The Swan Lake

I’m kinda on the fence for this one. On one side, I like the style of the writing and the general “feel” of the story, it really has that old school fairy tale thing going on for it. I realize this might be partly due to the source material, which I admit I am ignorant of. On the other hand, I feel like this story would have immensely benefitted from much more detail and exposition. I feel like a lot of things, including potentially important ones, were glossed over in favor of keeping up a brisk pace due to time constraints or some other reason.

I genuinely knew nothing of Odelle other than her parents died and yet I was willing to give my life for her and perform acts of true love for her. Similarly, I would have liked to know more about the world other than the castle and surrounding lands where the story mostly takes place. In some places, it almost feels like a kid’s story, only it clearly isn’t.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed it in parts and overall it was good. I thought the twists and general narrative were pretty creative and interesting, but then they fell slightly short because of the length and lack of detail. All in all, I’d recommend focusing more on developing the relationships between your characters so the reader actually shares some of the feelings and sentiments for the characters with the protagonist. I, for one, would have had no problem reading through a couple of pages of conversations and experiences with Odelle if it meant getting a clearer picture of who she was and why exactly the protagonist was so into her in such a short time. A single paragraph glossing over their conversation does them little justice.

Finally, I would recommend not only trying to write more and branch more, but to go in heavy with more detail. The world seemed promising and interesting, but ultimately failed to captivate me because there simply was nothing there of substance.

Man this is actually pretty good

It was pretty good. I never saw Swan Lake or heard the story so I hope that this was a good representation.

Hard to follow at parts. Basically enjoyable and fun.

I LOVE IT!

While not being familiar at all with the ballet that this is inspired from apparently, I must say that this is written well. At least in my opinion, I felt this story to be one that didn't leave me feeling like there was a lack of choices or anything that prevented enjoyment.

A nice little sprint of a story. Perhaps it could have used a bit more development of the themes of the main narrative. But for what it's worth, this is not a bad entry for the Fan Fiction section of the site.

Kudos.

I enjoyed it, but I wanted more development in the relationship

I don't know much about the source material, but it seemed a little random to meet this girl on the street and then to immediately go traipsing off to a castle in the woods, I felt like there were a few scenes missing here to develop their relationship or y'know, at least ask around to figure out the castle really exists outside her mom's stories.

And it does feel sort of lightweight, so a couple more pages would've helped in any case. Much like with the author's other stories I find myself wishing it was a little longer, that there was a bit more branching or at least a puzzle to solve. The choice regarding the sword felt especially pointless, and did not later lead to the option to say you didn't know who the heck Odile even was when you didn't meet her but got routed back onto the same path anyway.

But otherwise it's a nicely written little fairy tale, and for what it is I can't find too much fault with it except wishing there was more. There's definitely room on the site for stories like this however.

The story is not bad, However, all is pure telling and there is no show at all. The game is triggered to choose "good" guy choices as the rest are bad ends. However, you don't give any reason to want to save Odette that my character just met. It also feels really rushed in the pace as if we were jumping from the castle to the city... It is not bad for a first story