Confucianism

Hello there!

I'll just jump right into the review ~

First off, there is far too much dialogue in this. While dialogue is important to characterization and learning about the world through the interactions, having too much dialogue in a story gives it too fast a pace and never gives a lot of depth. Dialogue should almost never be the main way to unfold the story (unless you're going for an all dialogue story, but from what I'm reading, it doesn't appear to be that way.) Also, it gets very confusing when the only thing we're reading is dialogue. So, here are some ways to cut down on dialogue, or even space it out a bit more:

Instead of just having the characters rattling off the dialogue, include some other things while they're talking. What are they doing? Is one character constantly shifting? Is one walking around the room? Explain some of the facial expressions of the character, add in actions and tone infliction. Instead of just having "he/she said" after every single word of dialogue, include some actions, etc. For instance, instead of "he said", there could be something like, "Spittle flew from his mouth as he roared the words." That will help break up the straight dialogue.

As well as all the stuff I mentioned above, maybe take a moment to describe things more. While you have some nice attempts at describing the scene, there is normally only one line or so of it. That doesn't give us a very good picture of the scene at all. So perhaps instead of all that dialogue, take a moment in between it for some extra descriptions, whether it be of the place or maybe the other character. Describe their face and expressions as they talk, or how they move and how their clothes move with them?

Also, you don't need a space between the quotation mark (") and the beginning of the sentence. That's just formatting rules.

With dialogue out of the way, let's talk about the rest of the story's execution.

The beginning doesn't really pull me in in any way. We're started with some background, which isn't a super great way to start off a story. Why do we care that's he a wealthy noble that doesn't like Confucianism? There are much better ways to hook a reader than that, such as the following: start in the middle of the action (with Ao Tian arguing with his brother), with a witty remark (a line that might be like "Confucianism was destroying the country. At least, according to Ao Tian."), or even a nice description ("Ao Tian's woven shoes clicked against the stone stairs leading up to his brother's emerald palace.") Things like this engage the reader into the story a bit more, rather than making them feel like they're about to read an essay.

Another thing is that I am having a lot of trouble trying to keep track of all the names thrown around in this. There are about five characters and I don't know which is which. The reason is that none of these characters are developed very much. They're just sort of added and not fleshed out, so they end up flat and not realistic. I don't empathize or identify with any of them because they don't feel real to me. Thus, I don't remember them and it gets confusing. So, try to characterize them more, through means like more realistic dialogue, or more narration that shows off their mannerisms. Try to give each character at least one trait so that the reader can remember them as that character.

(If that doesn't make sense, please let me know and I will be happy to elaborate!)

My final point is that I don't understand why the plot happened. I don't understand why the people are upset about the Emperor or why Ao Tian hates Confucianism or even why the Emperor acts the way he does towards his brother (or why his son does either.) We aren't shown any motives or reasons or explanations as to why people are unhappy or why this is bad or why, why, why. The why is so extremely important because it gives another layer of realism to the story that the readers can identify with. So try to flesh that out more and portray that better in the story.

It's a good start and with some love and care, this can become fantastic!

Best wishes,
~ Wolfe

Some Mistakes Before I Begin:

-"His brother was Emperor Chin Ju." I felt like names like Ao Tian and Chin Ju deserved a hyphen in between (ie Ao-Tian and Chin-Ju), but that's up to you. Not that big of a problem.

-"Emperor Ju was eating his lunch of shark fin and

seaweed." You accidentally made a new paragraph. Connect the two together again.

-"said Emperor Ju...Ai Chao, the Emperor’s son, walks into the room and interrupted them." You used past tense and present tense later on. Common mistake, nothing to worry about, just choose a tense (I prefer past, if I'm honest) and stick to it.

-"“Sorry to waste your time, sir”" Some of your sentences don't end in a comma or a period. It would be a good idea to end in a comma or a period inside the quotation (" ") marks.

-"We heard about your brother and about the anti-confucianism law." Capitalize Confucianism.

-"Ao tian stabbed Chin Ju in the stomach and then the fight to rule the country began..." What a strange sentence. Stabbed in the stomach, while the Emperor is still talking? How odd.

Actual Review:

Overall, this had an interesting concept going on for itself. Confucianism is a troublesome concept for sure, despite its effectiveness, and it would be incredibly interesting to see a brother try to change that law. However, you never directly say (or even show) why Confucianism is such a bad thing. If you emphasize and show how the younger brother has to submit to his cruel older brother, which is what seems like what's happening, people would get it better, but as of now it doesn't fully get there.

I liked how you characterized the people without directly saying how they are, such as having Ao Tian give the peasants money and having the Emperor's son call Ao Tian a peasant. I think you could use this a little bit more to help get the message across, having Ao Tian do more kind things and having the Emperor and his son do crueller things. However, you should also avoid making them too one-sided. Obviously the Emperor and his son have their reasons for being cruel, and can even be good, and you should give them the chance for that.

Overall, could definitely use a little work.

Signing out,

--EM.

I wonder if you could have used longer sentences. The story plot was good. I wonder if you could have used less dialog and had more characters.