May 27, 2023
To:Katsuhito
Haha, so Meh is actually „Me“ 😂 Nice!
If you have more chapters with less words or less chapters with more words are just two sides of the same coin … and the descriptions are not the reason for the high word counts. I mean as everything, take this with a grain of salt, but I think it is about conciseness. It is about what contributes to the story in a meaningful and sensible way. In Game Design I once heard someone calling this RPG Missions where the player has to „get the pages of the story unstuck“. Like very simple and mundane tasks (collect x amount of this or reach level x to proceed further). These game mechanics have little to nothing to do with the game‘s story and feel unsatisfactory or don’t fit in. In good game missions and story go hand in hand.
With a few of your story parts, you have a similar vibe lowkey swinging with it. I mean you even call it a side mission yourself. I don’t really mind it, since your side mission is still interestingly written, but it still does not significantly contribute to the plot progression and rather shows a lot farming XP, so to say.
It’s a very fine line and extremely hard, writing multi purpose scenes that bring the character and plot further while still featuring some nice stimuli that then even have a connection to the overarching themes or the characters.
The short story about Naomi’s past and her friend up until it’s resolution for example served several purposes just great: It introduced us to Eiji’s work and it introduced Naomi and her character. On a more microscopic level, Naomi getting bullied and them getting to know each other could have been streamlined more. Like, they have three more or less long scenes that show her getting bullied and Eiji protecting her until they finally exchange their first words. Why not two or maybe just one scene? Eiji could’ve seen her getting bullied before, but you don’t need to show it all to us. We can deduce that much, if you give us enough information on that 😉
But enough of my nagging … as I said, your missions are still written very well! I still think that you could’ve eliminated about 2-5 chapters with a tighter pacing 😉
Oh, we’ve yet to meet the sensei! Then I’m curious who it will be 😅
I’ll try to participate as well. I even have a rough plot that I’m detailing out currently… still a few assignments are also due for university… so I’ll probably only start publishing later once they are fully done 😅
But lots of success than for coming up with a great story! 😉😊
