Notes from my Editor + My response

• Starting with this one, because this is a big one. There is a problem: an absence of a clear, overarching, tangible goal the protagonist is working towards, and one he genuinely wants and has a strong motivation for (so, conveying the girl across to the Free City wouldn’t work, since it’s an unwanted quest that he is not emotionally connected to in any way). I know it’s a new world and he is finding his bearings, but this is book 3 - I am not sure the readers would be quite as forgiving by that point in the narrative. So far, while there are plenty of minor conflicts, most of them are somewhat scattershot and random.

  • Suggestion: the goal could proceed from protagonist’s implied thirst for knowledge - you could have him trying to unravel some grand mystery of this world’s history or cosmic order, and taking steps towards that. 

Ok, I see where you are coming from and I did take this into account. I wanted to actually portray a feckless genz/millenial with no real goals in mind who is just carried along. I thought this would work because of the whole prophecy thing, but clearly not. The goals are not meant to be his goals, but the powers that be goals.  That aside, what I think might work better would be him superficially looking for a way back home [but this is an excuse as he lazy and does not truly want to go back to being a nobody.]

• Referring to the world around the hero as ‘the game’ so frequently creates an unnecessary detachment for the audience, and unintentionally lowers the stakes. There is a reason why VRMMORPG stories have been losing in popularity for the last couple of years, and this sort of stakes issue, with the world being a straight-up game, is what many readers cite.

  • Suggestion: the hero could gradually start to perceive the world around him as an actual world, as a slow arc. That would also make sense from the character perspective, given how much time he spent in it by now.

Perhaps I did not make it clear enough, but he does perceive the game world as real, or real enough that he treats it as real. The references to game as slips into madness, or slurs, or as a way to vent frustration and a way to dehumanize those he comes across. It is also one of the ways that shows that he is moving as fate/destiny intends him to move [he mistakes these as scripted game events]. One of the core aspects of his being that he is a bit all over the place because he is clearly insane at this point. Indeed, one of the core conceits is that he thinks it is/isn’t a game when it is convenient for him to do so.

• The emphasis on the troglodytes’ barbaric/pathetic/cultural inferiority during the encounter - I get that you are going for a villain protagonist, but even this kind of protagonist cannot be completely unsympathetic.  

  • Suggestion: go for the more personal “I’ve just squared off with a literal goddess and absorbed the power of an ancient evil, and these mere mortals think they can challenge me? Hah! I’ll show them” way of thinking instead. It would be still in-character.

I do not want to devolve the main character into a cartoon villain. People who are evil, are evil through and through. People are prejudiced and that is part of the grim darky thing. So I want to keep the racism, sexism, and culturally superior part of him intact. It is the core of his nasty being.

• There is little emotional investment (on the reader’s part) in secondary characters, because the protagonist seems to find most of them to be either unpleasant or annoying. I am not suggesting a 180-degree turn, but having him slowly growing more attached to his companions whom he initially considered only NPCs could actually be a good addition to “so, this is a world and not a game” arc suggested above.

I thought generally speaking he had quite a good camaraderie with Elwin and Kidu. As for the other characters, his thoughts of them reflect his thoughts on this hated world in general. However, I guess I could tone this down in parts. As for this is a world not a game, I was saving that for towards the end as doing this early tears down a lot the fundamentals that define him. Also, I want to set him up so that he slowly loses his friends and is towards the end all alone.

• Arimea‘s chapter is good - the description of the Elven court gives some great “ancient Persia prepared to sail against Greece” vibes, especially with some common terminology (satrapies, etc). However, the sequence of her reflections in front of a mirror is a little too long - I understand the importance of worldbuilding, however:

  • Suggestion: it might be possible to take some of the worldbuilding bits and sprinkle them in shorter snippets later (perhaps, between the lines of the throne room dialogue?).

• Minor point: “And upon that throne sat their king, a being that commanded no small modicum of respect.” - after the grand descriptions of the throne room and the royal power, the last bit (“commanded no small modicum of respect”) sounds like an anticlimactic understatement.

  • Suggestion: you could just finish the sentence after “And upon that throne sat their king”?

I will rewrite these bits to pare away the fat. 

• Given that you are going for the whole Renaissance merchant republic vibe for the city, Shareholders sound rather jarring as an official title. 

  • Suggestion: patricians, or merchant princes, or brothers-in-trade, might be better. 

               How about Holder families?