I graduated from University and got a full-time job before going to graduate school: it is causing my life to be in a state of limbo.

Ehem. I still love my story and have been working on it. I wrote some parts of future chapters, but got stuck on that next chapter. It never feels quite right or engaging in the way I want, such is life. I have been a bit neglectful with my story though; it's a waif. I might be one of those people who needs life stress and pressure to get things done.

Just an update saying I think about my story daily and want the leisure+freedom to write it, but I am struggling with exams and stuff right now. I need a hyperbolic time chamber.

World-building

I've been thinking about a lot of world-building elements in terms of plausibility. I constantly ask myself does this setting make sense? When I talk about world-building for my story I specifically mean these important elements of my story.

(*) Technology in my story is like 1400-1600 AD. (Earth)

(*) Socially and culturally my story is starting to feel like 1400-1800 AD as I plan more. (Earth)

I have a strange world-building dissonance to reconcile with these time periods.

(*) Spirit and magic based religion. Political interplay between the citizens, royalty, aristocracy, and clergy.

(*) Effects of magic on flora and fauna. The natural setting of the world.

(*) Theoretical questions about what magic is and what kind of life-form spirits are. My magic system concerning biology and physics.

(*) Geography. Surrounding countries and foreign relations. Foreign religions. Different ethnicities.

Backstories

I'm having a bit of trouble figuring out some of my characters backstories and motivations. It's not that I don't have any ideas, I'm just not satisfied. The backstories and motivations are the difference between a plot driving character filled with opportunity, and a character which is better off not in the story at all. I have noticed that otome games have some pretty weak and shitty heroine backstories that barely make sense. Parents are always either dead or MIA, heroine is an orphan, heroine lives alone, etc. I have pretty good backstories for everyone except the heroine. Why the hell is she even going to the Academy in the first place? How did she even manage to enroll in an elite institution like that? lol

Most Important Thing

I've been kinda irritated at myself for not writing more, but I have realized that I am forgetting the most important thing! Writing this story is supposed to be meaningful, but also for fun! The silent pressure of not writing while feeling like people are hopefully waiting ... I shouldn't be like, "But But But I have an excuse. Life is in the way!" Life is always in the way of everything I have ever wanted, at alllll times. This is my axiom on life.

I made a thread on the forums in the feedback section to discuss my story for everyone and anyone about anything.

https://forum.scribblehub.com/threads/an-odd-rose-eternal-story-feedback.1260/#post-22472

Purpose
Hello I'm the Author of An Odd Rose, Love Critical Failure. I'm setting up this thread for my story and readers. Specifically, I want to use this thread as a permanent place to discuss my story to make it better and generate ideas. Criticisms, suggestions for improvement, questions, and just talking about anything you think would be cool to add to the story is what I am hoping for.

I'm always worried about my story. It's terrible being an author who second-guesses everything. However, it is surprising that I increasingly like my story the more I second-guess and compare it to other stories. It doesn't feel bad at all, but the ending is still a bit fuzzy. It's not a bad kind of fuzzy though, more like an open ended fuzzy. "This could end so many different ways," kind of fuzzy. I gotta get there first anyways. Writing a story is some pretty serious stuff.

I have been plotting for a while now, some people think it's stupid, but I like planning ahead. The hardest thing is figuring out how I want my characters to grow and change from wherever they came from. It feels like my story is primarily character driven and orbits around a few large scale major events. I have a lot of dynamic characters and that makes it sorta difficult to work with.

There are some world-building elements that I am struggling with right now.

Always: How does magic work?

Unique to my story: What kind of lifeform are spirits?

Technology: What level is technology at and how does magic affect it?

Geography, Landmarks, Nearby Countries, Religion, International Culture, Warfare

I have realized pretty early on that my academy isn't a place for fun and games.

The reason I haven't posted anything for a while now is because I really don't like my current chapter 8 and it's a bit of a roadblock for me. Stupid prince is giving me problems. The next few chapters feel like something weird is going on with my story pacing and character introductions as well. I'm not really happy with the start to my story in general. Maybe in the future I'll understand how to better arrange events and characters. Frankly, I'm not even sure if starting with Garnet was the right choice. It was just where I started because it was a particularly unusual and fun character to deal with.

On a side note, my life is kinda busy in the least fun way I can imagine. A lot of assignments and career choices to be made right now and over the course of the next couple months. Fucking life stressing me out.

I organized my story on OneNote. My friend recommended that I do it rather than the named textfiles I had before. I'd include the before picture if it didn't have spoilers everywhere.

https://i.imgur.com/9zbM9tP.png

Things are way more organized right now, but my plot is a mess. It's like 100 brainstormed events from different alternate worlds of my story's universe in scrambled order. This may take a while.

The majority of all stories on scribblehub are not written with an clear intention to finish the story. I have a very strong intention to finish my story. Plot is still bullying me.

The reason things are taking so long right now is because I am at a critical junction in the story for all of my main characters over the next few chapters. Garnet's initial chapters could be written more freely because they were not yet influenced by the other main characters.

I'm adamant about working on my story plot outline until I am more or less satisfied with how my main characters will live, struggle, succeed, or die trying.

This is stressful. I want to write my story, but I second-guess a lot of my plot choices. I'm constantly worried about how people will receive the story that I write, but at the same time I have to just ignore it all and keep myself true to the story I want to write. Getting the story I want to tell across in word format is hard to do!

Conclusion: This author stuff is hard AF and it makes me neurotic.

My notes for my story are 5 times longer than the story I've written so far, but I'm still fighting with the meat of the story.

Today I looked at more writing resources, the best of which was video called "How to Write Fight Scenes". This is a really good video that I think anybody who is going to write a fight scene should watch (unless they are already experienced with writing great fight scenes). I know it has already greatly enhanced fight scenes that I planned in my story. Now that's exciting! =D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgNjJ0oEXU8

It's true that many fight scenes are boring. I have often quickly read past fight scenes, which should in theory have been highlights of the stories. So this video outlined 8 common problems with fight scenes in books and then did a spectacular job of explaining how to avoid each one! Very good information that I will use eventually in my story.

I also read some okay articles on magical education and fantasy bigotry/discrimination with an emphasis on ethics and world-building. Since there is a magical academy in my story this also has helped me get a better feel for what details I might want to explore about my academy setting. Some examples of what I should think about are what purpose the academy fulfills, who it caters to, the cost of education, the futures of it's pupils, the instructors, the hierarchy, location, grounds, history/prestige, application and entry, inequality between students, and the business the institution conducts.

https://medium.com/@RealDorianDawes/ethics-in-magical-world-building-magical-education-96378429872b

So finally, the best thing that I took away from the discrimination and bigotry article is that I should pay attention to whether the discrimination is propaganda based or if there is some sliver of a reason for the discrimination. Some parts of the article were hard to understand.

https://medium.com/@RealDorianDawes/ethics-in-magical-world-building-fantasy-bigotry-9afba2cb3dcd

Law enforcement eh.

https://medium.com/@RealDorianDawes/ethics-in-world-building-law-enforcement-6a6ec0174d2f

I've got a bit of a complex about my writing speed as of late. I'm stressing about not writing enough and fast enough. I worry that my story is not interesting, or well-written, but the only thing I can do is just keep writing what I can. Although my greatest worry is that I will not be able to portray my story in the way I wanted.

So my writing speed is like 300-500 words per hour and then I edit. I'm really amazed by some of the people on this site who are writing 3000+ words a day. Not necessarily good writing, but it's still more than Stephen King lol.

In addition to Garnet I was going to have 3 more rival characters in the story. I figured out 2 of them so far. But I still need some serious flaw for #3.

I was reading this one story the other day. It was a VRMMO story where the vicious male antagonist who was a villainous cutthroat guildmaster was actually a girl in real life. My mind at this point was completely stunned and perplexed. She was a beautiful cold intelligent bitch at her school that manipulated her female clique and male admirers to do whatever the fuck she wanted, and bully whoever she wanted. The story also said that her asshole jock boyfriend who is an arrogant bully played the same MMO as her ... but it turns out that he couldn't handle her in-game and in real life because she was more of an alpha-male than him. Amazing. I just love it so much.

It's too bad this character didn't have many scenes yet and I don't  know much about them, but they were fucking horrible and awesome at the same time. A total aggressive alpha character. Alpha male, alpha female, I don't know how they view themselves or why they turned out like this, but they were just a total alpha regardless. And no matter how much I thought about it, if I was a character in that story I would have no idea how to deal with somebody that malicious. This villain has turned out to be my favourite character in a long time for completely breaking the mould.

I want a character like her in my story, or at least I want to borrow a bit of her ruthless alpha dominance for my own characters.

I think it's important to have normal people in the story as well, otherwise it would feel too unbalanced and everyone would essentially be a maniac.

Chapter 8

I know what I want to write. Why am I not writing?! It feels like homework, but I still love my story. I think it's the stress.

The Exams and I'm Still Sick

The exam I was worrying about the most has finished ... and I think I did really good, which is causing me to second myself, especially since it seemed fairly easy. Oh fuck. Like classical mechanics. 3 questions were really easy. (1) Derive some projectile motion thing. (2) Take like 1 derivative to find a velocity dependent force. (3 & 4) Energy dependent and statics problems (5) A triple classical oscillator system on a ring where we had to find eigenvectors and the equations of motion. (5) The difficulty suddenly spiked, but I was the student who read the textbook. Ohohoho

I gotta write an essay over the next 7 days worth 30% of my final grade for some other course.

And my final midterm is a take-home exam where our teacher is going to give us either a butt-load, boatload, or shitload of modified MIT electromagnetism questions to do in a specified interval of time, which is my weekend.

Exactly as the title says. Goodbye sweet world.

My poll asks the simple question,

"Should I make the next chapter's POV from the prince's perspective? Or somebody else?"

I wish I had asked this sooner so that more of the super dedicated readers who stalk my series would have responded.

I'm gonna split my chapter into two since it makes sense to do so at a POV change. The scene also ended at a good point in the middle too. I'll probably release the first part tonight. Editing is pretty boring.

I've been a bit sick recently. Sinus infection, a minor fever, then a sore throat. Each time I get sick it's always the same.

I'm half done writing chapter 7 and it's at 2000 words. My chapters are usually around 2000 words so this will be a longer chapter than normal.

Something else I've been needing to study a lot more is perspective. By "perspective" I am referring to first person, third person limited, and third person omniscient. I naturally write first person, but for this story I started writing in third person limited. It's a bit unnatural for me, but I like the slight bit of distance it gives, and it really helps me explore multiple characters in a way that doesn't feel to jerky when changing POV.

What I might do in the future is write in first person to quickly get material out, then convert the writing to third person and line edit.

My university midterms are coming. They are the looming dark cloud destroying me. Assignments, presentations, midterms ... where's my break?!

I've been writing chapter 7 and it's turning out pretty good. It's ending up a longer chapter than normal since the prince arrives. It's also kinda difficult to write since I have to figure out so many supporting characters and backgrounds. There's a bit of lock-in so I have to think about whether I really want the characters to be this way in the story. The next  few chapters were planned to be like this, without giving spoilers.

Chapter 7: The Prince arrives and Garnet has her first major struggle.

Chapter 8: A new character is introduced. Ohohoho more plot.

Chapter 9: Garnet travels to the Magic Academy.

Chapter 10: New character is introduced and the academy begins.

Getting the major characters to mesh well in my planning is quite tricky. My favourite character that I wanted to include in the story is actually the worst one to fit in. They are complex and I'm not sure how to properly execute their interactions with the other characters at all. They have amazing potential and could do almost anything, but the requirement for it to be completely justified in the meta is making it hard. They could befriend, murder, manipulate, beg, blackmail, ally with, become enemies, or lie to all the other characters. I frankly don't know what to do with them for a good reason, but I love them because they fit the "badass normal" trope. So much badass normal potential. It's both good and bad that everything this character does wrecks everyone's lives.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BadassNormal

I want to create conflicts in my story, and they mainly all arise due to characters and character interactions. I'm trying to plan a few turning points where the feeling is like, "Oh no! This character wasn't supposed to know that or do that! Everything is screwed up now!"

Today I ordered 5 fantasy books because I want to read them for inspiration. Apparently each of these fantasy books is highly rated. I really look forward to reading them for their content, but I also want to read them for the writing styles. It's been a long time since I last read some standard books from the library or anywhere else. I've been reading too many webnovels and translated stories, which don't provide the best examples for professional literature. I really need to read to get a better sense for my own writing.

(1) The first book is  The name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

A description from Wikipedia made me fairly interested,

"Rothfuss wrote The Name of the Wind during his nine-year advance toward his B.S. in English. He drew inspiration from the idea that he wanted a completely new kind of book that doesn't have the generic characteristics of fantasy."

Based on the overwhelming positive reviews it is possible he succeeded. Please gimme something I've never experienced before!

(2) The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger by Stephen King

Overall, I am mostly interested in reading a Stephen King book just to see his writing since he is so famous. Some of the excerpts from his writing show his exceptional skill. I think I also read somewhere that the magic system in this book is godly.

(3) The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch

This book is supposed to involve themes of the interplay between the criminal underworld and nobility. The story follows the main character Locke and his close-knit loyal ensemble, who are criminals or something. Anyways, some girl gushed about how this Locke character was likely the most intelligent character she had ever read about in fiction, which got me fairly interested. I have a character that is somewhat similar, so it might help me besides just giving me something fun to read.

(4) The Earthsea Quartet by Ursula Le Guin

This quartet is comprised of the first four books of this series. Put bluntly, it sounds like the most goddamn fantasy sounding fantasy story that I could fantasize about. Fantasy.

There was also an anime that was made, Tales From Earthsea. The anime was not a faithful rendition of the books at all though. The author said to the director, "It is not my book. It is your movie. It is a good movie". I remembered watching that a long time ago. It was very interesting, but not the greatest. So I look forward to the real story as written by Ursula Le Guin.

(5) Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence

The protagonist is supposed to be pretty darn lacking in morality! I need inspiration for a character that prioritizes their goal and expediency above all.

Since 6 days ago I have managed to accrue 10,000 words worth of writing study jot notes. Whew! Hopefully some of the studying I've done will stick!

It's a lot to remember, but now that I have many good notes (they are fairly organized) I can always go back to check if I forgot something.

Today I managed to watch a few more videos and take notes. I gained quite a bit of useful knowledge to help me with my story today. I always need more tips for generating plot (likely every story writer in existence). There are many contemplative thinking scenes in my story, so learning how to make those better is very helpful. From the worldbuilding videos I have identified some of the things I really have to pay attention to in my story. For example, my magic system needs special attention to be consistent and I need to do a lot of factual research to build/maintain a more realistic/plausible world. I have a lot of time skips in my story. I planned a few important flashbacks as well. I was never really sure of good ways to introduce backstory before so that was an interesting video.

Overall, I watched tons of videos and learned a lot today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwOD8hoE85A (How to Generate Plot Material)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Im2AAkRzL8k (How to Make Thinking & Talking Scenes Interesting)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9NfAOllKos (How to Write Proactive Scenes (With Examples))

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTgpktkDYZM (How to Write Reactive Scenes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQgHdAaXLqQ (How to Write Reactive Scenes (with examples))

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUjet7Z0S0g (How to Create & Use a Worldbuilding Bible)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JD99clpR1KM (How to Write a Believable World (Four Common Problems))

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4bahJC_bZY (How to Use Telling (Not Showing) to Enhance Your Novel)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPwVsfgEqrU (How & Why to Skip Time in Your Novel)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVBBQeRzaLY (Flashbacks: When and How to Use Them in Your Novel)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lqc4VXdI9I (How Backstory can Strengthen Scenes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pcr4hjHp84 (How to Write Chapter Openings)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77duTePgZS4 (How to Write Chapter Endings)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPHjb0MqX9g (25 Mistakes that Peg You as an Amateur Writer)

Took some notes today concerning multiple plot lines, good story endings, and thought about the driving antagonistic force creating my story's main conflict.

My story has multiple storylines. Storylines need to be able to stand on their own, but they should have intersection points where they either directly or indirectly meet to influence each other. A story should not involve a particular storyline if it never intersects with other storylines. All storylines need to somehow tie into the main plot. Storylines should enhance each other and reduce the amount of filler content since there are more than one interesting character perspectives the author can write from. Multiple storylines should not be used if the story in more interesting and better told by a single storyline.

Great endings require the catharsis. Catharsis Definition: the process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions. So I should wind up the reader base's tension and then release it.

I'm having trouble with not making my main plot cheesy. Specifically, I am having a hard time connecting all three of my storylines together with an external conflict that is both brutal and justifies their mutually antagonistic actions.

Well, today I sure didn't get as much done as I thought I would. I watched videos on scene structure and wrote down notes.

I feel like I am lacking so much experience as a writer. I've written a lot, but not with serious intention to improve my writing in an academic and professional manner. Some of the things I realize I am lacking in are precise usage of punctuation, sentence structure, tense, tone, passive voice, and third person limited POV consistency. Apparently my vocabulary could be better as well.

I sure never cared this much about my writing before. Not even close. Now I'm desperately trying to learn as much as I can to improve my writing as fast as possible. All the studying I'm doing right now makes me feel that the mandatory school system completely failed to show me the relevance of its literary subject material and also taught it to a very poor degree. I studied physics and computer science at university, soooooo creative writing is not a strong skill of mine. Who knew I was gonna be trying my best to write a story one day?

I tried a writing checker today, grammarly to be specific. It's a spelling and grammar checker on steroids, but the full version costs money. MONEY! Quite a bit of money too. 11 USD per month, IF you buy an entire year's subscription, or 30 USD per month if you only pay month by month. Insane. It's insane that I am actually considering it. Once I raise my basic writing level higher and get my story plot fully edited I would certainly consider paying that kind of money. Probably would, since I believe without doubt that it would help me become a better writer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMYfWpjEYk0 (Scene Goals)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaCDNC8E4YU (Scene Conflicts)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEm8jeD4SaE (Scene Proaction)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdwsTykLqNo (Scene Consequences)

Today I learned more about general writing tricks, plotting, common story structure, and plot points.

I also learned about some general writing tricks and tips. My favourite tricks were "plotting in reverse" and an outlining editing method known as the "puzzle method".

Plotting in Reverse

So, "plotting in reverse" is exactly what it sounds like. Plotting forwards, which mostly everyone does, is like playing god. Cleverly and subtly crafting/manipulating events to lead characters on a very long path to some very specific end is complex as hell. However, if you start with the end/conclusion scene then you can perhaps more easily work backwards. Rather than thinking about how to force a character into the situation you desired, simply ask questions about how they got there, answer those questions, and work backwards step by step, scene by scene, to get to the beginning.

The Puzzle Method

The "puzzle method" is for people like me who brainstormed a bunch of events to go into their story in the outline. I have many events planned, but it's really hard getting these into a sensible chronological order. I don't even expect all the events to be able to fit together, so it also involves figuring out which events would be better if they were culled from the plot. Thus in the "puzzle method" all story events are written out on papers/stickyNotes/post-its and then the author rearranges them into chronological order. It is supposed to help with figuring out the plot because all the events are right in front of the author for them to solve like rearranging a puzzle into a clear picture. Honestly, it sounds way better/fun than working in a text document moving around things on a super cluttered and disorganized event outline.

Story Structure

Apparently, stories often have a clear structure. It's common sense, but I did not understand it to this level of detail! I just had the naive idea that there was a exposition, rising action, climax, and conclusion. Maybe throw in a twist somewhere and a bunch of plot progressing scenes throughout. However, I did not know exactly what those plot progressing scenes should be like. The videos helped me understand in much greater detail common story structure.

Yorda Before: "Story structure and plot points? What are those? Can I eat them? Are they tasty?"

Yorda After: "Mmmmmn. They were very tasty."

My resources for the above were,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2O0ivx5Gr-w (10 Writer Hacks)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecjaWgKbZg4 (First Plot Point)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYGgt5Kr81w (Midpoint)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLW58x2hQc0 (Second Plot Point)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8Ygz-dn_2I (Climax)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Vy3mEp3YXo (Pinch Points)

First Plot Point ---> Pinch Point 1 ---> Midpoint ---> Pinch Point 2 ---> Second Plot Point ---> Climax ---> Resolution/Conclusion

Yorda before writing tutorial videos,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02-QOC9hNO4

Yorda after,

The Yorda: "Are you ready now? To witness a power not seen for thousands of years."

Green Pleb: "Huh? What's this? His energy is still growing."

Yellow Pleb: "Incredible" Yorda "is transforming. Where did he get this kind of power?"

Green Pleb: "The training did work after all." Yorda "is transforming."

Three Eye Pleb: *Shitting bricks*

Blue Pleb: "What's going on? It's" Yorda "right? Something's happened hasn't it?"

Yellow Pleb: "Whoa. That's a lot of power."

White Pleb: "He did it. He's ascended."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sQMvcpVDuQ

From the criticism that I received it became apparent that I would like to make revisions and rewrite my series one day. However, I absolutely to refuse to give any less effort right now as I write my first draft all the way to the best conclusion I can.

I will not write with the idea, "Oh, it doesn't matter too much, I'll just fix this or that in the future after this rough first draft." That is a really bad attitude that would lower the quality of my work and make me careless. I should go forward with the idea, "I really want to perfect this story one day, but frankly I might fucking die. I'm gonna give my serious effort to this story because there is no guarantee I'll ever get to do this again in my lifetime. I better make this meaningful, otherwise it will 100% be another meaningless effort wasting my limited life."

Today is the day the logs begin! Huzzah! Ohohoho.

7 hours of studying and writing down notes later. The spirit is strong and wants to continue watching "writing help tutorial videos", but the physical body is starting to falter. These Ellen Brock Videos Are Still Golden.

I didn't know what a "Author's Voice" was so I looked it up.

Author's Voice Definition: A writer's tone, choice of words, selection of subject matter, and even punctuation make up the authorial voice. How an author writes conveys their attitude, personality, and character. The author's voice is often so distinctive that it's possible to identify the author by merely reading a selection of their work.

I think that my voice is really philosophical. I have a tendency to step back and examine situations from unconventional viewpoints like I did in the start of chapter 4. Also, my writing always grows darker and darker; Everything I write tends to have an ever increasing heavy tone of dread.

I was having problems plotting a complex story. These two immensely helpful videos got me a new method to do it,

How to plot a novel:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cems_-085nQ

How to plot your novel fast (editor demonstrates plotting technique):   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-I9N5LsvPM

(Stuff below was posted in the forums)

Having an idea in your head of how you want your story to go is perfectly fine for very simple stories, but as you have discovered through experience, if you want to make a complex story it will result in getting lost.

The best and easiest way I have ever heard, as explained by a professional editor, to form a complex plot where everything you wanted to happen in your story actually happens in a comprehensible, and chronologically sensible manner is to do the following.

First brainstorm all the events you can think of that you want in your story. Especially brainstorm events for the meat of the story, the rising action, the climax, and the conclusion. Then you start connecting the dots (events) until you have a linear chronology of your story outlined. The things you use to connect the events are characters. Naturally, you may also need to discard some events that you cannot figure out the connections for.

I tried to do things in reverse before, create characters first and then make them interact through events, but it turned out to be a complicated hell.

I'm currently learning about professional writing techniques. Making posts like this is a form of studying and preparing myself for writing the story I want to tell in all its glory. Reviewing and revising my understanding of these techniques/concepts by explicitly writing them out in my own words, helps me master and retain them.

The same girl who made the world-building template below also has a youtube channel with about 80 videos of absolute gold on how to write/edit professionally. They are insanely good videos that are succinct and often have so many wonderful examples given. I spent 7 hours watching 30 videos today and taking notes furiously! Everything she says is worth listening to and I feel incredibly more positive about writing my story now. I feel like if I keep studying and trying I will be able to create and tell the story I so badly desire.

Today in the forums I looked into a thread recommending writing resources to authors. I found an amazing world-building template that could help anyone quickly create a greatly detailed world.

https://ellenbrockediting.com/worldbuilding-bible-template/

Today I got some wonderful criticism by a reader (and much better author than me) who said my beginning chapters are fairly generic. I always appreciate precise criticism, especially criticism that comes together with suggestions for improvement. My opening chapters have amateur cliches by including a "wake up" and "mirror" scene to describe character appearance.

Also, I am now very aware of much better alternatives to this novel opening. Two perfect examples of how I could rectify my generic opening would be,

https://www.novelupdates.com/series/common-sense-of-a-dukes-daughter/

https://www.novelupdates.com/series/aku-no-joou-no-kiseki/

Both of these stories have transmigration at much more critical points in the story right in some rather meaty parts of their plots. My opening also gives much more potential to express Garnet's background. Perhaps I could start with her life slightly before the transmigration. I never specified a fitting background for Garnet because I was not sure what to write. Given much more story, in the future I could figure out a fitting background that will serve my character and plot much better.

I was also praised for my interesting and non-standard way of writing my story and putting events into unique contexts. Overall, it was an absolutely stellar criticism, review, chat, brainstorming session, and learning experience.