#my criticisms would decrease by 50% if she gave fx a backstory

[taihua]

tgcf=bad writing (based on that reblog THIS ISNT HATE IM JUST GENUINELY CURIOUS I REALLY LOVE U)

Allow me to elaborate! It's my favorite book so I say this with all the love in my heart for the story and characters, but--

She needed an editor: there are large sections of the book that could have been cut without changing the plot. Like Hua Cheng trying on different outfits during the Brocade Immortal arc... I know fans like this scene, but it's obvious word-padding that doesn't contribute to the story or even contribute anything significant to Hualian's relationship development. See also the endless chapters leading up to Mount Tonglu. Bloated cast and characters not contributing anything significant (why were Banyue and Pei Xiu there except to address the fact that MXTX forgot about them after book 1???) and honestly, there's a lot of boring filler around this point in the novel. Reduce and cut.

Another thing that needed editing: loose ends not being tied up. The Brocade Immortal arc is a disaster, difficult to follow, and has no lasting impact besides Ling Wen being in jail for maybe two pages. It's never explained who created Cuocuo and why and Mu Qing's involvement is handwaved even though his explanation doesn't make sense. Xie Lian puts Banyue in a jar and forgets about her for an entire arc.

The descriptions are severely lacking compared to other danmei novels. I'm not a fan of 2ha but I'm reading it anyway because I love the way the author describes the scenery, the food, the clothes, the architecture... Thousand Autumns also has some of the most beautiful passages describing the cultivation techniques. I'm sure some of this has to do with the translation teams, but TGCF also doesn't really give much to work with? The descriptions of the Ghost City are good, but the rest of the book is just kind of like. "Xie Lian was in a room. He looked around and there was a table." versus other writers who are giving us sentences like "The celadon tea set gave an aroma of jasmine where it sat on top of the mahogany table and when he picked up the teacup, it was cool against his palm." Good descriptive writing engages five senses and I don't feel that TGCF does that successfully. What do we know about heaven except that the palaces are golden?

Anyway, what she does do successfully is making an interesting world with memorable characters, even if most of them don't get the attention they deserve, and she's great with dialogue and humor. Plus the romance is good; it's not rushed and it's believable that Hualian like each other (which you'd think would be a given in romance novels, but some of the ones I've been reading lately don't bother to establish that lmao).

tldr version: too many words that aren't giving us the right info :,I