Intro:

A Ballad of Falling Light is an apply fic that was written by XxFaylinexX. It is a fantasy story with many characters and factions, but most prominently, the Phoinix faction. They are a fire clan known for their military feats, and they are the driving force behind the plot. At the center of it all is Siraj, someone who came up with a deadly plan to stop the fire clan before they get a chance to destroy any more of the world he loves.

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Detailed Feedback

What Worked:

This is my first time actually reading an apply fic, believe it or not. I wasn't sure what to expect since I kind of knew what they were but not really, if that makes sense. But honestly, I thought this was really cool and a wholesome project. It was fun to read the comments and see you interact with everyone. This has nothing to do with the story itself, but I admire your engagement and dedication. It's rare I find authors with such a devotion to the community and to their readers, and I just wanted to take a moment to appreciate you for that.

Moving into the actual story, I think the most obvious thing I should talk about is the fantastical elements and the world. Anyone who clicks on the story will see the time and effort put in to flesh out this world and all the factions within it. To me, reading intro chapters tends to be boring and I want to just get to the main storyline asap; however, while reading the first intro, I was sitting there thinking, "Wait, I'm actually interested? What is this magic?"

I don't think an intro has ever interested me the way the faction intros did. You put so much thought and detail into them down to their appearances and cultural norms. Learning about these new factions was fun, and I appreciated how much work you put in to make each faction stand out. My favorite faction is the Phoinix because of my adoration of birds (my name being "Raven" is a giveaway) and y'know... phoenix. But I also appreciated the other factions, like the Phaos and how they have white hair and eat fungi due to their location/geography. The amount of creativity that went into these factions makes for an engaging read.

Speaking more generally, I like the writing style. I think the style fits the story. I never felt you were going too purple prose-y/over-the-top with your vocabulary. Everything seemed to fit in, which made for an entertaining reading experience.

You didn't spoonfeed your audience either, which I appreciate. You trusted your audience to pay attention and didn't do too much telling over showing except when necessary. For example, whenever there's dialogue happening in a scene, you always incorporate little ticks and quirks to the characters to make them stand out, like in the beginning with all the nervous coughing, glances, and sweaty hesitations. You have things happening around the dialogue, which makes the dialogue feel more realistic, but it also gives the audience a chance to process what's going on and draw their own conclusions.

I don't know if you've ever seen the movie Prisoners, but it's a 2013 mystery thriller directed by my favorite director of all time, Denis Villeneuve. In this movie, a vast majority of it is people talking, and it's one of the only pieces of media where I felt a strong desire to watch people talk. The dialogue was so engaging and intriguing that I wanted them to keep talking. I didn't care about the plot at that point, I just wanted more conversations. I bring that up because I feel you have a similar vibe going on here where you give the dialogue a lot of emphasis, but at the same time, you don't lose sight of the characters, world, themes, and plot either. The dialogue feels realistic and not over-the-top in any way. It also fits in with the era without feeling too fancy or hard to read. That's always one of my biggest worries with fantasy stories: is the dialogue going to be too fancy? You don't have this problem. You don't force fanciness or elegance unless it's for a character who speaks that way, and when they are elegant, they aren't obnoxiously so to the point where it becomes purple prose. Good job with that!

The last thing I'd like to talk about is the plot. For starters, it starts strong by giving us an elaborate game. It's almost like the characters are playing with one another. In other words, they're playing a game of chess with the war, but the far more important game of chess seems to be the one happening between them. They know information about one another without them needing to talk. This nonverbal communication is vital to a reader's engagement to a narrative. Like I mentioned earlier, you don't spoonfeed your audience; you give us room to understand the different layers within the characters. That leads to the plot feeling more compelling because we care about the world and characters. Not only that, but it's unique and definitely has the fantasy feel. Overall, very solid job.

I lied, I have one more thing to say: the grammar is very good. I didn't notice any consistent grammar or spelling errors. Probably some of the best grammar/spelling I've ever seen on Wattpad.

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What Didn't Work:

I would like to start by saying I have no problem with long paragraphs, and I myself write them, though I would recommend downsizing on how many are used. There are times we'll have giant paragraphs several times in a row. And when I say giant, I mean to the point where it takes up my entire screen. While people define long paragraphs differently, I tend to view them as anything longer than 8 lines (not sentences), and there are many times we'll have paragraphs that are 10+ lines back to back.

This is already a really complex and fantastical story, and I admire that, though anything you can do to increase readability so we can get more invested in the world faster could help. Part of readability is long paragraphs, and if there are too many, especially back to back, it can get hard to read and it really wears on the reader's stamina. It can make them feel tired after reading since we aren't given as many breaks. The point of breaking paragraphs up is to give readers a break and a chance to process what they just read, so if you're not giving them that break too often, then it can also harm their understanding of what you just said in the paragraph.

The same applies to long sentences, though I don't think the long sentences are nearly as consistent or as big a deal as the long paragraphs. As long as the sentences make sense and aren't too long back to back, I think they're fine. I just thought I'd bring it up in case you were wondering if my opinion applies to long sentences too. I definitely didn't notice long sentences as much as I noticed the paragraphs, so I think the sentences are overall fine as is.

I hope when I break it down like that, it makes sense why having so many long paragraphs was a bit hard to follow, but I can explain further if needed!

My main recommendation is to give dialogue more space. This ties into my last point about long paragraphs. Sometimes you'll have a paragraph that's 10+ lines long, then in the middle of it or at the end of it, there's dialogue. It makes the dialogue feel lost and a little random, in my opinion. I would suggest keeping dialogue separated from long paragraphs. You can have paragraphs and dialogue together as long as it's related to the dialogue, though the longer the paragraph, the more you risk the dialogue being forgotten and lost in the sea of words.

While on the topic of dialogue, sometimes you have fluff words in the dialogue that makes the lines a little longer than they have to be. It's not a huge deal, but for flow purposes, it could be worth considering removing those words. For example, from chapter two, "The commanding officers have created a plan that will have us all killed."

In that sentence, I'm referring to the first "have." The sentence meaning won't change with or without it, so having (no pun intended) it in there isn't necessary, in my opinion. I would also say using "get" instead of "have" for the second "have" may sound more natural. So it would look like this: "The commanding officers created a plan that will get us [all] killed." I also think the "all" is optional, but either way it sounds fine.

To summarize, sometimes you'll have those fluff/filler words that don't need to be there since they don't add to the dialogue, that's why I'd recommend removing them where you see fit. I use TTS to have the text read back to me and that helps a lot with flow and removing words that don't need to be there, so that's a general suggestion if you think that could help your work flow. However, I encourage you to find what works for you and your writing style!

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Summary:

- Cool worldbuilding

- Good writing style

- Solid balance of telling and showing

- Unique and interesting plot

- Be careful with long paragraphs

- Consider giving more space for dialogue to breathe

- Be careful with fluff/filler words in dialogue

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Overall:

A Ballad of Falling Light is a complex narrative with countless fantastical elements and factions to attach yourselves to. If you are someone who enjoys apply fics and fantasy storylines, then this is the perfect book for you.

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Thank you for submitting your story. Please let me know if you have any questions or would like any additional reviews when the shop opens again.

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I'm going to start leaving this new note at the end of all reviews since Wattpad may be removing pms. Even if they aren't, you never know with them.

If you would like to keep in contact with me and ask me for more feedback on your work, I have a Discord server for all readers, writers, and friends. I'll leave a link in the inline comment here for anyone who would like to join.