Hey all, so, I've firmly confirmed that I will be doing a hard reboot of this series as soon as arc 3 is over, with the associated changes already having been stated. In fact, I've already said this, but the next act will start after a time skip for which I will start with dropping some exposition and I will be treating it a lot more like how I plan to treat the reboot version as I am solidifying my image for it.
The only real serious point to know that will be changing without even really being acnowledged in series is that, and I know some of you are going to hate this (but I really couldn't find a way to manage this series without doing this,) the younger personality for Aerien will be treated as though she never existed. I had ideas for her at the start, but she was supposed to be more of a short lived thing that only went on for as long as she did as a fan pleaser since people liked her so much and demanded she stick around. Huge mistake on my part. For the sake of the remainder of this version, we can just assume that my original plan occurred in the space of these 3 years and now little Aerien has fully integrated and become one-and-the-same as older Aerien for something more of a combined entity and personality.
Anyway, now it's time to get onto more immediate points of interest. I wanted to unveil the cover art for the reboot version, especially because it also happens to have some character and weapon art that will be showing up and described in future chapters. The reason it's not going to become the cover for the current version is because it also involves a name change. "Second Life as the Sister of a Goddess" was just way too clunky from the start, and it also set expectations too high on Gaerien's role in the story compared to what we got. (Although I do plan to increase Gaerien's role with the snipping out of younger Aerien, because she actually WAS stealing the spotlight from a lot of the other characters which was my principle frustration with her from the writer's perspective, it will not be enough to justify her identity being emphasized in the title.)
The new title for the series after the reboot will be "Key to the Void," referencing Aerien's ability to open the way into the void. It also has other long-term plot related meanings, but revealing that meaning would be spoiler city. Anyway, here's the cover art, I'm actually pretty proud of this thing and I love the design the artist came up with for Gaerien. It actually matches her former goddess identity almost perfectly, for which the reason why will be revealed in the exposition dump in the first few chapters of the next act.
Patreon
Will this be separated into a new novel for the reboot, leaving this version as it is?
Yes, it will be a separate novel, I believe in accepting my mistakes.
(I also feel like letting people see the improvement between the two versions might inspire a few other writers in terms of the value of such editing. I've definitely seen other stories that desperately need this treatment, but are written by authors who don't have the stomach for it.)
If you're ganna reboot, i would suggest to go a litle lighter on the other pov chapters. Most of those chapters were completely disconnected from the main story.
I found it very hard to care about then and only read about a fith of them.
Im not completely against the method, but i would keep it to pov switches relevant to the story, (like the queen and the twin) and maybe a few to outside the main story. Those i would make one chapter long.
This is just my opinion and I'm not an expert. Its just what I would do, but its not my story.
Said it a few other times in the comments section, but that was actually the exact plan.
Although, I was actually planning to go a little more extreme with zero portions that are not from Aerien's POV. Although, you are right about a few cut-aways with characters who have a lot to do with the story (such as Gaerien) being something that might be worth while, especially if they are not the type that would be able to carry a story on their own (because I actually am planning on writing 2 entire companion novels, one for Terlu with cut-away POVs to Sam, and one for Eirlathion with Tueth as a strong side character. Might do a 3rd with the kid in the elf-worshiping human village, but I don't quite have enough independent material for him just yet.) The POVs that would not be able to stand alone in a companion novel can likely stay if it seems reasonable though. Logrim/Taminarda would be a good example of someone who could have his cut-away POVs stay in.
(I think the fact I started stating who's POV a given chapter is in should have been plenty evidence enough I was overdoing it just by the mere fact I found it necessary.)
I actually completely forgot you were doing a reboot
Key to the Yoid???
I suppose I can see where you might have gotten that, but you can tell the V in Void is different from the y in key.
@Jemini It's definitely obvious that it's supposed to be void, but upon first impressions yoid definitely pops into at least my head. But I do have dyslexia so maybe that's a moot point for most people.
I'll admit I dropped this story around the time Aerien met the Queen and was told to be the defense council (At least I think that was it from what I remember). The entire journey to the queen was long and tedious to read. I do also remember thinking... why the hell do they have to go visit a queen when the sister is a Goddess?
If you are penning a reboot, then I'll look forward to picking it up once again.
As I'm guessing that you're working on the language of the elfs and other cultures in your world, I'm also guessing/hopping in the rewrite that we're gonna get some snippets of actual an language in the bits where we heard the elves talk to our protagonist?
the art is great but the title needs to be blended in better the transition is jarring.
Also if you are planning on rebalancing characters.
Gaerien is probably the most interesting,
The kid caught by the dark elves, needs his own cultivation series.
The human brother and sister could also support their own novel
Adrien is really little more than a very OP plot prop at this point. Way too OP and I think you even realize with all the handwaving done to get it past.
Elf culture comes out of nowhere and feels far to abrupt and arbitrary
All of these are pretty much go big or go home. Narrowing focus to Aerien and Gaerien while turning down the other characters to spear carriers might really help you with the story
How would you suggest? Because I'm not seeing it. (Not saying your complaint is unfounded, I'm saying that I'm not seeing what you are so I will need more details if I want to present this to someone in order to have it fixed.)
@Jemini what you have is a very abrupt transition from the image to the the text heres how to gentle it
https://www.wikihow.com/Composite-Images-in-GIMP
@Jemini updated the original post
@Kawaii1234567 Ok, so, I looked over the materials there. Is it the saturation levels that are the issue for you? Because I'm not seeing any other tool talked about there that would make much of a difference.
@Jemini you need the alpha channel on the text portion, sorry I didn't highlight that and the you play with the properties. This will let some of the background bleed in. See how the bear looks natural in the last image?
@Kawaii1234567 In regards to the updated post, definitely agreed on the scene-shifted characters. That's why I'm planning to do almost literally that. They will be cut from the main story but get their own stories in which they are the main characters, running parallel and in the same universe and time-line as Key to the Void.
As for Elf culture, it's a lot less "arbitrary" and "out of nowhere" than you think actually. Almost everything in their culture, except the manner in which I portray Dryads, is what I found to be a reasonable adaptation on actual medieval era fairy tales and original lore on the subjects of Elves, Fairies, and various other fey creatures such as the implementation of the Alra Une.
It's only since the 20th century that Elves were potrayed in a less threatening light than they had been historically in fairy tales, Lord Dunsany (who Tolkein seems to have been heavily inspired by) being the first to start significantly softening the view on Elves. Tolkein was then the next step on the softening of Elves, but even Tolkein's elves were kinda bad-ass and cut-throat compared to more recent fantasy versions.
(And then there are Santa's Elves, but them being called Elves is a complete missnomer. Santa's Elves are nothing like traditional lore about Elves, but they fit the traditional lore about Gnomes with an almost 100% accuracy with none of the given details being wrong and the only things off about them being details not included, such as the fact that Gnomes in traditional lore had absolute mastery over the element of Earth and were actually considered upper-tier magical beings.)
My elves might be jarring to you maybe, but they would make perfect sense to someone reading this 100 years ago. They're really more of a rude awakening of how brutal fairy tales were originally before they started getting nicened up. And even mine are a little light-handed by comparison.
(Check out this link. This is how Elves were seen in fairy tales before the 20th century, and mine while being closely based off the same source are nice by comparison.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XP5RP6OEJI
@Jemini Absolutely agree with you on historical elf culture(even Shakespeare makes them unpleasant). Sorry I am so terse with my replies. I am typing them with one finger on a tablet. Anyway what I wanted and failed to say was the way the culture was conveyed in the novel. Maybe introduce it with a chapter or two of elf/fairy life before the reincarnation, or maybe just let them more slowly absorb it through interaction
@Kawaii1234567 Well, I think maybe if I portray it a lot more from Aerien's eyes strictly and remove the chapters where it cuts to Eirlathion's or Tueth's POV which assume already being familiar with Elf culture then the absorption of the little factors will likely come up a lot more naturally and gradually. So, kinda an opposite direction, but it should probably work out that way too I think.