Hello 👋. So this is meant more for the author, so there will be spoilers after the second paragraph.
But if your a potential reader trying to get a feel for the novel, READ THE NOVEL. This novel is one of my favorites and is very well written and designed. Characters actually have some depth to them (unlike a lot of novels on this platform), and just the ideas of the novel are unique and very interesting.
| SPOILERS |
Anyways, before I start, I'll give you some information to help with insights.
- Current chapter: 221
- Review criteria: WQ=4 | SD=4 | CD=5 | US=5 (N/A) | WB=5
- DISCLAIMER: I'm not a professional writer, this is written from the perspective of a reader
Alright, let's start with the critique.
(1) Character growth. You try to add some form of character growth for Elena and Aaron and I love that. But I don't know why, but for some reason, something feels off with it for Elena. I can't quite put my finger on what. Perhaps for Elena, it just kinda happens super quick and not much time is spent on the new character development? That's just my working theory. But for Aaron, I definitely feel like it should have been explored a little bit more. I mean he want from a person who only cares about pursuing knowledge to only caring for Elena. Then as he goes through evolutions, he seems to experience slightly more character development but again it feel like you are just telling us that this is the new him. Then with other characters like Elena's party members, there isn't really a large amount of character development and some of the characters changed way to much. Like Selena, she was super competitive in the beginning but then completely dropped that for the rest of the story. I think, overall, the readers needed to be introduced to the changes more subtlety while also spending slightly more time with the characters.
(2) Future events/flashbacks. I don't really know what to call this but what I'm talking about is events such as chapter like 148 and 186 (I know there's one or two similar chapters, but I don't remember them so I'll talk about these two).
So chapter 148 was just confusing. It felt completely out of context and it felt like it was supposed to be a future chapter. So in the previous chapter, Elena was out running errands while Thalia and the party were in the middle of an adventure and hadn't gotten back to the inn. Then suddenly, the guild master goes to the inn and kidnaps Thalia despite here not being there a chapter prior. And both are the real Thalia, it's just an event that happens like 10 chapters later. Additionally, even if it was supposed to be a future chapter, it still doesn't make sense since the event happens in the middle of a chapter that's like 10 chapters away. It just left me so confused and kinda ruined the big reveal of the guild master.
Then in chapter 186, when you wrote the chapter about day 3 of Aaron cleaning up the city and then went back in time to the prior days, it just ruined that part of the story. It's like someone spoiled the ending and there was no point in figuring out how the character got to the end.
I think overall, the use of time jumps (where you write a chapter about the future and then go back to the present) is very poor and has hurt the quality of the story. Additionally, it's been used to frequent. I suggest either not using this story telling device or finding good examples to follow that fit with the story.
(3) Let's talk about story development. Now, what I've seen in most webnovels is there is just too much 'screen time' of characters talking with one another and developing relationships. However, for this novel, it's the opposite. I really want to see more from Elena's personality. The majority of the time it's just Elena using Aaron for help/ Aaron offering help. We rarely get to see Elena's affection towards Aaron and how good their relationship is. Perhaps including some chapters from Elena's perspective as she interacts with Aaron, or include more banter and 'screen time' of Aaron and Elena bonding. I just don't feel too much emotions coming from the novel, for example, Elena has only ever said I love you once to Aaron and that was at the very beginning of the novel. I mean we all know that they both care for each other very much, but those emotions aren't expressed in the chapters.
For other characters, the conversations are alright. They might be lacking for some of the bigger characters like Verxal (especially since I feel like that maybe he is a future love interest), there's also Diana (we didn't see enough of the sisters bonding, it just feels like shes Elena's friend), and in later chapters, Selena. Pretty much there is now relational distinction between Elena and all the characters. Everyone just feel like her friend, which is strange since people act differently around those they consider family compared to friends.
An example of what I'm talking about here is Aaron's mischievous side. You kinda just briefly skim over Aaron's quirk of just reading what ever he wants despite the fact that some of the places are restricted/require him to buy books. In fact, there's only been two times where Elena addressed the fact that Aaron is a serial book thief and booth times it was literally 'haha, you stole books' (this is an exaggeration, but it's only like two sentences of them talking about it). You could really showcase how the characters interact with each other and spend more time on joking about Aaron stealing knowledge.
Or another example is when Elena introduced Aaron to her party. That really could have been a comedic moment but you skipped over it by saying 'Elena introduced Aaron to the gang. He gave them a scare. Anyways...' (This is another exaggeration, but it gets the idea across: barely anytime was spent on this big moments for the story).
(4) Perspectives. Sometimes, the perspective changes are really confusing and make the story hard to follow. This can especially be seen in chapters around the 100 mark (I think... It's hard to remember). The perspective just switches way too fast and without any notice. This isn’t all the time, it just applies to a few chapters, but just be careful with how you switch perspectives.
Additionally, I think you are not making full use of perspective shifts. They should help the reader gain a better understanding of a character, but when the perspective changes, we don't really gain much insight into how the character thinks and the character's personality. This can be seen with Elena. Elena can sense how Aaron feels (as stated in the first volume), but yet we don't get anything about how that affects her. We also don't really get any insight into really anything else other than facts about the story.
(5) Pace. The pace of the story feels slightly strange. It's fast yet slow at the same time. Like, I've been waiting so long for Elena to go to school. She talked about it in the first volume, yet 150+ chapters later, were still waiting for that story arc. Yet at the same time, large time jumps keep happening in the story that make the pacing feel faster, only for it to slow down on some part of the story for a while. However, despite it slowing down sometimes, a lot of big moments of the story are glossed over. It's almost like you got a list of bullet points of the story and you are just trying to quickly connect them without focusing on the important bits in-between.
CONCLUSION:
Overall, I think the biggest problem with the story is the relationship between characters. Most problems stem from not enough 'screen time' for the characters to display their personality, relationship, and overall emotions towards what's happening in the story. This disconnects a lot of parts of the story for the reader and lessens the quality of the story. But please don't go overboard into conversations between characters, it's a very fine line between too much and too little.
P.S. I don't please go into more detail about the creation of technology, I think it is a very interesting concept for a story. After Aaron created a glock for Elena, nothing else was really said about it. And even in a later chapter, it was mentioned that Elena had other guns, that's why she destroyed the grip. I was really confused by that since on Aaron's system, it just says glock 19. Anyways, the implementation and impact of technology is severely lacking despite it being a big moment.
Now time for what I like about the story. First off, I would like to congratulate the author for producing 200+ chapters! What you have done is very difficult, especially since the novel as been pretty good thus far. So 👏👏👏. Keep up the great work and I can't wait to read more of your story.
Anyways, onto the positives:
(1) Pace. There are some negatives about the pacing, however, I quite enjoy the fast pace. You limit the 'fluff' of the story to the bare minimum and focus on what's important to the story. What I mean is that mostly everything in the chapters are important to the story and are just filled up with useless bits. You utilize the principle of chekhov's gun very well (sometimes too well, but I talked about that in the critique) in the story which is where a lot of stories mess up.
(2) Story development.
Firstly, the story is very unique in that we don't follow the 'main character' (Elena). We follow her system and experience the story from an outside perspective. This is highly unique and I can't wait to see where what else you introduce to the story. I know that the story is beginning to branch off into Aaron being a 'main character' with the whole thing of him gaining independence and becoming a god. But I'm not sure how I feel about that; I'm just interested in where things are going.
Secondly, I love the complexity of the story. It's not just good vs evil (it's close but not quite), it's written that some characters are only doing bad because their circumstances. Elena learns that some characters, such as the orphan caretaker, isn't purely bad, they are just put into a situation where they are forced to do bad things. I think that's also where they story is going with the demons, so I hope you use concepts from peace studies and transitional justice in the story. These things really make the story more realistic and enjoyable to read.
(3) Character development. Despite a lot of issues with character development in the novel, I believe it was a great addition into the story. Characters feel more real in that they aren't just stagnant in the development of their personalities and overall character. It feels like characters learn from mistakes and also improve combat wise.
On the topic of characters feeling more real. I love how even the protagonist characters have conflict with each other. In a lot of stories, characters don't think much and just accept what's happening. But not in this story. They consider their own moral philosophy. They have some disagreements, and they even debate and discuss about what's happening in the story. This is what really makes the story so great. Characters actually have depth and aren't just a group of 'yes men.' It doesn't even matter that sometimes Elena does something stupid or something Aaron doesn't agree with, what matters was that the character had logic and reasoning. And sometimes, after reflection, they figured out what went wrong.
(4) World building. I don't have much to say about this, but I think the world that you built is great and fascinating.
(5) Technology. This kinda goes into world building, but I decided to separate it. I love the idea of Aaron introducing technology to Elena. It's great and I wish you wrote more about it. I really hope you lean into something kind like Release That Witch. I'm not expecting anything on that level, but just utilize the fact that Aaron is from a different world in the story. Otherwise, it would be pointless for him to have all that knowledge from his past life.
I'm sure there are more positives, but I can't think of anything else at the moment. I would say update stability is good, but I honestly don't know. I'm just assuming it's decent. Anyways, if I think of anything else, I'll add a comment.
Finally, I study political science, international affairs, and economics (I mainly focus more towards peace studies/transitional justice and human rights). If you would like to ask me any questions about those topics for the story, feel free to reach out. I want to see this story become #1.
Keep up the good work author, sincerely,
A loyal reader.
