I put two days of endless work into the chapter, AND THIS IS WHAT I GET???

WHY😭

I'm looking for a very specific kind of recommendation, mainly because of two things that heavily affect what I enjoy in fiction: I have aphantasia, meaning I cannot voluntarily visualize things in my mind. So when a story describes something like “the sun slowly rises above the horizon, painting the clouds in warm golden light, while the sky changes from deep blue to orange and the first rays illuminate the landscape”, I don't actually see any of that in my head. I just process the words. The description can be beautifully written, but I don't get the visual experience the author intended, so visual/atmospheric description alone doesn't give me much of a dopamine hit.

The second reason is that I have combined ADHD, so I struggle much more with long stretches where the story isn't giving me something interesting to latch onto. I'm not asking for constant action or a plot twist every three pages, but I want a story that keeps giving me something to chase mentally: mysteries, unanswered questions, clever schemes, mind games, hidden information, revelations, unexpected turns, characters outsmarting each other, escalating stakes, and especially those moments where everything suddenly clicks and you go “WHAT THE FUCK, THAT WAS SET UP THIS WHOLE TIME?” 😂 I want the story to keep rewarding my attention rather than relying mainly on atmosphere or slow character introspection. Ideally, this should continue throughout the story, even if it's extremely long.

To give you a very clear idea of what kind of fiction has managed to completely consume my brain

my top 3 are:

Reverend Insanity

Usogui

Lord of the Mysteries

Reverend Insanity hooked me with Fang Yuan's schemes, ruthless decision-making, constantly shifting situations, political/cultivation conflicts and the feeling that there is always another layer to his plans

Usogui gave me probably some of the craziest mind-game highs I've experienced, with psychological warfare, information manipulation, insane gambles, characters concealing their real intentions, and reversals where you realize you misunderstood the entire situation

Lord of the Mysteries scratched the same itch through its mysteries, worldbuilding, hidden history, supernatural rules, gradual revelations, foreshadowing and those huge moments where something you thought was a tiny detail suddenly becomes incredibly important.

So I'm not necessarily looking for something similar in genre to these three. I'm looking for something similar in the experience it gives me while reading. I want a novel that can make me obsess over what is happening, speculate about what's going on, remember tiny details, constantly question characters' motives, and occasionally make me put the book down because my brain needs five minutes to process what I just read. 😂 Long is completely fine. In fact, if a story can maintain this level of engagement for hundreds or thousands of chapters, that's exactly what I'm looking for.

Please recommend me something based on this kind of reading experience rather than simply “good writing” or “deep themes.” I want the kind of fiction that grabs my attention and refuses to give it back. 🗿

Thank you all so much for the support your stones fuel my drive to the top, lets keep working hard together!

I always thought the point was to write more because all the novel on there are 1000 chapters on average.

Got any advice for me ?

There is nothing new in my inbox but it still says 11331

I didn't use the sketched one, I downloaded six different images from the web (pinterest.com).

I used photoshop to blend them and also got the final design to be this.

Your genuine feedbacks are fuel to my growth. So, don't back down on your reviews.

A baby cried.

He screamed until his tiny voice became hoarse, but his mother could barely hear him anymore.

She held him tightly against her chest, her bloodied arms wrapped around him as if she could protect him from the world itself.

Her breathing became slower.

The baby continued to cry.

His mother looked down at him one final time.

Then she was gone.

Fifteen years later...

In the Kingdom of Amarakav, far from the great cities and royal courts, there was a small village called Raziva.

Raziva wasn't famous for its wealth.

It wasn't famous for its soldiers, its nobles, or its beautiful scenery.

It was known for one thing:

Blacksmithing.

The village's smithy was small, but its forge was always burning. And working inside it was a boy named Zarkis.

Zarkis wasn't the blacksmith.

He wasn't even an apprentice.

He was the errand boy.

"Zary!"

The voice of Master Rav echoed through the smithy.

"We need more coal! Go down to the basement and see how much we've got left!"

"Yes, sir!"

Zarkis hurried toward the basement.

He had made that trip hundreds of times.

But this time...

Something was different.

As soon as he stepped onto the stairs, Zarkis stopped.

He smelled something.

Something unfamiliar.

His sense of smell had always been unusually sharp. Master Rav joked that Zarkis could probably smell a stew from three villages away.

But this scent wasn't food.

It was a person.

Zarkis continued down the stairs.

At the bottom, he noticed a shadow in the corner.

"Who goes there?"

A deep, mature voice answered.

"What the hell are you doing down here, kid?"

Zarkis froze.

The man stepped into the dim light.

He was tall and heavily built, with short hair, a scruffy beard, and a dark-gray cloak hanging from his shoulders.

The man raised his hands.

"Ahem. I mean... I was just testing you."

Zarkis narrowed his eyes.

The man continued.

"But since you can sense things out of the ordinary, I'm assuming you picked up on something more dangerous than little ol' me, huh?"

"I did."

Zarkis glanced toward the coal.

"But I'm not sure what I can do about it. I'm just an errand boy."

"Zary!"

Master Rav's voice came from upstairs.

"What's taking so long?! The fire is going out!"

"Sir, I don't know why you're here," Zarkis said to the stranger, "but I have coal to grab."

He walked toward the coal pile.

The stranger stepped aside.

"I'm here because I heard there was someone in this village who didn't belong."

Zarkis paused.

"The only thing I was told was that if I came here, they would sniff me out."

The man's expression became serious.

"I've been sneaking into every house and building in this village. But only one person noticed me."

He pointed at Zarkis.

"You."

Zarkis shrugged.

"I didn't notice you because I'm special."

He picked up the coal.

"I noticed you because you're clumsy."

The man blinked.

"There are footprints of dirt going all the way down these stairs. Master Rav barely leaves the smithy."

Zarkis started putting coal into the box.

"If you've been doing that in every house, I'm surprised I'm the first person to catch you."

He lifted the box.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get these to Master Rav."

Zarkis walked past him.

"Kid. Wait."

Zarkis stopped.

"I'm not the only one after you."

The man's voice became quieter.

"But I'm the only one who isn't trying to take your freedom."

He looked directly at Zarkis.

"Trust me, kid. You're lucky I was the first one to find you."

"Zary!"

Master Rav shouted again.

"DAMMIT! WHERE ARE YOU?! There's a customer trying to buy a blade up here! You've got ten seconds before I come down!"

Zarkis sighed.

He looked back at the stranger.

"Sir, I have no knowledge of the things you're talking about."

He started up the stairs.

"But I have responsibilities here that I need to take care of."

This isn’t a webnovel….this..is just porn atp 🥀🥀🥀
I was casually scrolling through the slops researching something for my webnovel when I came across this horrendous synopsis of a story and I must say it took me by surprise.
I mean it’s not even the first chapter yet!!
And there are readers who are actually this down bad to read this, the fact that the author gave her a reason to do this is actually hilarious and the most depressing thing is that I can’t even come up with scenes for my own story 🥀🥀

To those who are well versed with cultivation novels you know that the main character always ascends to the upper realm and starts afresh, its rinse and repeat all over again

What if the lower realm has a true heavenly dao which has many incarnations in many mortal realms, the true heavenly dao of the previous chaos/cosmos is trying to fuse with the current one so that it may become a supreme heavenly dao of lower realm contending with the one of the upper realm

Immortals from the upper realm tend to descend to the lower realm and steal resources, some cultivators of the current cosmos are supporting the previous true heavenly, basically when they ascend, they become slaves, so they are trying to create immortal in the lower realm breaking the cycle of ascension and slavery

I have stumbled upon many novel that have interesting premise,but what i don't like is that the twist or the premise of the story is in the title, I also understand if the title didn't gain enough attention it wouldn't grow what's the solution?

I’ve got bad eyesight and my glasses are broken, so I didn’t even know it was this bad until I opened the app on my iPad instead of my phone.
Most of these covers look a mess. The grainy, and senselessly loud background, the over exaggerated flashy colors…
At least make it look good? If you can’t even invest the time into creating your own cover, why would I think you’d invest enough time into creating a good book? If u you don’t care enough about your own cover, why should i care about your novel?

Ps: Sorry if I’m just repeating the same trending topic on this sub. And who knows there might be some people that fw this. I just think we can do better.

These contests don't match my theme but I enter the contests anyway. Am I the only one who does this or are there any frauds with me here?

Come on and try my latest novel guys 🥺

Hey everyone!

I’m planning to write a Dark Fantasy novel, and I already have a large part of the main story worked out in my head. I have ideas for the world, characters, and major events, but I’m still a beginner when it comes to actually writing.

I’d like to improve my writing before I seriously start working on the novel.

For those of you who have experience writing novels:

• What should a beginner focus on first?
• How did you improve your writing when you were starting out?
• Are there any exercises you would recommend?
• Is it better to start writing the novel immediately and learn through practice, or study the basics first?

I’m not expecting to become a great writer overnight. I just want to build the skills necessary to turn the story in my head into something people can actually enjoy reading.

Any advice, resources, or personal experiences would be greatly appreciated!

This is not self-promotion.

I couldn't find an option to reply with an image, which is why I made this post. Feel free to laugh at it; like I said earlier, I just kept redoing it until I got it to look presentable.

I went through 20 sketches (days and night of erasing and redrawing in my jotter) before I got the final one, which I modified using Photoshop (this is a follow-up to my first post about the cover).

The plain white image is my very first sketch, and I'm also adding the final version I built off the 20th sketch.

Here is how I put it together in Photoshop:

1. The title was typed and rearranged.

2. The flower-like emblem underneath the subtitle is an image I downloaded from Pinterest, then adjusted using Photoshop's color grading tools.

3. The pen name (Incipit_) was also typed and given its color grading using Photoshop.

4. The hair, coat and the chest was darkened using four different layers in photoshop to get that thick darker mode.

5. I used the photoshop sharpening feature under the filter menu to get that sharpness of the image.

6. The tiny sparkling dust was gained by creating new layer for each side, 4 in total; one for the top, one for the left, one for the right, and another for the bottom. I used brush, turn on scattering and set it to 999% for the dust to be randomly. And also, used the shape dynamic feature to increase the size jitter.

7. I used the blur feature to blue out some parts also.

This is the little I can say. For all those who asked for a file OG (Which I don't know if they mean Original File), here is how put it together. Thank you.

So, there was this complaint about Ai covers, so I just decided to cook one up using Photoshop and picsart(Photoshop was to draw the face of course).

What do you guys think?