"Oh! I got something." Zach says, quickly jotting it down on his map as he and Janet trot back to the apartments. "No idea if it was a spider or a nazi."
Janet laughs. "Almost certainly a spider. Unless the nazis are waaay more adventurous than I thought. It was out at the furthest extent?"
Zach nodded. "Yeah, the furthest tripwire I laid."
She sighs. "Well, good to know. Take a record for Miria I guess?"
"Yeah. How's your progress on learning magic coming?" Zach asks.
"Slow. Need to spend time practicing meditation, I think." Janet sighs again. "It's sooo boring though... Well, I'll stick to it. See if I can get anywhere."
"Okay, finally!" Miria said, leveling up her class and examining the options presented to her.
"...Oh fuck me. No easy choices, ehhh?" She sighed. "Well, I suppose I at least have plenty of people to give me advice... And that mage class does look real tempting."
Janet stiffened as a golden nimbus lit up around her hands, and a disk of transparent golden light appeared in front of her. "Oh! There we go!"
Zach and Claire both clapped. "And a new spell we haven't seen before, too? Very nice!" Claire said.
"Uh, yeah. Lemme see..." Janet said, bringing up the spell description.
"Neat. You want to learn it, Zach?" Janet asked, and he nodded.
"Yeah, though I need to level up first I think. Unless I can go over my cap? I feel like that should be possible, but I suppose it probably won't be easy..." He replied.
Miria waves as she walked up. "Hey! Nice, good work! More magic is good news."
Janet twitches her ears and shrugs. "Thanks. What brings you over here? Looking for something?"
Miria nods. "Yeah, advice. I hit level 5 in my class, and I got some milestone options..." She says, sharing them.
"Oh damn, you sure did. Is that what we can expect for class milestones? That's pretty damn good." Janet says, while Zach and Claire read through the list and whisper to each other. "You have any idea what you want? I assume you came over here cause of the second option..."
"Sure did. I figure with all the other mages, it'll be more useful than average. And maybe I'll get something that helps me lead mages?" She shrugs herself. "Worth a shot. Unless you think I really need the fighter class or perception stat? But on the other hand, I don't have a lot of MP or anything that really gives me benefits in terms of MP..."
Janet laughs. "Yeah I have no idea. Claire? Zach?"
Claire answers. "We think she should take the mage class. That does seem to be the thing that we're really going in on, as group. And aim for skills related to leading mages, or making mage servitors, or the like."
Zach nods. "Yeah, exactly. Though I suppose the fighter would work a lot better with her current build? Well, something to think about, I guess."
"Thank you again, Maxim." Sasha said, scrubbing away at the tub full of laundry. "This would have been so much harder without your help."
Maxim shrugged. "Do not mention it. I am glad ze tub vorks, yes?" He said, working at his own washboard. "Though we will need to use ze detergent sparingly. It is lucky we have so much of a supply, but it will run out eventually..."
Sasha sighed. "Yeahhh... Well, hopefully we'll have something figured out by then. Maybe Sarah or Claire can find a way to make more? I dunno... We'll figure it out, I guess."
He laughs. "Zat ve vill. It still beats being unemployed while I try to find a job I can get to vithout my leg giving out on me, yez?"
She nods. "Yeah I was holding down a minimum wage job before this... Pretty miserable. Might still be a step up, all told." She says, sighing and moving on to the next load of laundry...
"So how was everyone's day?" Sasha asks, while she watches everyone serve themselves.
"Pretty good! Me and Janet made headway, so we should have a lot better understanding of where the Nazis and spiders are over the next few days. And we've all started getting milestones, so we're picking up new tricks at a steady pace." Zach replies. "How bout yourself?"
Sasha pouts. "Yeah I spent the day doing laundry. *Maxim* helped." She says, prompting a giggle from Claire.
"What a gentleman! Here, I'll come help you next time, okay? Sarah too, maybe." She teases, elbowing the other mage, who sighs.
"Yeah yeah, okay, me too. Maybe see if I can come up with a spell or something? Shouldn't be that hard..." She grumbles halfheartedly, to Claire's giggling amusement.
"And how many spells slots do you have free?" She teases, prompting Sarah to scoff.
"Well, none, but whatever! I'll figure it out, you'll see." She says. "Did you pick your milestone for your plant growth ability?"
Claire nods. "Yeah I'm going with intuition." She replies. "Want a better idea what I'm doing. have to level it of course, cause it's a sub-ability, but that's not too difficult, and eventually I'll get milestones for it too, albeit not until level 10..."
Sarah whistles. "Neat trick. I should level up my 'Mana Sight' ability, see what it gets me..."
I know the litRPG stuff isn't everyone's cup of tea... I'll admit I'm really struggling to write anything else, though. I'll work on it, and if there's anything you want me to focus on in particular, I'm happy to hear requests. Maybe if I find, like, a single specific things to focus on, I'll be able to make some headway, while still, like, actually writing new chapters?
I'll admit I'm really struggling to write anything else, though.
I'm glad you noticed! I agree that this story has lost almost all its initial momentum. So, as someone with a lot more experience *planning* stories than writing them (I run D&D, the "writing" part happens at the table), here are my thoughts.
At a macro level, the biggest thing that is missing is tension:
- The tribe has noted some upcoming challenges, but there is no sense of urgency to any of them. No deadlines; no resources about to run out, etc.
- The woods are dangerous (especially with intelligent spiders), but the only characters that interact with it are the fighters. Lately, those encounters have all been simple, well-controlled experience farming, too.
- You have some potential enemy characters (grocery store nazis), but their threat to the tribe is distant and nebulous.
- As an aside, have you considered System quests? It's a bit blunt for my tastes, but it's a common and effective option in this genre.
Which brings me to... Story Arcs -- These are your overarching plot threads. The things happening in the world that the characters have to react to. This could be anything from villain actions to natural disasters. Let's look at the one you started with.
1st Thread: A whole town (or more?!) has been haphazardly dropped into another world and all given Systems. That's a rich premise! So much so, that you were able to coast on its momentum for quite a while before getting bogged down in the 'Systems' part.
Elements of this thread that were good:
- Miria's early exploration of the lifeless apartment building. There was a natural sense of mystery and unknown threat to these scenes as they were happening. But, the tension in that mystery fades over time as a new status quo settles.
- Discovering the nazi grocery store! This introduced two new ideas: a lot more than just one apartment building has been sent to this new world; and, we have a clear villain faction. This can now be its own thread, if handled well. To get there, that faction needs to be a more active agent in the story (they need to *do* things). If we're going to spend 10+ chapters building a Chekhov's Hedge Wall, someone better attack it!
It's always fine to be punching nazis, but the tribe hasn't seemed very motivated to go do that, and there's no sign that the nazis are even trying to find their base. In retrospect, the rescued tribe members needed much strong attachments to other people still in the grocery store; but, it would be difficult to introduce now.
What you're really missing here is the Named Antagonist role. Who is Darth Vader for this grocery store? (My first thought was 'Mall Ninja Neckbeard' or 'Lifted Truck D-bag'. But, with the right System powers, you could 100% do 'Walmart/Temu Darth Vader'...) Why are they intimidating? What are they doing that the tribe needs to prevent or deal with? If it's supposed to be Trent, whose name I had to go look up, you've got a lot of untilled ground to work with here.
2nd Thread: How are the tribe are going to replace the complex resources of modern civilization? You've touched on this with a bit of forging and some of Claire's magic, but there's a *lot* more potential here. A whole genre's worth, in fact. For this story, I would use this primarily for introducing new challenges or extra stress to other situations.
For my D&D game, I make a very purposeful effort to always have at least two threads advancing in the story at once. That way, as one is resolved, the action in the other can be picking up. Then, I try to hide my setup for the new 2nd thread beneath that transition. The real fireworks happen when they all intersect!
Next, Character Arcs -- You know, the things characters go through socially or psychologically.
Let's take Miria as an example:
- Miria became an insect monster! While she didn't experience significant body dysphoria, she remains uncomfortable with the 'hive' part of 'hive princess'. Miria currently does not *need* to use her eggs, so she can take her time working through her feelings. What could put pressure on that decision?
- Miria is anxious about the fine line between Leadership and Dominance. This can be both social and psychological! To explore Leadership, Miria needs to have stressful situations to demonstrate it in. Chances to make *mistakes*. Similarly, power exchange in relationships is already difficult to navigate. How much agency is Claire willing to surrender to Miria? How might they explore that? What mistakes might they make in the process? What if conflict from those mistakes is happening at the same time that the tribe needs them to be working together?! See how that last suggestion requires two threads to intersect, but benefits greatly from it?
Lastly, a suggestion for the minor characters. Wait until you know what you are going to have that character *do* with their new ability before you present it to the reader. If there's not a clear, ideally plot-relevant, action on the horizon for that character (and ideally that ability), focus on something else instead.
Good luck!
You've got a lot of good thoughts here... Of course, the big reason I don't have much character focused stuff is cause I'm just not that good at it. See that first chapter with Miria panicking about her new body, or with her angrily marching out into the forest to get chewed on - both were just painful, IMO, hence why I do less of that stuff. Same thing for a named antagonist from the grocery store, or the like. We did have Trent, but he hasn't really received much focus.
I suppose the argument there would be that I should just write that kind of thing, even if I'm bad at it, so I can practice and get better? I'm not entirely sure how well that'll work, or if I'm actually up to sticking that out... I'll think about it though.
You have a good point about Character Arcs too. I'll see if I can work those in a bit more? We have some, but they haven't really received much focus...
@DrStrangeLover i actually though that the fist few chapters were relly good
(PS sorry im dyslectic)
@DrStrangeLover I’d like to second everything Solace said and add something from a writer’s perspective: you could stand to work on your scene transitions a bit. The story often feels disjointed because it jumps from POV or scene abruptly and frequently. It would flow better if you minimized the changes between POVs (preferably down to no more than one per chapter, depending on length) and tried to describe how we get from one scene to the next rather than just dropping a dotted line. We can use the scenes with Sasha here as an example. You could insert a line between them saying something as simple as “once she’d finished with the laundry, Sasha moved on to preparing dinner, and soon enough she was watching everyone serve themselves from the food she’d prepared.” That way the reader is able to immerse themselves in the story without needing to stop and reset repeatedly.
personally i think the only thing i can critic is how often you switch POW maybe try to do 1 POW per chapter since the first few chapters feel like they have a MUCH high quality then the last few plus its difficult to understand whats happening and stuff with how fast you switching between POW's in my opinion
(PS sorry im dyslectic)
you could also do a interlude focusing on the Nazis or on the spiders or really just showing a different group out in the world i personally believe that when i do that i can better build the world since im trying to look at stuff from a completely different perspective then the MC's POW though i don't normally post my writing attempts since i lose interest in them before i get enough to feel comfortable with posting them but i do get to basically 20 to 30 chapters before that happens and its more like i just don't see a good way to continue the story anymore then anything else sorry i started remembering just wanted to tell you that a bit more focused POW would be better in my opinion and that possibly focusing on a different group could help better build up the world and introduce future characters or show the struggles of different groups in a different part of the world to make it easier to understand whats happening in the world
I, for one, enjoy the RPG parts.
What I'd like to see though, is Miria giving in to her instincts more. She really doesn't feel like much of a hive queen right now, and that's what drew me to the story in the first place.
When do we get to see the queen of blades?
Yeah fair enough - I'll try and scoot things along so we can focus on the hive queen stuff, then.
I mean you have a spider faction with uncanny cooperation. You could write a lot of chapters of guerilla warfare or even tower defense against them as filler while you decide the more general direction of character development and how to go ww2.1 on the nazis. The servitors should be a great way to explore the system too if you are having trouble developing the main characters; just order them to prioritize different paths, like stats, classes, abilities, CP, FP, MP, HP... I think most of the readers can enjoy a lot of litrpg between character development so don't stress out too much over deciding the larger plot.
Well, if they didn't think the provided options were random before, that perception stat choice is certainly a very good sign that they are, considering the perception stat choice is a useless option if the other two options give it anyways. Thanks for the chapter
Weird for Miria to go for mage when she's got a physical build. I thought warrior class would be the obvious choice.
Mage
* Common Class (1 Star)
* Resources: +2 HP/level, +2 FP/level, +2 CP/level, +5 MP/level
* Stats: Dexterity, Constitution, Perception, Smarts, Appeal, Spirit.
* Abilities: Basic Magery
Fighter
* Common Class (1 Star)
* Resources: +5 HP/level, +2 FP/level, +2 CP/level, +2 MP/level
* Stats: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Perception, Smarts, Appeal.
* Abilities: Swift Strike
"...Oh f*ck me. No easy choices, ehhh?" She sighed. "Well, I suppose I at least have plenty of people to give me advice... And that mage class does look real tempting."
Oof, if thinking long term and the drones are produced en masse it might be better to be a backline mage even though she is focusing on a frontline fighter right now, it is safer to be ranged.
I know the litRPG stuff isn't everyone's cup of tea... I'll admit I'm really struggling to write anything else, though. I'll work on it, and if there's anything you want me to focus on in particular, I'm happy to hear requests. Maybe if I find, like, a single specific things to focus on, I'll be able to make some headway, while still, like, actually writing new chapters?
Sure some people might not like litrpg stories, but they would be reading something else then. There are plenty of people who do like litrpg stories and are here for it.
Is this story still going on in the background or is it on Haiti’s?
Honestly it's pretty much on hiatus at the moment. I might update? I just have a lot of other stuff to deal with, though, so. We'll see. :/
@DrStrangeLover Well thanks for at least replying back
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