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Tuned in to Literature!

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File: 1745605939079-0.jpg (1.68 MB, 4502x3468, yyy.jpg)

File: 1745605939079-1.pdf (7.21 MB, FFFCLass1-3.pdf)

 No.265

I'm writing a lit-rpg and I want your opinions on the matter, Wapchan! The attached PDF contains the first three chapters (the first part of the prologue).

Plot/Query Letter: The young Rinaldo Di Mario never asked to be the scion of the Di Mario Family, the current rulers of the Free City of Maria—the wealthiest city on Earth. His dream was to live a peaceful life, spending his days reading books and playing with his little black cat. However, his surname attracted many enemies, and after yet another assassination attempt, he realized that wealth and power were not worth the constant stress. Thus, he faked his death and started a new life in the one place no one would ever think to look for a Marian—the magical Miraval Academy.

Magic interconnects everything. From the largest monster to the smallest molecule, Mana flows freely through their masses, destroying every limit imposed by the gray laws of physics. Hence, everyone can use magic to some degree, but only the few blessed by the Chaotic Gods can grasp its true depths—the Essentias.

Thanks to their unmatched powers, Essentias rule over the Holy Rolandish Empire—the most powerful nation in the world—as a de facto ruling caste. To secure their roles within their elitist society, each of them is nurtured at the prestigious Miraval Academy, where the young mages are trained to master their abilities. However, among the Essentias a rigid hierarchy exists, which divides them according to their power—Class S are revered as gods, while Class F are treated as human trash by the higher ranks. Consequently, on their first day at the Academy, the Class Assignment determines whether their life will be remembered as a tragedy or a glorious legend. There, Rinaldo shatters every record by becoming the weakest Essentia in history—an FFF-Class 'Javelinist.'

If being doomed to a life worse than mediocrity wasn’t bad enough, the worst is yet to come. Enduring the eccentricities of his fellow noble classmates, uncovering a millennia-old secret organization plotting to destabilize the world, and surviving a war between two superpowers—these events are just the beginning of the unlucky life of the soon-to-be antagonist of this tale.

P.S.:If you click on the underlined words, you will get a nice surprise.

 No.268

File: 1745670883817.png (43.87 KB, 256x256, TEjD23U.png)

>>265

 No.269

>>268
it's just a pdf.

 No.270

>>265
I'll sit down and read it later today, but from what I skimmed through it looks good. The writing is a little clunky in places but the premise is fun and I think you have a good sense of humor.
>spurdia
:DDDDD

 No.271

>>270
Based anon
>The writing is a little clunky
I'm an ESL, so some of my sentences might sound logical in Italian but not in English. That being said, I've tried to do my best.

 No.272

>>265
Did you create the image?

 No.273

>>272
Yes and no. I created the blueprint, made a modest sketch, and then paid someone on Fiverr to color it and add some drawings to give it flavor."

 No.274

>>273
Hmm, not bad. I think I'll look into it for fun. I'll let you know my thoughts.

 No.275

File: 1745716207310.jpg (877.21 KB, 1616x999, 756396960921158.jpg)

I read it, and enjoyed it. Like I said earlier, it's a good plot with a lot of potential and your humor is good. There's a couple places I really liked the writing itself:

>As Jacques walked inside, he was amazed by the stark contrast between the sobriety of the exterior and the opulence of the atrium. The oval-shaped room effortlessly surpassed an Auxerine palace in magnificence, with outstanding paintings covering most of its walls, and, between each piece of art, there were bronze statues depicting humanity’s greatest minds standing alongside scale reproductions of the inventions that had consecrated them to history

>In that sea of humans, many fingered islands emerged

>Grass as tall as he was danced with the wind, backgrounded by an orchestra of grasshoppers. The only proof that human civilization had once settled these lands was the ruins of ancient buildings, which, like coral islands, were slowly being absorbed into the sea of grass.

and
>Jacques witnessed the full glory of the Mold Kingdom, which, battle after battle, had spread its dominion across most of the white ceiling.
made me lol

But a lot of the writing is just explaining things. Obviously you have to do that a little bit with the world and the game type mechanics, but even your regular writing is explaining things. The church scene starting on page 6 is a good example. It's not of much consequence that the church is famous, it's just worldbuilding, so when you say "it was a famous church," it just sounds like a tour guide.
Even "the crowd swarmed around the famous church" or something is better because it makes the scene the subject and opening of the sentence instead of a statement, but it still tells me just as much about it.

Introducing the professors is another.
>The young woman was greeted with whistles, claps, and loud praises shouted by the males on the thirty-five floors above the atrium—perhaps more interested in her voluptuous body than her merits as an educator.
>The young man was greeted with whistles, claps, and loud praises by the females on the thirty-five floors above the stage—perhaps more interested in his beautiful face than his merits as an educator.

This part is funny because you do both. You describe a scene well, then butt in on yourself to tell me the implication. If you cut out everything past the dash, it feels a lot more natural, (obvious repetition aside). If you'd like, I can rewrite a few examples to show the difference a little better. You're a good writer, so trust yourself to be subtle. It does feel a little like AI writing in a few places, but I'm guessing that's just the style tendencies and not that you used it for help.

Aside from that, my only complaint is the infodumping. There's a lot of characters, heroes, places, RPG mechanics, etc to keep track of, and we only just got here. There's also a few typos and errors, or words you repeat a little too often, but that's just small stuff to comb out in editing. I think going through with the mind of "less information, more story" will make the biggest difference. You have something good, take your time with it.

 No.277

>>275
Thanks a lot Anon for your time and for how detailed your review was.

>infodumping
This is the sad paradox of my book. It's a worldbuilding-heavy story, with thousands of years of events happening before the actual story starts. I'm kind of proud of it, since everything you've read is the outcome of those events. I first blueprinted my world, then just reported what was happening, like an external observer.
That being said, I have to trim it down as much as possible. If you noticed, at the end of the book there's a sort of glossary I created to water down the worldbuilding by outsourcing most of it.

It seems it wasn't enough. Hence, If you can tell me which parts of the worldbuilding looked cool and which parts were boring, it would be very helpful.

>There's a lot of characters, heroes, places, RPG mechanics
I want my readers to breathe the story. Having a huge number of characters is my way of showing that the world is alive, where each character lives an autonomous life and not just exists to fit my story.

If you want, I can send you three more chapters, concluding the prologue, to see if it works. No pressure—you've already done a lot.

>I can rewrite a few examples to show the difference a little better.
I feel like it would be asking too much, but, if you're bored and have nothing else to do, it would be greatly appreciated.

>It does feel a little like AI writing in a few places
If you have noticed, I tend to follow a specific formula for my sentences: Introduction, main sentence, sentence starting with the -ing form—eventual additional info or comment.

Is this the problem?

 No.279

File: 1745798575908.png (53.04 KB, 906x731, Untitled.png)

>>277
>worldbuilding
You call it a paradox and I can see why, but I think you've done a good job of trimming it, so far. It isn't really the amount of information that gets boring, so much as how it's presented. Part Two was pretty hard to read. It seems redundant that the new Essentias would need the gift explained to them. The stat window stuff in Part Three as well, but at least that makes sense, since it's their first day in class after all. I think the easiest way to get away with it without trying to cut anything out would be to spend a little more time in between just… letting the story breathe. Obviously, this is all taking place during assignment + first day in class, so it's not like Jacques can sit around and take it all in, but the narration itself can slow down. Give it some nice filler between the dry facts, some yin to the yang, hopefully you understand what I mean. Obviously don't fill it with a bunch of meaningless "who cares," but Miraval sounds like a pretty scenic place, so you might as well use that. The way you describe things feels nice, and making the reader feel nice and welcome will do a lot to get them to "breathe" the story, like you say. As for the huge cast, fair enough. That could cause problems but I'll think about that a bit more. Are you planning on switching perspectives later?

>If you want, I can send you three more chapters
Please do. I'll read it, but I think I've said my fair share of input already

>sentence formula
That could be it. If it's comfortable to write that way, keep doing it and edit it later.

I did a little rewriting on two parts that stuck out, but I didn't change a lot. I was going to rewrite the description of the Holy Heroes but I'm not sure how to tackle it. The way you have it right now reminds me of the Iliad (such and such, from somewhere, who did this; so and so, from yonder, who did that; etc).

 No.280

>>279
>It seems redundant that the new Essentias.
Actually, no, because there are some Noble Essentias whose parents already taught them how it works, and orphans who have no idea about the whole thing.
Do you think I should add a sentence to explain that?

>Let the story breath
Half of what you read in Chapter 3 was supposed to happen during their second lesson in Chapter 6. However, I felt the necessity to give some red meat to the reader.
Chapters 4, 5, and the second half of 6 are about letting the story and its characters breathe.

>Your rewriting
I've noticed your comments. Do you remember Chapter 1 and Jacques' comment about the small window? It was supposed to be a reference. Should I make it clearer?

Also, the building is more than 30 floors tall. Hence, a huge basilica would only reach about half its height at most. So if Jacques looks down, his sight would pose itself onto the stained glass of the church.

I have also noticed you removed "Golden Bull," which makes sense to improve the sentence. However, there's a reason I capitalized that term—it's not a metaphor, but something that concretely exists in my setting.

Nevertheless, youredits are well done I wish I could do that as automatically as you do.

>12 holy heroes
You're right. My story is the main sequel to theirs.

The dumbest example I can give is Naruto and Boruto. You know, Naruto is the main story, while Boruto is the sequel taking place X years later.

My book, despite being set almost two thousand years later, is the continuation of an unreleased series that exists only in my head.
Hence, an introduction of the ex-protagonists is a must and vital for the project as a whole.

Thanks, anon, for your advice.
I think you should really read the second half of the prologue to see if, despite the heavy introduction, it still flows, or if I should swap some things around to make it easier to digest.

I’ll post it this evening or tomorrow.

 No.281

>>280
>Do you remember Chapter 1 and Jacques' comment about the small window?
Yes, I remembered it. The reference is clear enough. I was mostly focused on changing "feeling uncomfortable due to the violation of his privacy" to something more natural. I really hate to say "show, don't tell" because I've seen people take that advice way too far and there's a time for both methods, but that's pretty much what I was doing. Same with the second example. Also, I didn't cut "Golden Bull" for any particular reason, just that it wasn't relevant to what I was changing. It could still fit in pretty easily, even just having a simple statement at the end like, "she was now ready to immolate herself to the Golden Bull" would work and could even be suspenseful.
>So if Jacques looks down, his sight would pose itself onto the stained glass of the church.
I meant "down" as just "not up like everyone else." It was just in parentheses as an alternative to "ahead."
Anyway, I didn't try to change the meaning of anything, quite the opposite in fact, just to give some kind of example in style.

>Nevertheless, youredits are well done I wish I could do that as automatically as you do.
Thanks lol. Don't worry, I picked the two easiest parts to change and it still took me a little while. It's just practice.

>an introduction of the ex-protagonists is a must and vital for the project as a whole.
That makes sense. It did sound like you were setting up for some kind of reincarnation theme. It sounds like you have a lot of work to do, so good luck with the whole project.

Thank you for sharing this, by the way. I've been enjoying reading it and thinking about this stuff. I'm looking forward to the next few chapters.

 No.287

>>281
https://files.catbox.moe/nsqsxx.pdf
Thanks for your patience—it were busy days at work.

Here is the second part of the prologue, which explores the characters in more depth.

Let me know if this part makes the story flow more smoothly.

 No.289

>>287
It does flow better, and it was a lot nicer to read, too. The characters had a chance to be alive, and I liked Derserk's perspective. The subplots are nice so you were right about the ensemble cast. I don't really have anything new to say, but keep it up

 No.290

>>289
Maybe it's hard to guess right now, but each arc is actually named after its own protagonist.
So, Jacques is a secondary character in each arc of my story (except the first one, of course). He might support the protagonist, being a background character, or even be the villain of the arc.
For example, the next arc is called Shining Star, with Astary (the girl yelling at Jacques in the first chapter) as the point-of-view of its chapters, focusing on the Class S students, with Jacques only making an appearance at the end.
The following arc (which will be the last of the prologue) is called Raging Hornet, and it mainly revolves around Mr. Diaz and other professors.

I know that 120 pages of introduction is a lot, but for me, it’s the only way to build a world that doesn’t revolve around a the MC.

>I don’t really have anything new to say.
You’ve already done a lot.
The only thing I’d ask you now is about publishing.

Should I promote it across every online platform like Royal Road?
Should I self-publish on Amazon and invest $1,000 in advertising?
Or should I try traditional publishing?

 No.291

>>290
Your plan is pretty cool, and it looks like it's working well so far.
>The only thing I’d ask you now is about publishing
I don't know anything about it except that I hear it's a pain in the ass no matter what you do.
>promote online
This seems like the best option to me. It's free, you can hyperlink to the glossary, you keep creative control, and you can release it as a serialization which will give you time to polish chapters. The only downside is standing out and how front-heavy the story is. The problem is that you have a limited budget of reader attention to work with. So if they don't know what to remember or why they should care about it, you're gonna burn that up real quick. They need a reason to click on it, and a reason to keep reading once they do. I was thinking about that problem with how many characters you introduced, but the second pdf showed you solved it very nicely. The prologue itself is still going to filter a lot of people as it currently is, though.
>amazon, traditional publishing
These have the same problems and more: that you can't release it chapter by chapter as easily, you'll have to edit the whole thing at once, and you lose either money or freedom. I think it's a choice of the lesser evil.

Anyway it's still up to you and those are just my thoughts. I've never done it before and I'm pretty tired right now so I hope it makes sense. Good luck, though.

 No.292

>>291
Thanks, bro.

Anyway, the book is already complete, but it still needs a revision that I plan to handle gradually, chapter by chapter

My current plan is to finish revising another four chapters, trim the glossary to include just three entries per chapter, and then create a final PDF as the official starting point of the project. After that, I’ll share it across as many sites as possible to gain some attention.

For the online release, what do you think about publishing the first three chapters all at once, making them digestible, and then releasing the rest weekly?

 No.293

>>292
Sounds like a good plan. Releasing it in parts really does sound like the way to go. You should probably try to find some people who've done something similar, but either way you're going to learn as you go.

 No.294

>>293
Yeah, I'll delve into the rabbit hole.
>>275

Anyway, I've just rewritten the part you have found hard to digest:

A myriad of millennia-old oak trees obscured the side view, forming an open-sky aisle paved with yellow and red leaves now crossed by new adepts ready to be indoctrinated by a modern idol deemed infallible—Education.

The temple they were approaching wasn't, originally, a pagan one. As tall as the monuments to greed called skylines but stripped of any source of pride, this circular colossus was built, stone upon stone, by sinners as penance for having eclipsed the sun in their era, but, now, admired by thousands of bewitched infidels. However, there was an exception. A lone devotee who kept his eyes down, afraid of being uncovered by the 'Wicked Heresiarch' now spying through the temple's small-round eye.

Consequently, his gaze fell upon the building beneath, founded by exiled priests guilty of pledging allegiance to an author rather than accepting chaos as the ruler of their lives—'La Sacrée Cathédrale Notre-Dame des Saints Miraval.' The legendary cathedral possessed half the ego of the pagan temple but ten times its magnificence, renowned across the continent for its façade—a mosaic of millions of tiny, colored glass pieces depicting the twelve holy heroes.

Clearly, I won't rewrite my entire book like this, but do you find this style helpful to make the descriptions more digestible?

 No.296

>>294
That's much better. The only thing I'd change is
>The legendary cathedral possessed half the ego of the pagan temple
to
>The legendary cathedral was half as tall as the pagan temple
You could also say "possessed half the height," but I find the alliteration a little awkward there. The main thing is that "ego" is a little unclear. Ego… pride? arrogance? grandeur? You're saying it's humbler, but then more magnificent. Height is more specific.
Anyway I hope that doesn't sound like I'm ragging on it, it's just a small thing. That section is a big improvement imo

 No.299

>>296
In the end I settled for AMBITION.

Anyway, I don't know if you are still here, but here the full 135 pages of introduction. Give me two or three weeks for the online serialization to start.

https://files.catbox.moe/ss42h2.pdf


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