This novel is my first, and I've learned and grown a great deal since I started writing it. I expect I'll continue to grow as well, but already I can say that this is something I can feel pride for.
Beyond giving myself a good review score though, I do want to officially write a review for myself and hopefully use this as a moment to reflect on myself.
Writing Quality: I recognize that I can be wordy and my love of commas can certainly lead to longer sentences than typically found in webnovels. Despite that, I feel that my grammar is typically consistent and I personally enjoy having a writing style that is distinct from many other novels I have read. While those other novels are something I love, I want to stand apart from them while still learning from them, and I feel that I have succeeded in that regard. In addition to grammar and general structure, I find that I genuinely enjoy my own writing when I read it back, and I enjoy my own jokes and descriptions. Naturally, these still have plenty of room to grow, but I am already very happy with my style and the substance of my writing.
Stability of Updates: This is my greatest weakness and this is where I dock points from myself. I average 1 to 2 chapters a week, though I have done more in the past. My tendency to get overwhelmed and burnt out prevents me from writing as much as I wish I could, and it is the main place I wish I could improve.
Story Development: In terms of story development I tend towards a slower pace and, while this isn't inherently bad, it does make it harder to judge my writing in this category. As the author I know where the story is headed, but there are times I worry that the slow pace might obscure that from the reader. Nevertheless, I always try to be aware of pacing, creating new mini arcs to split up the larger overarching arcs, and introducing new characters, creatures, worldbuilding, and fleshing out the mysteries in the story in hopes of always keeping things fresh.
Character Design: My admission of guilt is that many characters I create are based on aspects of myself. That makes them easier and more fun for me to write, while I continue to try and flesh them out to make them more than the piece of me they initially come from. I like my characters and, in a way, they're my children; of course I'm proud! However I recognize that they are not as complex and fleshed out as characters in a proper drama. I try to make an effort to flesh out each character over time, using interactions and occasionally entire chapters to help make them more complex and interesting. It must be understood however that the novel focusses more on how the characters interact with the world and their circumstances, instead of simply being a purely character based drama. From my point of view, my characters are well made and serve their purposes well in my narrative, though they might lack that final spark of life: something I intend to slowly fix as each character gets more time to develop.
World Building: Finally, the last category to talk about. In terms of my world, I'm still actively fleshing things out and I know that there is still plenty that even I don't know about my own setting, however I also believe that worldbuilding might be the strongest part of my novel other than the cohesive narrative itself. I try to make the worldbuilding part of the story instead of merely a backdrop and I interweave mysteries and key aspects of the plot into the world itself. I've also attempted to drip feed the world building in hopes that there are fewer info dumps and that, in cases where exposition is necessary, I always try to make it interesting and fit naturally into the story. Without a doubt, plenty more still needs to be revealed in my story's setting, but what I have right now is already something I view at intriguing and a strong foundation and I hope that my readers feel the same.
And that's my author review! I wrote this after publishing chapter 170 and I know there's still plenty more story to come. I'll admit that my review score here may be biased. Nonetheless, I am incredibly proud of this novel and am just very very happy to have had the chance to write it and share it with others. It's the first thing I've ever created and felt proud of, so I hope that those who read it enjoy it with me.
This review was largely self reflection and avoided spoilers but if anyone reads this and has questions about my own thoughts on more specific parts of my novel, feel free to comment on this review and I'd be happy to discus.
I'm not sure if this review was helpful or insightful, but still, thank you for your interest in my novel and I hope you enjoy what you read.
