonist (IE, a woman is transported to another world) and an original setting. This can be a work that's complete in itself, or it can be the start of a longer story, that's up to you. After all submissions are in, a poll will open and everyone can vote on who is the best. The winner will then receive cover art which I'll commission from a commission artist of your choice to a maximum value of $100 dollars.

Submissions close in a month, Midnight GMT on the 21st of May. Please include a title, so that your work can be easily put into a board poll. Please also include a rough genre.

In order to prevent this becoming an immediate popularity contest, PM me and @meloncan your story, and we'll submit it to this thread where all stories can be read. Also, don't tell your friends which story is yours.

UPDATE:
The official unofficial SV female lead Isekai contest: Story Thread - Original
FINAL SCORE

WINNER: Falling Far (From The Tree Is Fine, but This Is a Little Extreme)

Full Score Sheet
Falling Far 72
Record of the Inherited Memory Girl's Efforts 50
Hereafter 33
All the Stars in the Sky 30
Travel 29
The Urban Barbarian 23
Love and Cats 22
All Roads 19
I am the human! 19
Blooming Afterlife 15
Lonely Dreams 15
More Sophisticated Magic 14
Chrysalis of Capgrass 14
Work Hard, Play Hard (I reincarnated as a living doll?!!) 13
So this is my life now, being a living battery in an unknown world: 12
Return from Isekai: A blade in the dark – Emma 9
Death Maid of the Revolution: 9
Afterlife 7
Ushinawareta Shoujo Sophia 6
Shiny 5
Harvest of Heather 5
Princess and the Student 4
Scars 4
Almost a Nightmare 2
World 2

Everybody Wants to Rule the World 1

Voting will end on the 19th of June

This thread remains for people to discuss entry. I'd encourage you all to talk over everything that's posted, and please don't post on who wrote a story, even if you know.

FINALLY: late submission stories maybe accepted, just get them to me as soon as you can.

Tiroth · Jun 24, 2018

TheGrum said:
Ehrm... Here we see the danger of giving grammar or word choice advice without checking our assumptions.

I did check a couple of legitimate dictionary websites and didn't find enamel-as-a-verb on any of them. I simply don't consider Merriam-Webster legitimate because, well, they pull crap like this.

Literally
: in effect : virtually —used in an exaggerated way to emphasize a statement or description that is not literally true or possible

will literally turn the world upside down to combat cruelty or injustice
—Norman Cousins

'These idiots use the word wrong' is not the same as 'this is what the word means'.

Anyway, still half asleep so I will be back later.

Andelevion · Jun 24, 2018

TheGrum said:
Thanks. Can I ask what you mean by another Rational-esque type of fiction?

Well, tbh I was mostly referring to how the character we followed was big on the minmaxing and logistics. Oh I found a quote about rationalist fiction that seemed about right for my purpose here.

"Characters are gaming the system — they understand and exploit the rules of the world, they cheat and manipulate it into the desired outcome. The hero's brain is his main "superpower" and his primary advantage over others."

If you've ever read Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, where the main character reasons out things in accordance with their own logic and turns out to be correct in the end, that's kind of what I was thinking of? I'm also saying this as someone who did enjoy reading HPMoR though I acknowledge it has flaws.

All the Stars in the Sky mostly just not interesting to me because there's no conflict.

For example, it seemed really convenient that she was immediately sure on what she wanted and subsequently also got what she wanted. Which was an overpowered tool that only she (cause of her specific knowledge of this thing) knew of and tried to get.

Basically story was cool to introduce and then it was just yeah she's smart and therefore wins. Success! But you don't care about her.

Now going to something you actually asked for feedback on, I...don't really connect with them personally but I can see that maybe there are girls like them? It's not so egregious that it took me out and I was immediately like "totally written by a dude" but I can still see them as likely written by a dude.

For one thing I'd argue that generally male fans and female fans tend to focus on different parts of media and experience fandom in different ways. A lot of male fans get archivist, noting facts and wielding their knowledge to establish their own position as fans. A lot of female fans tend to focus on the emotional side of the fandom and get creative.

I'd personally be more willing to believe in a female character who didn't know about this convenient super ultra awesome OP thing down to the nitty gritty and straight off the bat and remembered that there was an episode it starred in but she hated it cause her NOTP was canonized and so the conflict was her trying to figure out her best options and jog her memory while worrying about things if she failed.

Anzer'ke · Jun 24, 2018

TheGrum said:
To avoid infinite quote/unquote pairs and hopefully make it easier to read, I'm just italicizing your words from here on, please do point out if I miss marking any such.

Seems like it just creates more work for the same thing, but okay.

TheGrum said:
Okay, I can accept that Kiran lost interest to you; but almost immediately? 7694 of 9900 something words hardly seems like 'almost immediately' to me, unless again you are taking it as the start of a longer work, rather than as a short story. She held interest, based on when you are saying I lose her, for more than half of the story.

Summarising all of this first section, your response is based on the premise of a far more charitable interpretation of my critique. The story does not get broken at 7694 words, it gets broken as soon as you hand the main character what amounts to a wishing stone for anything from the multiverse and introduce exactly zero meaningful conflict or drama to the story.

You seem to have latched onto the idea that I thought this was the first chapter of something as a way to brush aside everything else I said. If you don't consider my criticisms valid that's fine and dandy, but don't misunderstand, they were aimed at the story you wrote and posted and not some hypothetical continuation.

TheGrum said:
If you are a geek who has no interest in nano- and femto-tech, a comic book enthusiast who considers turning a comic book costume into the real thing meh, and an RPG player who is not at all interested getting your hands on magic, if as any of the three you could contemplate living in a world in the deep past where not only is life going to be lacking most of the comforts you enjoy but there are magical foes strong enough that having wishes on your side is not enough to be safe with equanimity, then you are apparently as opaque to me as she was to you. Again, fair enough. Can't expect to understand everyone, even those with whom you may share some traits.

I'm interested in all of those things, and that's why I enjoy the occasional CYOA. However that's a very different thing from a story.

To be clear I'm not attempting to critique this on the basis of whether or not it can grab the attention of SVers. Clearly it can. I'm critiquing it as a narrative. Which means throwing in any amount of cool shit does not invalidate any and all other problems.

TheGrum said:
Path One Path Two Path Three

You're still doing the charitable thing.

I read those lines. I'm aware they were there. I still posted what I posted.

If we're going exact words then I point you to this one of mine:

Anzer'ke said:
The story fails to convey it

TheGrum said:
Ehrm, here again we appear to be talking at cross purposes. I am not imagining that my audience here is full of Japanese Light Novel authors. And, as you say above about not having read that story, I have not read Japanese Light Novels, so I can't comment. If I am using the term Isekai, it is in reference to how it is used in this challenge, as a broad term for the sort of story where someone from our world ends up in another, as per the terms of this challenge, and the whole discussion we had here about how broad the term is. I am speaking to the audience of SVers, and if you haven't noticed the plethora of stories on SV featuring ROBs and Alien Space Bats, or J. Random Deity's, or the large number of 'I ended up in a new world with power X or ability Y or turned into a Dungeon Heart, Dungeon Core, Planetary Annihilation Commander, Zerg Overmind', of CYOAs and Jump-Chan tales, then I can only assume that you are either highly selective in what you choose to read here, or that you were perhaps brought here from somewhere else by the term Isekai being used in the challenge (as you seem to be well aware of the Japanese Light Novel scene but not the SV scene). Edited to add: Except judging by your signature, you should be thoroughly familiar with SV given you seem to have been quite active here for some time. So I'm left in utter confusion as to how you've not noticed them.

In short, sorry to say but nothing about this setting is groundbreaking. Interesting for sure, but nothing new.

No need to be sorry to say it. Not claiming any such, just offering the setting up to the SVers as free fodder for the sorts of tales told here that avoids some of the cliches. (Granted, perhaps in favor of a different set of them - but again, my use of the term Isekai in my comment was not referring to specifically Japanese Isekai, but to the broad variety of stories here on SV that seem to fall under that heading.)

So to be clear, when you use the term Isekai, you're not referring to Isekai at all? Seems needlessly confusing. Why not just say SI?

Also why would SIs benefit from using such a setting in any case? You've barely shown any of it, and most of them use existing settings precisely so that they have stuff fleshed out and ready. You planning to post a setting compedium for this or something? That might be cool.

The Narrator · Jun 24, 2018

TheGrum said:
a comic book enthusiast who considers turning a comic book costume into the real thing meh

Wonder Woman's costume doesn't have any powers or even armor. As a Halloween costume, it's just a shiny swimsuit and when turned into the "real" thing, it would still be just a shiny swimsuit.

The Lasso of Truth does have superpowers, but even that part is confusing, because its powers are "making people tell the truth" and she doesn't seem to have any interest in using it for that.

TheGrum · Jun 24, 2018

Tiroth said:
I did check a couple of legitimate dictionary websites and didn't find enamel-as-a-verb on any of them. I simply don't consider Merriam-Webster legitimate because, well, they pull crap like this.

Literally
: in effect : virtually —used in an exaggerated way to emphasize a statement or description that is not literally true or possible

will literally turn the world upside down to combat cruelty or injustice

—Norman Cousins

'These idiots use the word wrong' is not the same as 'this is what the word means'.

Anyway, still half asleep so I will be back later.

The Oxford English Dictionary says the same... And says

Origin
Late Middle English (originally as a verb; formerly also as inamel): from Anglo-Norman French enamailler, from en- 'in, on' + amail 'enamel', ultimately of Germanic origin.

So I don't know what legitimate website you at looking at, but it is apparently a less reliable reference source than the one you are mocking.

Cambridge English Dictionary has the verb form as well. Dictionary.com has it. Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English has it. Collins Concise English Dictionary has it. Macmillan Dictionary has it.

The only ones that don't have it that I've been able to find so far are the Learner dictionaries.

BiopunkOtrera · Jun 24, 2018

If someone wants to run a power fantasy or level up Isekai contest then they should totally do that.

Sereg · Jun 24, 2018

Well, I'm glad that my reviews have been helpful so far. Especially for Love and Cats, as the prevention of problematc displays of romance is something very near and dear to my heart as an abuse victim from the rape capital o the world. To the point that it sometimes gets me in trouble.

GreatWyrmGold · Jun 24, 2018

Ah, yes, sthe "spoilers don't count as reply length" thing...

TheGrum said:
Much of the rest of the review seems to see this as a first chapter, rather than treating it as a short story. I don't think the problems with the rest of it actually exist at all if one sees it as a complete story; they are all to do with where the story would go from there.
...
The story ends precisely with her getting her wish - she successfully manufactured and obtained a Deus Ex Machina of her own design.

It does remove many (though not all) the problems I mentioned...but in the process creates new problems.
Stories are all journeys, in one sense or another. Where does Samara go? She literally travels from one world to another, and metaphorically travels from being a weak person to a lesser god. What about these journeys is supposed to be engaging?
There's no character arc; Samara is the same person, mentally, at the beginning as at the end. Nor does she have any strong or clear motivation, not that this is likely to be enough on its own. Samara faces no struggles, neither external nor internal. She gets dragged into the world, learns about the world, makes her wish and gets it.

"The threat she was presumably summoned to deal with" - she was not summoned to deal with a threat. That should be reasonably clear from the discussion Samara and Kiran have; Samara is just one more in a long line of summoned beings, she is no more nor less important than any other, she is not a destined savior, is not expected to become a warrior, or solve their problems, etc. They just want her strongly differing background to side-step their issue with creativity (which again, is actually explained in-story - that they've been doing this for hundreds of years now, and everyone grows up hearing all these stories about the best things that were summoned and so forth, so when they come to summon, they get more of the same, not new and different things) to do a couple of summonings, and for that they are willing to provide her with a lot of mundane wealth and a place in their society.

So...they summoned Samara, but not to deal with any particular issue? That's interesting, especially because summoning seems to require a significant investment of resources. At the very least, I would have thought there was some problem they were hoping to find a solution for. Yeah, a lack of creativity sucks, but it doesn't matter much if you don't need to create anything.
It feels contrived.

TheGrum said:
The protagonist has literally no power at all until very nearly the end of the story, when she gets the Lasso back and has a magic weapon. Before that, she has her wits and a costume. So again, this only seems to make sense as a criticism when taking the story as a first chapter rather than a short story.

There are literally no obstacles between her and getting that power. It's like making a magic wand that can do anything, putting it across the room for your main character, and making a story about them going to get the wand.

Ehrm... if her summons failed, she would end up trapped on another world with a miserable lifestyle compared to what she had on her world, and very few prospects for improvement.

But there was nothing indicating that the summons might fail. There was no clear peril, nothing that made the readers think she wouldn't succeed on the summons.

If you are a geek who has no interest in nano- and femto-tech, a comic book enthusiast who considers turning a comic book costume into the real thing meh, and an RPG player who is not at all interested getting your hands on magic, if as any of the three you could contemplate living in a world in the deep past where not only is life going to be lacking most of the comforts you enjoy but there are magical foes strong enough that having wishes on your side is not enough to be safe with equanimity, then you are apparently as opaque to me as she was to you.

I'm only one of those three, but I think I understand what Anzer'ke is getting at. I understand why someone would want to get all those cool things, and would want to do the same if I could. That alone does not make it interesting for me to read about. I'd like to have a job, but a story about the process of getting a job, with the end of the story being the letter saying "You're hired!", would not appeal to me.

Yana · Jun 25, 2018

I just want to say thank you to everyone who reviewed my story, your input will be put into consideration. I'm glad most people enjoyed my story's concept, if not how I wrote it. Hastur in particular Highlighted a couple of points I wanted to work on, and Andelevion pointed out a few of my own doubts of my story.

When I conceived Blooming Afterlife, I tried to avoid Flashbacks. Since I was limited in the words because of the contest, I tried to condense everything into the first few parts, and I didn't manage to flesh out everything I wanted to. I need to work on my pacing, and build up on each of the characters. When I re-publish Blooming Afterlife here in SV, I'll add one more scene where Aki and Keitaro's friendship is shown, before relegating the rest into Side Stories. Or maybe somehow incorporate them into the story without breaking the narrative.

One thing I noticed when I read the reviews, was that a few of my concepts didn't read for some of the readers, so I need to work on my context.

I was somewhat happy with my prologue, if a bit unsure about how stilted some of the dialogue is. I'm happy with my second chapter, but it seems that a lot of readers didn't exactly like it. Again, context. As for the last chapter, I'm really, really not happy with it. I might just take a few scenes from it, and scratch the rest, then rewrite the whole thing. Everything would stay the same, the place she was reborn, the people she meets, and even the weapon she gets, but the way it will be told shall be different. I told too much about the World, so I'm scraping that and use that scene to enrich the people in the Research vessel.

Again, thank you for everyone who read my story.

Triggerhappy · Jun 25, 2018

FBH said:
If someone wants to run a power fantasy or level up Isekai contest then they should totally do that.

I mean, that's explicitly what I set out to avoid both in my posted work and in Orobous Which I now wonder if I should have posted instead.

Hereafter pretty much ignored 'power levels' entirely despite Ness's limited use of magic being pointed out several times in narrative.

Orobous flips the idea around and makes being 'over leveled' a potential liability for the protagonists since it makes them a high risk / high reward target.

Yes, you get your wish fulfillment powers. Enjoy. Just appreciate that many equally powerful warriors and organizations are now gunning for you.

Lyova · Jun 25, 2018

Tiroth said:
Rather, you seem to be aiming for more subtle characterisation using her word choice and the narration itself rather than any specific statements. I'm not sure if this is what you were going for, but the parts that stood out to me were frustration peppered with spikes of black humour.

Yeps. I originally had more reminiscence and pre-isekai history, but I nixed it from the submitted version. It felt unnatural for her to dwell on her past more than she already does, and frankly, I just didn't think readers would care. It'll probably come up at some point later in the story, when the reader is (hopefully) more interested, and her past can have emotional impact instead of being unnecessary exposition.

Tiroth said:
Genuine question, are the descriptions something you overlooked, or is it a subtle statement that the main character doesn't care about these things, or is perhaps no longer capable of noticing them?

You're partially right. It was a deliberate choice, but character is one factor. She's been there long enough elaborate descriptions would impede on voice and tone, and she's not from a coastal area so her character is lacking some terminology (I get a lot more specific in the art commission

).

On a non-diegetic level, most of the plot takes place in what is essentially an extended fight scene, and elaborate descriptions just don't belong there.

Most importantly, though, the narration doesn't care because I didn't think the reader would. This is a bit of an extreme exaggeration, but as a reader:

if I don't care about the story, an elaborate description isn't going to make me.
if I do care about the story, I don't need an elaborate description; give me a skeleton and my imagination will dress it.

That's just my personal preference though. Of course, good descriptions that don't tax the reader's interest (or even build it) are ideal, but writing inherently interesting prose like that is tough, and I'm not that confident. It's also more difficult to do in early chapters, when there's little room to make the reader want to learn. (Especially when the protagonist isn't seeing anything terribly new.)

tl;dr: I gave as much description as I thought I could get away with without boring readers. It's going to be too little for some people, still too much for others. If anyone's reading, I'd be interested to know how other readers felt about the amount of description, to see if I managed to strike a balance.

Tiroth said:
Hope this was useful.

Absolutely, thanks a bunch for your time. Given me a few things to think about.

===

As promised, critique of @FBH's The Princess and the Student. This was one of the stories I had more to say about, because I felt it was clearly flawed, but had enough potential to be worth fixing.

The good first: I enjoyed some of the earlier characterization, and the plot has some interesting ideas. Unfortunately, the prose puts in progressively less work, the narration feels detached, and the protagonist is extremely passive in a narrative overburdened by exposition.

I'll address some issues with your prose first, and then plot.

Spelling/grammar/typos
There were a lot of spelling mistakes, extra or missing words, grammar issues, punctuation, incorrect word choice, weird repetition… honestly, it just badly needs proofreading. The fact there were all kinds of mistakes rather than one type in particular makes me suspect you'd find them yourself, so I won't belabor the point. A few examples of ones that got in the way of just reading the story:

When we landed and got out into the boarding tube fancied I could smell the sea.

another lace I lived

However, now after of an exchange program in America, and in various international security modules I'd looked through enough military publicans to recognize these and find them strange.

disserted by the rest of her family

I reached down for the rack and had my hand on a copy of LaLa the world fell in around me.

a large but bear room

I crawled across the glass-strewn floor. I looked for her, crawling across the glass-strewn floor.

on either side of the street in their fighting vehicles on the street

Lack of immediacy
This was probably my biggest issue with the story. As something written in first person and without any particular framing device, I want the narration to place me inside the protagonist's head, because that's the whole point of the perspective. Immediacy and a close narrative distance, creating immersion. As it is, the narrator doesn't accomplish this.

The narration has a habit of telling the reader how Sakura is feeling; it doesn't convincingly show her emotions. I point at phrases like 'Feeling my tension broken', or 'realizing how much I'd missed her'. I want to read about how Sakura feels, not just be informed about what she feels. To illustrate with a very obvious example, Sakura doesn't salivate at the sight of food, she doesn't hear her stomach groan, she doesn't feel the faintness of low blood sugar, but instead, tells the reader 'I realized I was very hungry'. It gives me information, not a story, and creates a very noticeable Sakura-sized distance between narration and reader.

The absence of Sakura's immediate sensations is jarring when she's describing events that aren't about her. During the fight especially, it feels like she just stops existing for a while. Sakura disappears, and the narrator becomes an impartial commentator describing some physical action she doesn't care about. Ideally, Sakura's personality should still shine through a little, even when she's just making observations.

The trend continues in the rest of the chapter. When she wakes up on the other world, she doesn't seem to spare a thought for her mother, and instead launches into long elaborate descriptions of how things like the ceiling look like. She feels absent from her own mind.

To summarize in the form of actionable advice:

be conscious of when you show and when you tell; the balance is too heavily leaning toward tell right now
remember your narrator should be Sakura and not an impartial observer
don't unnecessarily create distance when you describe thoughts and sensations

Underutilized paragraph / sentence structure
While there is some variation in the sentence structure, the prose isn't really utilized to create impact, or to guide the reader into focusing on the important. Consider one of the most pivotal moments, the entrance of the mysterious fantasy knight who foreshadows the protagonist's role and massacres a group of soldiers.

When the knight entered, they gave her a fusillade of fire.

Not only is 'entered' very bland, she's sharing sentence real estate with soldiers and their fusillade of fire. The elements distract from each other, and the impact is much weaker as a result. This knight is important. She deserves her own sentence.

Dialogue
While her conversation with her mother was full of character and believable, Sakura's exchanges with Alshas / Althas feel stilted and unreal. Some examples:

"Ah, Glory, you are up."

"You're calling me Glory. I am a Royal?"

Why would she assume this from 'Glory'? I'm fairly confident it doesn't make sense in Japanese either. It's forced and unnatural; and it's very obvious Sakura's saying this purely to set up Althsas' next line and the subsequent exchange. It was noticeably odd that she latched on to this weird form of address, instead of freaking out, or worrying about her mother, or other more urgent things.

"You're the same people who attacked Okinawa. I'm wondering who exactly you are?"

"My name is Alshas, In a way, so are you."

Similar problem here. The conversation feels artificial, and the purpose is very transparent: creating room for exposition. (As an aside, my first thought here was 'Sakura is also Alshas?')

Imagery
The earlier problem – Sakura vanishing from the narration – persists as a problem here. She tells the reader information, and I'm not sure how she acquired it, and unconvinced she could have. A few examples that were especially noticeable:

I pushed my case's handle down and picked it up, and in the moment of standing up, someone passed me. Long black hair and blue eyes. Tall and perhaps a little inelegant.

I'm not sure what to picture by a person who is 'a little inelegant' here. How are they inelegant – or more specifically, what quality does Sakura consider inelegant in them, in the split-second glimpse she has? (And while blue eyes would be rare in Japan, I'm not convinced she'd notice them here.)

I must not have reacted in the way she wanted, because she raised her eyes, and an expression of anger and a peculiar exaltation came over her face.

I've noted this line before. I have no idea what to picture with 'an expression of anger and a peculiar exaltation', and don't buy that Sakura would recognize it. She's clearly looking at the author's thoughts, not this woman's face.

Rather than merely painted, every wall was decorated with elaborate silk hangings that fluttered as if in unseen breezes, giving the impression of being outdoors, in a friendly forest or garden.

Another example of description that doesn't seem properly filtered through the first person. 'Fluttered as if in unseen breezes'. Why the 'as if' and why 'unseen breezes'? The breeze is clearly visible; it's making the hangings flutter. How else would a breeze be seen? If there's magic at work here rather than airflow, how does Sakura know?

Above me, the ceiling was an unfamiliar, intricate mosaic, sprays and waves of reds and blues and greens and yellows curling around solid squares of white and black, seeming as if the wind around city towers had been rendered in color and abstraction.

If I was convinced this was Sakura speaking, and if the narration in general didn't sabotage my immersion, you might get away with description like this, because readers will try harder to picture it. As it is, it draws attention to itself and doesn't serve the story.

Plot
Like I said before, I enjoyed the authenticity of the beginning (or a convincingly faked authenticity). The characterization and exposition struck a good balance, while I still got the sense the story was moving forward. Despite the issues I had with the prose, it held my attention. My interest in family conversation started waning around the point where it ended, so that was well done.

With the fight, unfortunately, everything went downhill. Sakura promptly becomes irrelevant. There are no stakes for her, she has nothing to do. While those aren't criticisms per se, the problem is that Sakura-as-an-observer isn't engaging in the slightest, due to the prose issues I've detailed before. I felt no engagement, no immersion.

This is just a suggestion and not a fix in itself, but have you considered making Sakura struggle to reach her mother during the fight, instead of before? It'll be a little harder to write coherently, but it would at least give me the sense she's part of the story. (It would also alleviate the nagging question of 'Does Sakura really see everything she describes without moving from her position, or has the narrator gone omniscient?')

I don't think this will come as a surprise, but the rest of the chapter felt like the weakest part to me. Unbelievable dialogue, exposition bombardment, Sakura's disproportionate focus on sightseeing, a protagonist devoid of agency and reduced to a sock puppet by the plot, and a few weird contrivances that didn't convince me I was reading a logically-constructed world and magic system. (They have overly convenient magic that lets Sakura impersonate the princess and receive telepathic communication, but they can't just mind control her?)

Sakura's cliffhanger, her deal with the demon, isn't particularly grabbing. It's less about Sakura being proactive, more about her putting herself at the mercy of this nebulous character, gambling on what he's willing to do for her. It doesn't point the story in any particular direction, and the ones I can foresee aren't ones that make me want to continue reading.

The glimpse we see of the true princess is a little intriguing, but it's inconsequential in the story that's written now, and in a longer story, I'm not sure it wouldn't end up being unnecessary. The Princess' side of things feels like it's a late-stage complication for Sakura; until then, Sakura's story should stand on its own.

To summarize: The Princess and the Student has a decent start – the characterization in the first section felt authentic, and it grabbed me with its modest approach. I remember reading this after the other story explicitly set in Japan pre-isekai, and your story was a lot more convincing and less anime about it.

Unfortunately, problems with prose become gradually more apparent, the narration starts forgetting the person in first person, and the actual plot consists of the protagonist passively absorbing exposition, jump-started by a page of chaos she's barely involved in. This is an introduction without one satisfying moment in it, and that means the prose, character, and world-building need to work a lot harder to hold the readers' attention.

That said, most of the flaws are of the fixable kind, and there's enough potential here I can't call it bad. The Princess and the Student fell just outside my top ten for me.

Hastur · Jun 25, 2018

sunandshadow said:
@Hastur
I don't think I commented on scars, but I wanted to suggest that it would make the main character seem more likable or at least more active if there was one small aspect of the new world she was intensely interested in; preferably even before she has a working translation spell applied to her, but basically while she is still stuck in bed and furious at Aerin. Something positive or at least neutral for her to introspect about, to contrast the pain/weakness/fury/etc caused by er injuries and situation. Aside from that, I was wondering about what this world has in terms of makeup and/or illusion magic. Beauty makes money whether your customers are brothel employees or noblewomen, so I'd think that magical beautification methods would be fairly well developed in any world with fairly common magic.

Sorry it took me so long to reply! I was busy lately and never got around to answering.

Anyway, that's a good idea - I tried to portray Cassandra believably, but I can see why some people might want to see elements that contrast with the darker and more unhappy parts of her struggle in the middle of the entry, especially given that the narrative doesn't let her develop beyond the situation itself and keeps her mind squarely on the fact that she's suddenly in a different world.

As for makeup and illusion magic, I'm going to be honest, I didn't even consider that aspect when writing the story so everything I tell you would almost certainly be something I came up right now. Illusion magic most likely exists in this setting, though the strength of such spells would greatly vary depending on where it was cast according to the distance from Sigil's Tower (the place where magic first appeared in the setting, up north) and where the mage was born as well, since that affects their innate potential for magic.

That said, it's an interesting question, especially due to Cassandra's scarring and self-esteem issues that come with it, but I guess that's the reason you asked? Regardless, I hadn't even considered that as I said and there's definitely room to explore there in terms for hiding the scarring, the shame of having the scars and the decision of whether hiding them or not... So thanks for that!

Tiroth said:
Hastur

I...honestly didn't bat an eye at Aerin being an arse. I mean, some people just are, there's no reason your protagonist-y personage has to be excluded from that. Having a character flaw to work their way through makes for good storytelling, too.

Just getting a beta/editor for the technical errors would probably be enough to catch those, especially for the ones your eyes just skip right over after the fifth time checking it yourself.

Oh definitely, it's not so much that I didn't want him to be an asshole (which I did, though not the extent he apparently is), but rather that the narrative -and especially Cassandra- didn't really acknowledge it, as GMG pointed out.

And yeah, if I ever decide to continue this, I'll try to get a beta reader on board. That said, I haven't checked yet, but I don't remember ever seeing a thread about offering to beta read or posts about looking for one. It's kinda weird, since FF does have an entire section for people offering to beta other people's work.

Yana said:
I just want to say thank you to everyone who reviewed my story, your input will be put into consideration. I'm glad most people enjoyed my story's concept, if not how I wrote it. Hastur in particular Highlighted a couple of points I wanted to work on, and Andelevion pointed out a few of my own doubts of my story.

When I conceived Blooming Afterlife, I tried to avoid Flashbacks. Since I was limited in the words because of the contest, I tried to condense everything into the first few parts, and I didn't manage to flesh out everything I wanted to. I need to work on my pacing, and build up on each of the characters. When I re-publish Blooming Afterlife here in SV, I'll add one more scene where Aki and Keitaro's friendship is shown, before relegating the rest into Side Stories. Or maybe somehow incorporate them into the story without breaking the narrative.

One thing I noticed when I read the reviews, was that a few of my concepts didn't read for some of the readers, so I need to work on my context.

I was somewhat happy with my prologue, if a bit unsure about how stilted some of the dialogue is. I'm happy with my second chapter, but it seems that a lot of readers didn't exactly like it. Again, context. As for the last chapter, I'm really, really not happy with it. I might just take a few scenes from it, and scratch the rest, then rewrite the whole thing. Everything would stay the same, the place she was reborn, the people she meets, and even the weapon she gets, but the way it will be told shall be different. I told too much about the World, so I'm scraping that and use that scene to enrich the people in the Research vessel.

Again, thank you for everyone who read my story.

I did like the story, though as people have mentioned (me included with my review) there are certain elements that drag it down. How much is, I suppose, a reader-by-reader basis. Mind mentioning which points I pointed out that you wanted to work on? I'm guessing Aki and Keitaro's relationship is one of them, since you talk about it, but there were others iirc.

Reworking their relationship really depends on how slow or quick you want to take it before you have Aki jumping to the Other World, I think. Like, is she going to die by the end of the first chapter again? If so, it should be longer to accommodate the increased number of interactions between the two before Keitaro's death and Aki crossing over and fleshing out the existing ones. If not, I'd say you could get away with maybe a couple of chapters of Aki and Keitaro interacting while the month passes, but I don't know how successful that'd be, given that the Isekai premise is sort of the draw and if it doesn't happen soon, it might be a bit pointless.

That said, people have expressed interest in the prologue so I think it could work.

As for how stitled the dialogue is, I remember being the one who mentioned it. Can't remember if other people also said the same thing, but I'd have to reread the entry to refresh my memory and give my thoughts on it. I can do that if you want, Yana.

Scraping the world infodump and using the space to flesh out the Vessel Research people sounds good to me, especially since you're in no need to keep yourself to a 10k+ word limit and you can put that wham line ending in a better and more appropriate moment (yes, it was a really jarring ending

)

Also, sorry I didn't remember this review from you till now!

Yana said:
Okay. Time for some reviews. I haven't finished reading all of the stories, but here are the reviews of all the stories I have read so far.

Scars

The writer could work more on developing the characters, but aside from that, I liked the story. It kept me interested enough to keep reading, especially since I liked the setting of the story. I'm not sure how it would have kept my attention as the chapters go on, as I don't really see either of the main protagonists as adventurous enough to explore the worlds themselves, but that's up to the writer.

If you remember the story, could you go a bit more in-depth in the characters bit? Like, how did they fail in your opinion?

As for the second point, I can see where your coming from. I have a somewhat half-formed idea for getting them out of the Tower, but that would take some time to happen and honestly, it really wasn't the point of the entry, which is basically a first chapter to set everything up. Them being adventurous or not wouldn't play a large role in their reasons for leaving, though...

Peel · Jun 25, 2018

The problem with using a super-popular idea like power fantasy as a prompt is that it will mean the contest is popular and gets a lot of entries, and we discovered this time that's actually a bad thing because people can't read them all

I was considering a 5k limit and 'sports', as a curveball away from SV's usual output (naturally, fantastical sports are allowed).

WhoAmEye · Jun 25, 2018

I want to write that. I want to introduce motorbike deathrace soccer. Wait. No... no that wouldn't be good at all...

MONSTERTRUCK DEATHRACE RUGBY.

The Narrator · Jun 25, 2018

WhoAmEye said:
I want to write that. I want to introduce motorbike deathrace soccer. Wait. No... no that wouldn't be good at all...

MONSTERTRUCK DEATHRACE RUGBY.

Aerial Dragon Polo.

WhoAmEye · Jun 25, 2018

that's just dragon-rider fights but less violent

but monster truck deathrace rugby! the passing, the intercepting, the guns, the tackling!

honestly i should get better at action scene writing before even considering this

Winged Cat · Jun 25, 2018

WhoAmEye said:
I want to write that.

If we're talking ideas that came too late for this contest, "My Parents Got Sent to Another World and They Won't Stop Calling Me to Ask How to Do Chosen One Stuff". Game-savvy daughter having to balance school, friends, the day to day practicalities of keeping up a household by herself (mainly financial, even if her parents let her write checks and pay bills using their account which is autodeposited into), being the advice lifeline for her parents who probably will die (or worse) if she gives up on them in frustration before they can finish their quest and return to her, and the emotional impact of being suddenly alone at home for the first time in her life (even if she does get daily phone calls from her parents).

Andelevion · Jun 26, 2018

Winged Cat said:
If we're talking ideas that came too late for this contest, "My Parents Got Sent to Another World and They Won't Stop Calling Me to Ask How to Do Chosen One Stuff". Game-savvy daughter having to balance school, friends, the day to day practicalities of keeping up a household by herself (mainly financial, even if her parents let her write checks and pay bills using their account which is autodeposited into), being the advice lifeline for her parents who probably will die (or worse) if she gives up on them in frustration before they can finish their quest and return to her, and the emotional impact of being suddenly alone at home for the first time in her life (even if she does get daily phone calls from her parents).

I know I'd fucking read that.

WhoAmEye · Jun 26, 2018

fuckit i'm bored i'm gonna try

Housesitting While My Parents Holiday in The Wrong World anyone wanna keep me company?

Anzer'ke · Jun 26, 2018

WhoAmEye said:
fuckit i'm bored i'm gonna try

Housesitting While My Parents Holiday in The Wrong World anyone wanna keep me company?

Well it's certainly got an entertaining opening to it.

WhoAmEye · Jun 26, 2018

feel free to dump comments and suggestions in the doc, im totally winging it and any help i can get polishing it would be appreciated

jseah · Jun 26, 2018

WhoAmEye said:
feel free to dump comments and suggestions in the doc, im totally winging it and any help i can get polishing it would be appreciated

If you had 10k words of this at that level of writing, I would have put that as my first vote!

It's hilarious!

EDIT: A friend mentioned that this story idea is like MC playing tech support, along with all its frustrations.

OffBrandANON · Jun 26, 2018

WhoAmEye said:
fuckit i'm bored i'm gonna try

Housesitting While My Parents Holiday in The Wrong World anyone wanna keep me company?

i am enjoying that so far.

GreatWyrmGold · Jun 26, 2018

WhoAmEye said:
fuckit i'm bored i'm gonna try

Housesitting While My Parents Holiday in The Wrong World anyone wanna keep me company?

It's a decent proof-of-concept.

Winged Cat · Jun 26, 2018

jseah said:
A friend mentioned that this story idea is like MC playing tech support, along with all its frustrations.

Yes, that was the inspiration.

The official unofficial SV female lead Isekai contest

Traitor to her Class

Anarchism Ho!

Disembodied Voice

Traitor to her Class

Banned Forever

Super High School Level Paranormal Investigator

Stick with Trigger and You'll Make it Through

You can't hide from the King in Yellow

Bunker-Dwelling Cryptid

Disembodied Voice

Bunker-Dwelling Cryptid

For Science!

Bunker-Dwelling Cryptid

Anarchism Ho!

Bunker-Dwelling Cryptid

eldritch horror, pink flamingo

For Science!