Aug 14, 2024
To:lolitroy
Thanks for the long and in-depth, thoughts, it’s always nice to hear exactly what people thought without the sugar coating or pussyfooting around the point.
I’m glad you enjoyed the steadily ramping up insanity towards the end. Despite the story resembling SMT more than I care to admit, my biggest influence was definitely Madoka, and I think I tried to emulate the way Madoka’s story steadily increases in scale until the small beginnings look minuscule in comparison, so if they ended up being enjoyable to read I couldn’t be happier about it.
As for the characters… yeah, I I honestly kind of agree. I think one of my biggest mistakes is treating this entire first volume almost like a prolonged prologue, using it all for set up and scene setting while neglecting to tell a self-contained story. A 60k word introduction with very little characterisation for two of the main characters is definitely not the optimal way to write, I’ll attest to that much.
Part of the reason I’ve decided to halt rewriting is that I just don’t know 100% how I want everyone characterised yet, so I’m planning to finish the entire main story and then overhaul it from the word go. Nao and Saki I think I’ve pretty much figured out, but the entire secondary cast still needs more fleshing out in my mind. I think writing and publishing a chapter every single day has been both a blessing and a curse, because it’s kept me from losing motivation but has also meant that I’ve rushed through certain sections before really figuring out what I want to do with it.
As for the combat, yeah, I get what you mean. Writing real martial arts isn’t too difficult because real fights have a sort of flow to them that’s easy to follow. Adding in magic adds a layer to it that’s really fuckin hard to balance. I’m figuring it out as I go, but it’s a learning curve to say the least.
Once again, huge thank you for reading through it all and giving me your honest thoughts. While I have enjoyed the stuff I’ve written in the past, I’d say the Magical Girl series is the first genuine passion project I’ve written and it’s really nice to see people engaging with it in this way.
