General Remarks

Solid starting chapter. There was nothing I could find that needed to be added or removed from the story. The main things you need fix pretty much only concern grammar, but there are some small things you can improve upon.

Mechanics

The first page is pretty good. The hook isn't very hard to understand, and it's already very enticing. Zeb's backstory is short, simple, and pretty heart-felt for just being told in one page.

You do have some grammar mistakes here or there. An incorrect tense or two, but overall, it was pretty coherent. I do think some of the prose is a bit too flowery. Some metaphors are a bit confusing, but most of them I felt fit very well.

Setting

I believe your setting to be gothic inspired? Let's get one thing over with. The fact that your world has books that are Freudian, sex advice tabloids with click-baity titles is honestly rather funny to me. 10/10 conclusion.

This is a magical setting. There is a sentient house, ghosts, and a boy with no heart, and I think that your presentation each one of those aspects is detailed and spaced out well. There was no point where I was left clueless as to what the setting was about, and what the limits and bounds that it was trying to push or include.

Little bits of magic were teased, and I'm always excited to learn more about the mechanics of a world's magic system. The sentient house, specifically, is always a fun inclusion, and I liked how you showed its involvement in the story.

Staging

Zeb is mostly just sitting down reading books, but I think you made it quite interesting. The physical relationship between him and the house is rather amusing with indications of fondness. When Zeb gets hit in the head with a book, I let out a small chuckle.

There wasn't anything too awkward in the ways that you described the characters interacting with the world. Overall, pretty solid.

Character

I like Zeb. Him looking at sex guides is pretty funny at first glance. When you know he's not human due to not having a heart, it makes his actions quite bittersweet. You're very efficient in establishing his main goal, becoming human, in a way that feels natural and humorous. Sex is a very intimate thing for most people, and showing his want for it makes it very easy to connect with him. Not b/c I'm a virgin or anything like that.

Orvyn the... Unfinished... is an interesting character to say the least. I appreciate the amount of effort you put into his dialogue. It's very distinct. I like the idea of a horny ghost that you can't exactly ignore, and I don't think you presented him as too annoying. It's usually very easy to fuck up the funny, horny character, as most people usually forget how to do the funny part correctly. The juxtaposition between him and Zeb is very entertaining, and I loved seeing their dynamic play out.

Lucien, the sarcastic butler. Or Servile Snarker, according to TV Tropes. I always like this character archetype. It allows to have our brooding MC to have someone that isn't afraid to point out his flaws. The plowing joke felt like it could be a bit more subtle. Maybe having Lucien only say plowing again once would allow the joke to end. Specifically at the end of the chapter.

Plot

Again, this is pretty well laid out. Nothing was too confusing for me to understand. I followed every story beat. The overall goal of the story is very clear: Zeb wants a heart. I think you do a wonderful job at showing how he is trying to achieve that goal. There were no apparent plot holes, as you kept the story very simple so far. Nothing felt missing from me as a reader.

Pacing

Pacing was extremely efficient. There was no point in the story where I felt that it was too rushed or too long. You just go from one thing right to the next, and it has a nice natural flow to it. I especially like who quick and efficient you were with the Zeb's backstory. It provided just enough information needed to know about how his character started.

You hit pretty much every necessary mark with the scenes that progressed with giving the reader enough information. The pacing was very smooth, and it allowed us to get a lot of information about the setting and characters in a very short amount of time.

Description

Descriptions very curt. Nothing felt to overbearing to read through. Again, I must you a hand at your efficiency when writing. I had a solid grasp of what each of the locations, people, and objects looked like.

POV

The POV is from a close 3rd person view from Zeb, and I think you keep that consistent throughout the story. The narration is pretty straightforward, but it can be pretty funny when it wants to be. Nothing too jarring or confusing throughout the whole chapter, and I liked reading the story from Zeb's perspective. His inner thoughts and feelings were very clear, and some of them brought a layer to the more comedic moments.

Overall

Solid start so far. Fantasy Romance isn't of my particular interest, but I'd probably read the next chapter when you release it. Do fix some of your grammar mistakes. They were only minor grammar mistakes.

General feedback:

I really enjoyed reading this and would have continued further had it not ended. I was a bit worried that it might be a dark and depressing story after the mother abandoned her child in the very first page but the humor really picked up after that.

The descriptions of the castle and the characters are perfect, not overly long, just enough to paint a picture for the reader without getting bogged down in imagery. The pacing is perfect.

The humor is great. And I'm not usually the kind of person who likes this kind of explicit stuff. I was a bit hesitant to read after I saw the 'nsfw' tag, but I enjoyed the back and forth's and the chemistry between the characters.

Mechanics:

The title matches the story perfectly, as the main character is born without a heart and it seems as though his quest throughout the story is to find one. It is an interesting hook though I did find myself wondering why he was so eager for a heart, since his life seems to just fine without one. He may have read stories about hearts coming together/being broken etc. but is that enough to justify his entire life goal being to find a heart? It's not like he can't live without one?

Setting:

I liked the descriptions of the castle, and the library in particular, they really helped build a picture in my head. It did seem like a dark and dingy place, which makes sense as it's Beezlebub's castle, but considering the level of humour in the story, I think a more beautifully detailed castle would have been fun to imagine too.

Characters:

The characters introduced so far have very distinct personalities, which is great because it makes them stand out from each other. I particularly enjoyed Orvyn's character, his hilarious backstory and his wise-cracking explicit remarks mean that even a standalone story about him would be fun to read. I was curious to know how he arrived at the castle though, I think the other characters' arrivals were better explained.

Heart:

I think the heart of the story is about accepting and loving yourself as you are. I don't know the ending of course, but based on Zeb's eagerness to build a heart I think the message of the story is going to be that he is perfectly fine without one and doesn't need one to be whole. Based on the first chapter I am predicting there will be some kind of romance in the story which will help him learn that.

POV:

I think this is something worth re-thinking. The story right now is told in the third person, but since Zeb is the main character and we are often listening to his thoughts and perspective on things it might be better to switch to a first person account of Zeb instead. I think the writer has already tried this before though and had issues, so take this advice with a grain of salt. I noticed some inconsistencies in the POV too:

'Zeb took a deep breath. Okay time to focus. Farming. Life from death. He can do this': The story is in third person, so switching initially to first person ('Okay time to focus') and then back to third ('He can do this'), without any break or indication can be a bit confusing as a reader.

Line wise feedback:

Most of it was perfect and easy to read, but I felt myself getting a bit confused once in a while:

'seeking to unlock the deep magics of life and death': This was a bit vague as up until this point we're not even sure what kind of magic there is in this world. There was a mention of conjuring before this line, but nothing else. It just felt like it was put in because it sounded good rather than because it was actually conveying something meaningful.

'sunblessed hero': I was just confused by this mention, not sure who this was referring to. Maybe some character who hasn't been introduced yet?

Other Remarks:

I got the impression that Lucien had been conjured by Zeb. But then why was Orvyn there? Why was he conjured if he is just going to annoy him? Unless he died in the castle itself and now haunts it for some reason. Also, which one of them was actually interested in the sex guides was it Orvyn or Zeb? Maybe these things are answered later on in the story, so I wouldn't consider them issues as such, but just some questions I had after reading.

If I had to guess, based on the innuendoes so far, I would say that there is a gay romance at some point in this story. Looks interesting and very much worth reading :)

Hiii, I’ve seen you around but I don’t think we’ve interacted directly! I’ve skimmed some of the earlier versions of your story but I didn’t uhhh like them so I didn’t comment 😭. Also, I have a character named Felix as well, so that’s a bit awkward lol…but I read your new intro and it definitely hooked me more. I hope you find my comments helpful!

Overall, I felt this was markedly better than the first two iterations. The prose is now solidly in third person, it sounds less choppy, the protagonist is interesting enough, and the conflict is clear, if a bit typical.

Tone

Though I like the new intro/hook much better than the previous ones, it seems like a really abrupt tonal departure from the rest of the story. You open with this very lush and dark description of a mother starving her child of love, failing to even give him a name (I feel like this could be notable if you wanted to use it for some plot point later). It reminded me of a fairytale.

But then it cuts to Zeb in the library, simply behaving like any number of repressed, human young men who could have been raised in any random village. We’re reeling from the shock of him being abandoned by his mother, and essentially having to raise himself, and then we see that he’s…a relatively normal person, and his greatest desire is just as fresh, new, and undiscovered as the day he was nine? And then the whole dialogue with Orvyn the Unfinished. I got a laugh out of one of his monologues, but I might be a broken person so definitely ask around about the humor. I will say that the voicing was well done, though. There could be more variety, but the execution was not bad.

Anyway, individually these scenes are fine, but together…they’re a lot. In addition to the tonal whiplash I got from reading these in quick succession, they paint a very confusing portrait of Zeb’s character. I wish he was affected by his past and his environment in more obvious ways.

It wasn’t bad to read, since your pacing wasn’t slow, but I could not sit through a whole novel of this inconsistency. I feel like this story would be more clear if you committed to the tone - either by choosing to make it more serious and having the characters discover themselves in a very lush and emotionally-charged way, or leaning into the comedy and sarcasm of it all. You might eventually want to blend the two styles/tones together, but I would be less confused as a reader if you just stuck with one at first.

Anyway, from your previous posts I get the feeling that you want this to be more witty, funny, tongue-in-cheek, possibly satirical. In that case, despite how much I like the drama of your hook, it should be removed, since it is the opposite of the tone you seem to want to go for. Totally spitballing here, but maybe you could start with a more fast-paced, frazzled introduction, describing how he receives his guests, and end the chapter with him reflecting on that interaction, and possibly lamenting his heartlessness at the very end, which is when we as the reader would learn about it for the first time. The “action” part could also be a good place to have Orvyn the Unfinished being a nuisance. To add to the atmosphere.

Prose

My biggest issue with your prose is the lack of rhythm to them. Currently, they feel very stilted and a little inelegant. I’m working on this myself, so I may not be the best person to comment on this, but I’ll try my best. Hopefully I can do this by example.

The boy was born without a heart. He wasn’t entirely dead; he wailed when held for the first time. His pudgy limbs twitched and his fingers latched. The woman tried to overlook the darkness behind his swirling gray eyes, but she couldn’t ignore his skin, as pale and icy as moonlight. There’s nothing more fundamentally human than fear of the dark, and her fear danced to the silence of his missing heart.

We start off with a sentence in passive voice, which, I did that too so I don’t care that much, but people got mad at me. I will say that the way it’s written right now doesn’t sound very good. It also doesn’t mean anything to me as a reader because it doesn’t invite conflict. Being born without a heart could imply many different things, so it effectively implies nothing. Net zero information and net zero conflict.

Next, these sentences don’t connect well with each other. We don’t know if not having a heart has killed him, so we don’t care if he’s entirely dead. Then the focus abruptly shifts to the mother, who we just found out existed because he was held in passive voice. It’s also odd that his (presumably biological) mother is not described as such, so there’s a moment of confusion of who the hell this woman is. But this sentence isn’t even about the woman, it’s more about him and how not-human he looks. Then the text waxes poetic about human nature. Who asked…it is probably best to get the reader used to your story before doing that or else it sounds insufferable.

Due to a destructive combination of these, the scene is quite jumbled in my mind. Maybe it would be more clear if the intro followed a clear plot line or POV, like his mother discovering all his inhuman attributes with mounting dread and culminating in the absence of his heart. For example: her baby is born strange, with oddly pale skin and swirling(? confused what this means exactly but I’ll go with it) dark(? again, is this the sclera that’s dark or is it the iris) eyes; she’s like “I must be hallucinating”; she hugs the baby to her chest and is horrified to discover that he has no heartbeat. Second paragraph describes her withering (that is the perfect word for it) hope and eventual resentment, etc etc. I think this would help the flow immensely and give the reader meaning to latch onto. I don’t know what to say about the sound except that reading helps a lot.

But also, I feel like my concerns about this passage may be indicative of a different problem, mainly that you may not have wanted to write it. There are passages that I feel do have good flow and meaning, mainly the dialogue-heavy ones or the ones in which Zeb is monologuing. So you might just want to cut this passage altogether like I mentioned above.

More generally, I think certain areas could be expanded on more, description wise. The deluge (seriously, what the hell) of comments on the document are making me not want to say this, but I think “show, don’t tell” might be helpful in passages like the one below:

“Hush now, little one,” he said, his voice soft as he approached. He hoisted the boy up and held him against his chest as the boy cried into his neck. “My name is Lucien, and I am your servant,” he murmured. “You are not alone, child. I promise I will take care of you.” He held the boy for a moment, rocking him and patting his back, until the shuddering gasps slowed into sniffles. “Do you know your name, little one?” Lucien asked. The boy shook his head. “I know it; I heard it in the dark. Your name is Beelzebub,” Lucien said. The boy whimpered and trembled. The dark was scary, and so was the name it gave him. “Oh hush, hush, sweet child,” Lucien soothed. “I have an idea; why don’t we call you Zeb?” he asked. “Is that better?”

In particular, “the boy cried into his neck” could be expanded on. Are they hot, fast, wailing tears, or is he more choked up and red-nosed? When the “shuddering gasps slowed into sniffles”, did he choke his tears down or cry them all out? How did he react to Lucien’s comfort? Did he hold onto his new guardian tightly or was he more aloof? Such descriptions could help with establishing Zeb’s character.

But yet again, I don’t find these issues in the actual…meat (man these words) of the story, so it could just be that this part of the story shouldn’t be there in the first place. After the timeskip, I can easily see that Zeb is kind of frazzled, easy to make blush, and wants to be studious, so I think your prose worked well there!

Worldbuilding

We don’t see much of this, so I’ll just leave some questions that may be helpful to think about. Are there other people like Zeb? His mother brought him to a castle, but does he know anything about why it’s supposedly his? How has the castle remained undisturbed and in good repair?

About Zeb’s conjuring powers, how did he find Lucien so quickly? That seems very lucky for a first summon, especially since he also summoned Orvyn who he does not seem to care for much. What’s the cost of summoning?

I hope you found my critiques helpful. I can tell Heartless has improved a lot since its first iteration and so has your prose, especially in the dialogue department. Best of luck!!

Other people have already given detailed thoughts so I'll just throw in some observations that might be useful

1. I love Orvyn. Orvyn is a delight
2. I'm assuming orvyn would be bez's love interest? If so, give me some more tension in bez. Show me that poor boy struggle. Right now, you have him annoyed, but have him annoyed *and turned on*, and fighting against it. E.g. that moment when orvyn was describing his sad, unfair death and bez could recite the words - have him also think something like, "the words he could ignore, the trouble was that every time orvyn said fully inserted in the countess bez pictured the round globes of his ass between a pair of thick, creamy thighs" or some such. (I've been called out for the globes thing before, so maybe don't use globes haha). I guess my main point here is, ramp up the tension by making poor bezzy suffer, not just with being distracted but also with his own desire. Would be neat if not having a heart prevented you from imagining the count's thick cock in orvyn's stretched ass, but tragically, no such luck hahahah
3. Would bez's mom and his abandonment show up later in the story? Because I almost want you to start with a funny, delightful, erotically tense scene to hook me, and then to weave the info from the abandonment scene as you worldbuild. Scrap the abandonment scene, your story doesn't start there. Drop the fact that bez doesn't have a heart as he talks with orvyn the delightful ghost, then think about how to incorporate the fact that bez has been abandoned later. I think after I've been drawn into the story, after I've gone, "d'awww, bab, y u strugglin so hard," some dramatic backstory would be more interesting. Start with the ghost scene, make me care about bez in the here and now, show me what he wants - to understand magic, and also some goddamn peace at last - and then combine the abandonment scene with Lucien's scene somehow. Or have bez reveal the info later, when it becomes pertinent.
4. After "Not helpful!" he said to the shelves, give us a scene break. There's nothing in how that passage is formatted to tell me I'll be jumping in the past, etc. So give me a couple of blank lines to let my brain know when it changes gears. For the second scene, I'd probably go, "Castle Wraith was sentient. As a child, when Zeb was truly lost, locks would bla bla until he was herded back to familiarity... (so press a big fat ctrl-x on a lot of the text in the middle and paste it in another document). Drop small hints that something isn't quite human about bez as you tell me his backstory and let me meet lucien for the first time when bez is ... 11 was it? If you do orvyn-hook, backstory leading back to orvyn, further current challenge, probably kicking the plot along, more backstory in the next scene (maybe the abandonment here), then bez in the present deciding to get involved with whatever his plot will be, and bc of the previous scene we are led to believe his abandonment somehow raises the stakes? I have no idea what the book will be about, but dude's interested in farming, someone coming to ask his help w a farming related disaster then it turning out that, wait, it's his mother's village - flashback to the abandonment?

Anyway, these were just thoughts. i root for orvyn, may he get his ass properly plowed :D :D

Opener

The beginning of a story is the most critical, because if a reader isn't interested, they won't take your book off the shelf - or maybe more importantly, buy it!

Your opener is quite good. You hit us with something that shouldn't be. Baby has no heart? It's still alive? That doesn't seem possible! What explanation is there for it? It's definitely established as a baby, but not a normal baby. Some sort of monster baby?

These are good details to hit the reader with right away. They draw people in and get them wanting to know the answers to the questions these statements bring to mind.

Some people made comments about certain things working or not working in it, so I'm going to give my suggestion on structure:

The boy was born without a heart. He wasn’t entirely dead; he wailed when held for the first time. His pudgy limbs twitched and his fingers latched. The woman tried to overlook the darkness behind his swirling gray eyes, but she couldn’t ignore his skin, as pale and icy as moonlight. There’s nothing more fundamentally human than fear of the dark, and her fear danced to the silence of his missing heart.

We'll begin at the top.

The boy was born without a heart. He wasn't entirely dead; he wailed when held for the first time.

Some good content, but I think the way you've written this could be improved slightly. As I mentioned on the drive document, you use a number of short sentences in a row and it could potentially be built to read a little better.

"Though born without a heart, the boy wasn't dead; he wailed when held for the first time, and his pudgy limbs twitched and fingers curled around his mother's."

Though merely an example, I've blended the first three sentences into two sentences that have a little better flow for them, which as a reader will be easier to digest. Granted, this is personal opinion on voice and style, so it may not jive with you.

There’s nothing more fundamentally human than fear of the dark, and her fear danced to the silence of his missing heart.

This sentence was mentioned by at least one person as drawing away from the mystery established, and I'm not sure I fully agree. It is, however, heavily at odds with the sentence before it and does not transition well. Therefore, I am going to recommend a potential alteration.

"There's nothing more fundamentally human than the fear of the dark, and try as she might, the woman could not overlook the darkness behind his swirling grey eyes that caused such unease within her chest."

Downside of this is the transition between the first suggestion I made and this one is rather poor, but this example was about bringing up the mention of fear in relation to the child's features, while also touching on fear being fundamental to human nature. If you wish to keep these concepts, I'd look at shuffling them around to get them into a more appropriate order of presentation for the reader.

One other detail I'd suggest taking a look at is using "the woman" in place of "the mother". Currently, the woman is very non-specific. It could be the mother. It could be the doctor, a nurse, a friend, a family member, etc. However, it's most likely the mother. It would likely be best to just refer to her as the mother and get that established without question.

Moving On

As I mentioned in the opener, you have a style to your writing that consists of a lot of shorter sentences. Variety is the spice of life, and repetition in style can be tough on a reader. While you sentences are not bad, they could be improved, especially since you're listing a number of aspects about the child

His skin never warmed.

His chest stayed vacant.

He didn't eat or drink.

At night he cried over whispers she did not hear.

Four relatively short, highly related sentences back-to-back. While they work, and it is probably fine to leave them as is, I personally would find a way to work these into one, or at least two sentences instead. It might help move things along smoothly.

The boy held her life hostage, a child she knew was not truly hers.

I really like this.

It's a good concept, and it rings true with how things have gone so far. However, the way you write the sentence is a little awkward to read.

I suggest a change to something like:

"The boy, a child she believed wasn't hers, held her life hostage."

It contains the same information but gets rid of the super awkward-to-read spot around that comma.

The boy was five when on a moonless night, he followed the woman to the crumbling walls of a castle. It was beyond the forest and long abandoned to ivy, ghosts, and shadows. They stood in the courtyard, drowning in darkness.

Excellent descriptive elements that really evoke the image of where they might be. However, I'm not sure the way you wrote this is ideal.

"The boy was five when on a moonless night" does not read well at all. The rest is much better, but I'd also suggest looking at the transition between the final sentence and the one preceding, as from a reader's standpoint it doesn't sound very good.

From a critiquer's perspective, I would probably change to something like:

"When the boy was five, he followed the woman to the crumbling walls of a castle. It was beyond the forest, and had long been abandoned to ivy, ghosts, and shadows. On that moonless night, they stood along in a courtyard, drowning in darkness."

Presents the same information, concepts, etc. but has a little better flow from a reader's perspective. Just a suggestion, is all.

“You’re staying here. Whatever made you can take care of you now.” As she turned to leave, the boy cried out and grabbed at her hand, but she jerked away. The boy was scared. Things whispered to him from the dark, things that weren’t, but could be, if he let them. He didn’t want that. He wanted to go home. He wanted his mother. “I’m not your mother! You’re not even human! Don’t touch me with your dead hands.”

Then she was gone, leaving behind a heartless, weeping boy.

​

Quite a fan of this section. Very emotional.

You should add a line return after the dialogue, though.

Things whispered to him from the dark, things that weren’t, but could be, if he let them. He didn’t want that. He wanted to go home. He wanted his mother.

This section here is very good, but could use a little attention. Particularly in the "he didn't want that". It's very plain, and doesn't work really well from a narrative structure standpoint. Therefore, I'm going to suggest a revision that eliminates that vague sentence.

"Things whispered to him from the dark, things that weren't, but could be, if he let them. He would not let them become reality, because that wasn't what he wanted. He wanted to go home. He wanted his mother."

As some other critiquers pointed out, you have a tendency to make fragmented sentences that don't have a proper subject and thus don't tie in well. So, this helps alleviate that problem here.

I don’t have too much to say, but I liked it! I usually can’t get past the first several sentences when reading drafts, but this grabbed my attention. I liked the humor and I actually chuckled. I think it was well-written. The only thing that stuck out to me as something that could change is how you wrote the time jump from his childhood to 15 years later. It seemed very sudden. I just prefer putting “15 years later” as part of a header or something, like people do at the start of a chapter rather than writing it directly in the story itself, if that makes sense. I’m new at writing though so I don’t really know the best way to do time jumps. Good job!

Heartless (Chapter 1, Part 1 (3rd Rewrite))

General Remarks

I’ve gotta say, between your three drafts of this story, I am impressed by your range and ability to think about this world from so many different angles. That deep understanding makes this world and its characters feel real.

This is certainly your strongest version of this story yet. The dialogue is stronger, the characters more likable, and you’ve done a good job of aging Zeb up.

That said, some of the language feels overly artful and mysterious to the point of become difficult to get through, there some leaps of logic that feel like simply too much even for parody, and Zeb is still verging very close to being childlike at certain moments.

Let’s dive in.

Difficult language

I can’t think of any generalizing way to explain the way your language can come across as difficult, so I’ll just point to examples.

His pudgy limbs twitched and his fingers latched

Finger don’t just “latch,” they have to latch onto something.

things that weren’t

Things can’t be “weren’t,” they have to be something.

Like grow a heart, in his own dead body

This is a sentence fragment, and it takes a lot of mental energy to connect this idea to farming. I needs to be more explained, since the concept of growing a heart doesn’t easily connect to growing plants. Is this an actual thing he knows should be possible, or is he aimlessly hoping?

There’s more examples throughout, but the general rule is that it seems you’re intentionally using bad grammar in an attempt to be artful, when, at least for me, it’s more distracting than anything.

Logical inconsistencies

While this story holds together relatively well overall, there are still a few points that don’t really make any sense or leave me asking questions I don’t think the narrative wants me to ask.

‘Better Residences and Estates: Shocking 10 Tips on How to Grow the Perfect Crop (And Please Your Man)!

Really? I get that this is supposed to a joke, but it feels like an invention of the author to the idea that somehow Zeb is trying to read about farming, but accidentally reading about sex. But, again, really? I bring this up because it’s actually a large plot element for the entire chapter.

There’s got to be a more clever or subtle way to handle this. Maybe he really does want to read about sex, but is hiding the book in a book about farming so the ghost doesn’t see? Or maybe it really is just a book about farming but with lots of suggestive language that keeps making Zeb’s mind drift.

Castle Wraith was sentient. When Lucien carried him inside, a bedroom waited for Zeb, with clean, solid furniture.

In general, I am confused by what Lucien is. Is he an extension of the house’s sentience? Is he really a servant, because he doesn’t really seem to obey or respect Zeb. Is he kind of like the library, which sort of belligerently obeys Zeb?

And what about Orvyn? Also a part of the sentience of the Castle? Or something else completely? Could Lucien be banished?

A little bit more investment into Zeb and the rules of interacting with his world might make readers less distracted by trying to figure out the mechanics of it.

Alllllmost childlike

This is the best version of Zeb to date, and I have a feeling he is much close to where you want him to be now.

He certainly feels older and more mature, mostly. He “refuses” to be embarrassed, but the problem is that he still is pretty much constantly embarrassed. In every interaction with every character, from Orvyn, to Lucien, and even to the library, he is embarrassed and clearly in denial. This still feels a little bit juvenile to me, and makes me wonder who you’re going to take a character like Zeb who can’t own up to his emotions at all and take him on a powerful emotional journey with the sunblessed.

You might be able keep Zeb essentially how he is but mature him just a little bit more by muting his reactions. For example, should he really be yelling at Lucien for making the plowing joke? Even just removing the exclamation points from that section might make it seem like less of an overreactions.

Closing remarks

Wonderful work on iterating this story. I’ve never read three drafts of a story on here, and it’s cool to see how you’ve improved it again and again.

Shore up some of the grammar, give us a little more world building, and mute Zeb’s reactions just a little bit, and I think you can safely say you’ve got a rock-solid entry into your story.

Now, it’s time to get to chapter 1 part 2! You’ve got a long, fun road ahead of you.

I have finally stumbled over!

#General Impression

So, I think this is a big improvement over the past two iterations. I still think most of this can be cut and there are a lot of awkward inclusions/things you could smooth out and/or edit, but the heart of the story (lmao) is here, and that’s what I’m most concerned about. My main concern in the past was Zeb and his characterization and I solidly felt like he sounded adult in this version. Repressed and in denial, but definitely adult. So we have the biggest, most glaring issue fixed right off the bat. The rest is easy to fix, IMO.

#Prologues

I don’t like prologues. Big time jumps that span years don’t work for me, so while I can appreciate the backstory for Zeb in the opening scene, I don’t think it does you any favors and messes with the story’s tone, and essentially functions as a big showcase of exposition right off the bat. It’s a weird feeling too, because as a biased reader who’s interacted with your two other drafts, I’m actually interested in reading it and enjoyed reading about Zeb’s history, but that’s only in a meta context and not necessarily in the context of evaluating this individual work as if it stands alone. Does that make sense?

This is important information for you the writer, I think, to keep in your back pocket and sprinkle through the narrative when appropriate, or just use as informational when considering Zeb’s reactions to different plot points during the course of the story. As a general rule (that can be broken, of course, but I don’t recommend it) Chapter 1 should really start in the status quo for the protagonist and involve all the troubles that are associated with the status quo. I think you accomplish that well when you start off the actual narrative in the library, so my intuition is that the opening scene with younger Zeb and Lucien should be cut. It’s just not a good place to open and causes disorientation when the reader latches onto the young character then discovers this isn’t the timeline we’re going to be following. Besides, a lot of it is written as narrative summary anyway, and narrative summary doesn’t make a good starter. It’s slow paced and doesn’t allow the reader to dig into the characters’ thoughts and feelings due to it being a summary of events.

For meta’s sake, though, I do have some thoughts about the content of the prologue. These aren’t questions you have to answer in the story necessarily, but are meant more for you to think about with regards to your worldbuilding for the story. Interacting with the world building of a story is really fun for me!

• Why would Mom drop him off at a castle and not just… idk… kill him? It seems like it would be a quicker fate. Usually mothers will drop unwanted children in the wilderness with the full expectation and understanding that the child will die, and it’s always struck me as strange that she wouldn’t just kill the child as a mercy. Like, don’t most infanticides involve smothering the baby? Maybe out of a personal weakness? But if she’s so hurt at the thought of killing her child, why drop him off to die anyway?

• Aside from that, why does Mom leave him at this castle and not just in the middle of the wilderness? Mom’s intentions strike me as really weird that she’d stick him in this abandoned castle like “you’re gonna live here now” fully knowing the place is abandoned and he’s going to die. Why the castle? Why not the middle of the woods? Why not an orphanage? I get that you have to get Zeb to the castle to make the sentient castle a thing in the story, but I think his path from mom to castle should be a little more well thought out.

• If Mom knows that the castle is sentient ahead of time, how does she know this? And has Zeb created things with his mind before? Did she know that he would be able to create Lucien? If she never really grew attached to him and Lucien is created from a desire for a parental connection, why didn’t he create Lucien before? I’m sure the answer is somewhere along the lines of “he wasn’t this desperate before” but it’s still something to think about, right?

• We learn that Mom “tried,” but to what extent did she try? He seems pretty attached to her in the beginning there before she leaves him at the castle, which seems to imply he has a secure attachment to her and she’s been fulfilling his needs for five years, which I’m struggling to believe based on the way she reacts to him at birth and how she treats him when she leaves him at the castle. If you’re familiar with attachment theory in children, I would expect her to be neglectful and/or abusive and unable to bond with him, resulting in him being either avoidant or avoidant-anxious.

• Lucien seems like a surrogate parent, and would help Zeb not become a total wreck in adulthood, but he would still suffer trauma from losing the caregiver that he bonded to in the last five years. Do you have any thoughts on how he’s going to handle the mother issues? (Equivalent of daddy issues but I don’t know the word for it off the top of my head.) In general, despite the fact that Lucien was made to take care of him, I imagine he’s going to have a lot of trauma and issues with connecting to partners, which makes his relationship with Felix something I’m curious to see unfold. Childhood trauma like that makes it SUPER difficult to bond in romantic relationships, which puts the love story in choppy waters—it’ll make for an interesting read.

• Where’s Dad? Why wasn’t Zeb sent to Dad? Do we know anything about that parent? (I’m getting the vibe like maybe the mother was raped by an evil entity and gave birth to a child she didn’t want, only to have it be evil as well. Kind of dark there.) Zeb is also five when he’s dropped off at the castle—did he interact with anyone else aside from Mom? Any aunts or uncles? Any siblings or cousins or other family members? Grandparents? Community members in general? Other children?

• Is there any reason why Zeb doesn’t create other children to play with and become friends with? It seems like the logical procession—first, create Lucien so he has a parent, then create the castle so it can shelter him, then make peers the same age for him to interact with.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on the prologue and the worldbuilding in general around Zeb’s history. Let’s move onto the actual meat of the story. For that I think I’m going to do a line by line and point out some of the various thoughts I have:

Okay I read your second version of this story and now this third one as I was compelled by the fact it’s not labeled as 18 plus and couldn’t resist.

I commented on both versions (I’m Emily.) I apologize if my comments for this version are very nitpicked. Honestly please pick and choose which of my comments to heed, I wrote them at like 1 am before bed and some were just thoughts as I was reading it since I like to edit while I read and not after so any thoughts are fresh in my mind. I keep overall after thoughts for Reddit comments.

With that out of the way let me tell you what I did and didn’t like about this version which I believe to be your best version thus far.

Also side note before I start I just have to say the dynamic of your story with evil darkness, a boy abandoned in a big fancy house with a butler looking after him reminded me a lot of black Butler. NO this isn’t a bad thing or me accusing you of copying that anime I’m just pointing it out because I actually liked that I was reminded of that as I personally love the anime and if you’ve never seen it, you may enjoy it.

Anyways moving on.

First what I enjoyed in this version.

• I loved that the house was sentient gave off beauty and the beast vibes in a weird way in that regard. However since the house had a sense of humor and chucked books at him it was like an adult version of that concept (minus the talking furniture). I thought it was unique gave your story distinction.

• second for the most part I loved your sense of witty humor in this, it felt very adult and cartoony and I mean this as a compliment but I could one hundred percent imagine the humor style here used in an audit cartoon on say adult swim. It had that vibe to it and I loved it. I also love you were clever about most of the jokes and many of them went beyond just sex, since you had Zeb act as more of the straight man to the wackier jokes which helped them bounce of him nicely and gave us not just the sex joke but the humor of his reaction. Really my only complaint with the humor is I think a few of the sex jokes were hammered in a bit much and overall I think if you make a joke, you can make it once and move on. (You can continue to make the same type of jokes like sex ones a lot if you give variety in them, but not just hammering the exact same joke to clarify.)

• loved orvyn A LOT even tho he’s mostly comical he had a lot of personality given to him in such a short appearance and honestly I appreciate that so much as someone who loves characters and characterization the utter most in stories. He was distinct and felt real, it also over the top for entrainment and humorous purposes which worked, not to mention he played off Zeb well.

• finally Zeb I like where is character is now a lot more than in the previous version of this story I read. He feels more real and has a clear goal, and there is a clear explanation of what he looks like, who he is, etc. He feels like a main character in his story now, and the fact I believe him to be the straight man to the antics of everyone else is great keep him as that honestly. Obviously he can develop more and shift, but I think for him to work as a master, main character and even humor in this plot he should stay as somewhat of a straight man. It will also help readers identify with him as where also probably (least I am) reading this thinking everyone around Zeb is over the top and crazy, and in that case if Zeb is also reacting like that he’s sharing our reactions and then where nodding our head along with him to his logic and reason of putting other characters down some, but also laughing at how he has to deal with this.