This is just gonna be a stream of my thoughts. So there’s not gonna be any real structure at all, I’m just gonna jump from point to point as I write this. And then try to organize them afterward.

Just as a foreword, this is also for me. To get my thoughts down and to drill it into myself. I’m still learning, and this is my first piece of creative writing. Any comments about things I can improve on. That I didn’t address here is much appreciated.

******************************************************* (Story Pacing)

That being said, first point and one I think is the most apparent (Besides grammar, wording, characters. The last one being something I’ll expand upon later.) Is meandering.

Like looking through my notes, at the road map, I had laid out for all the chapters. I’m here thinking, ‘well shit, I’m eleven chapters over my original plan...’ And this Isn’t even counting the .5 chapters. Which adds like another five to this mess.

Like the whole 14.5N quin-tology, which was its own mess I could write about. But to keep things brief, It went on for way too long. Should have been two chapters max. How he got there and how his side of the dungeon fire resolved.

The problem was I kept adding lore, which definitely could have been explored elsewhere down the line. Making it bloated and completely derailing what was happening at the time. I.E, the whole dungeon on fire thing, which it got jammed in the middle of.

But yeah, meandering. It was a list of cascading things I kept telling myself I needed/had to establish before Bargas invaded the dungeon. Things like how the dokkaebi’s fight, the fairies illusions, Guardian's boss fight, and how the other dungeon residents would act.

Compounded with the fact I was trying to show. ‘Okay, this is how adventurers go about their daily lives, preparing for dungeon dives, this is how the A.A officials go about their business, and hey as icing on the cake, here’s Bargas’s side of the story’. I feel like I front-loaded a lot of things, leaving little time to develop them individually, that it just gets muddled.

Tl;dr. Unfocused, chapters feel like they don’t flow naturally into one another. And a lot of bloating that should’ve been cut out to make room for more concrete and fleshed out character/plot moments. Also, I felt like I was very redundant on some topics.

*******************************(Story pacing end)

*****************************************************(Story content)

Hooks and atmosphere. On a reread, I felt many of the scenes and scenarios fell flat. Either through, as I previously stated, bloating to the point of monotony or the hooks and stakes being not fully there/explored/poorly conveyed.

There were many points and character motivations I clumsily worded, trying to explain. Where it would have been better off to leave them implied through action.

Emotional investment was also lacking, in my opinion. And I was okay with that. This arc was meant to be short, sweet, and thrust the characters and readers into current and oncoming events with Bargas acting as the harbinger. But once again, the meandering and my own sidetracking rears its ugly head, stretching everything out.

Lastly, I would say many of my action scenes were slow and poorly written. Too focused on connecting events, which sometimes could have done without. The choreography could also use a bit of touching up...

******************************(Story content end)

******************************************************(Characters)

I’ve already touched a bit on this topic, characters. For the most part, I feel Zhenya turned out the most coherent, with Fredrica not too far behind.

Curator for this arc has been static and mostly reactionary. Though there were a few developments I tried sneaking in there, mostly for later. I did plan on this arc being more adventurer centric after all. But that mayhaps been a bad idea, for the first arc in a dungeon novel.

Moving on, Antonia, Nikolaos, and Tsukiko (Shrine maiden girl), I also feel turned out alright, except for the fact they were introduced in a .5 chapter... Actually, for the most part, I think a majority of the introduced characters were somewhat explored. If not had at least a hook to them.

But I definitely should have focused on Bargas more. Along with Lyra’s relationship with Curator, I do remember a comment saying that it was rushed. Alice too, fleshing her out more and differentiating her from Red.

******************************(Character end)

A bit hastily concluded, but those were the major criticisms I had without going on a long meandering tangent. I’m sure this is only the tip of the writing sins iceberg. It is difficult to separate my own bias from objective flaws when reading.

But once again, differing views and criticism is appreciated!