Chapter 41: Book 1 Afterword (Not a Chapter)

Hey, everyone! First of all, I wanted to let you all know that I did create a discord server, found here:

Second, I decided that I would in fact release Chapter 1 of Book 2 on Friday. While it appeared a small majority would prefer things to be as fleshed out as possible before release, that was all it was: a small majority. And with only ~25 people voting in total in regards to that, I can't really be sure that the sample size is big enough anyway. So I would rather go forward. Couple of things that I didn't mention in my little author note before the poll, that might have influenced their decision ultimately:

I am now nearly 40 chapters into Book 2, and 122,000 words! I had even taken nearly an entire month off in the middle there (I started posting this story in the end of september with only about 8-15k written into Book 2 or so, but I was gone most of October), where I went to the Philippines for 3 weeks to see the wife's family, and when I got back, I was jetlagged beyond all hell not wanting to do ANYTHING for a week, almost two. During that time, I don't think I wrote more than two chapters(though I did a ton of outlining for book 2), so I am still this far ahead despite this. What this means is I really bet that not only will I finish Book 2 soon, but it will be before 3 or 6 chapters come out, and I had reread them; I highly doubt anything is going to change there, but you never know!

My promise to you though, is that if I DO change anything, I will update the chapters on Scribblehub to match. So if YOU want to wait, you can! You can be sure that I will update these chapters to match my internal document (unlike some of the mentions in the comments I have made, where I said I wasn't going to for Book 1 for some changed scenes/additions). 

That aside, time to get into the real afterword! I want to thank all you readers for sticking with the story up to now. I know the beginning was a bit of a slog as I built this system and world brick by brick, and I just know I could have done a better job of keeping things interesting while dolling out so much information, but it was just so hard! Jake didn't have anyone to talk to out loud, after all. I'd like to believe I've done a much better job of it in Book 2, because as much information there was in Book 1, you better believe there's even more in Book 2! Not only are we outside of Jake's refuge exploring the multiverse, but we have new skills, tradeskills, a new girl to learn about, but also all the fights and interacting with the world besides! So, I feel like there's a lot going on, and I hope I've made it worth the wait, and it won't feel like I'm just dumping too much information in some boring manner.

I wanted to thank my wife here, too. She helped name the characters directly or indirectly, and she was involved with much of the proofreading. She hates Fhesiah with the passion of a thousand burning suns, but her ideas have ultimately made things a lot better for Ophelia, and made many of the fights that were going to be complete curbstomps (if they weren't even after her complaints/ideas!) feel a lot more enjoyable. Originally, I had Jake buff Fhesiah with [Einherjar] for her to finish off the enemy champion. But it was her idea to take the satisfaction away from her, for her to feel the cut more deeply to her pride. From there, whether it was Jake or Ophelia that dealt the killing blow, she was happy as long as it wasn't her, anyway.

I had also had Fhesiah be the one to defeat the Gnoll Chieftain, which she was also not happy with; she wanted Jake and Ophelia's hard work to show off here. In the end, I was much happier with the end result because it was definitely the perfect time for their training to truly feel like it meant something. Originally I also had the 2nd stage with the Ice Golem just be a 'chapter begins, 2nd floor already completed with brief summary of how easy it was,' but her feedback about Ophelia totally getting shafted facing the rock wurm off-screen lead me to repeat this but for Fhesiah this time, letting her shine much more. I also added more teamwork to the Arena scene, making her efforts shine as well as a result of her feedback. So I think thanks to her, you guys got to enjoy a much more rounded story. For me, my mindset had been stuck on "Well, Fhesiah is a dragon, so of course she's stronger" and stuff like this. Which is true, but in the end they're a team; a family. I had also had the boss-fight a lot different, where instead of discovering the trap, they kind of turtled in the corner of the room just beating the imps with their superior teamwork / melee fighting as they rotated around the room, destroying the sconces. It was interesting enough I suppose, but I like Jake spotting the trap much better. What do you think?

There will definitely be some scene preference for the new girl in book 2, but I'd like to believe each girl gets a good chance to shine plenty as well. I have some choices that I made in Book 2 that I'm not sure how well they'll go over (keeping in mind that none of those choices go outside the tags of the story really, so you're not going to see anything too weird or surprises like that here!), but I believe that the end result should make for some interesting conflict. So, what do people think?

What did you like about Book 1? What did you wish there was more of? Less of? I had wondered how people felt about the dates, do people feel like those are a waste of story progression, or are people glad that they were there, these somewhat "fluff" episodes where the characters kind of have fun, semi-romantic moments on-screen for? For me, I enjoyed spending time thinking about and writing them, so even if a bunch of people were like 'I hate them, would rather get 100 page exposition on skills,' I'd still do them, but I'm interested to know.

I did want to talk a little bit about design of the system. Keeping track of their items and bonuses, along with the math associated for using the stat points and things like that while also keeping track of skill levels for several characters was a pain in the ass. I had wanted to do items in every slot with their own stat bonuses and such, but eventually I gave up on it. It was a pain to keep track of which items they replaced, and realized that the word budget for them adding and removing items was just too much of a pain for me. Their skill levels and attributes of their class/core/whatever else was more than enough to keep track of, so keeping track of equipment and accessories is just something I want to do less of going forward. Even their skills...sheesh. I am genuinely worried for once we have the full party (party of 5) gathered and I'm having to keep track of ~20+ skills each. Still, the plan is in fact for there to be 2 books per tier after 0 (maybe even more  for Tier 2, depending!) as the universe gets bigger and the levels are supposed to take much longer. We'll see where things take us.

 

 

You are reading story Champion’s Trial (Bonded Summoner Book 1) at novel35.com

You can find story with these keywords: Champion’s Trial (Bonded Summoner Book 1), Read Champion’s Trial (Bonded Summoner Book 1), Champion’s Trial (Bonded Summoner Book 1) novel, Champion’s Trial (Bonded Summoner Book 1) book, Champion’s Trial (Bonded Summoner Book 1) story, Champion’s Trial (Bonded Summoner Book 1) full, Champion’s Trial (Bonded Summoner Book 1) Latest Chapter