Do you mean that you didn’t connect to this, or that you are guessing that EA naive or semi-naive readers won’t connect?
I meant that I personally didn’t connect with it, and I’m already pretty sold on much (but not all) of EA.
Regarding sterility perhaps that feeling points to something that can be improved in a straightforward way. Can you maybe try to draw out what you mean by it in more detail?
It sort of feels like the author is a perfect EA machine who exists only to maximize total utility. I’m not getting much in the way of feelings or emotions from him.
Also BTW is there a reason the text switches from 3rd person to 1st person after the prologue?
“It sort of feels like the author is a perfect EA machine who exists only to maximize total utility. I’m not getting much in the way of feelings or emotions from him.”
Do you think you’d find him more relatable and emotional if I strongly emphasized how he is afraid of dying again?
Though maybe trying to bring out points of joy might work better, but that could also make him seem more like what you are talking about.
I’m not really sure, sorry. It’s much easier for me to notice how the story is making me feel than actually working out why, or how to change it… I guess that’s why writing books is harder than reading them 😂
Anyway not meaning to criticize here—you’ve done a fair better job than I could have. Just trying to help here a bit.
I was just checking if you might have introspective knowledge about how you’d respond to that :P, also I think I may have been trying to demonstrate that I am in fact paying attention to and thinking about the criticisms—the important thing is in fact that X didn’t work for you (and didn’t work for several other people in the same way). Isn’t there some saying about product development that when the customer tells you that it isn’t working, they are right. When they tell you how to fix it, they have no idea what they usually don’t know what they are talking about?
The too preachy feeling definitely is something to soften out and try fiddling with.
For what it’s worth, I disagree with Yair’s assessment (in the sense that I felt differently to Yair, not that I’m doubting their feelings on the matter) - there are plenty of much shallower xianxia characters out there. I agree with other people that Isaac adjusts to his circumstances pretty quickly, but I can let that go for the sake of the story, because the character freaking out about the obvious impossibility of all of this doesn’t really add much, especially because your intended audience seems to be somewhat familiar with cultivation novels and isekai already.
I meant that I personally didn’t connect with it, and I’m already pretty sold on much (but not all) of EA.
It sort of feels like the author is a perfect EA machine who exists only to maximize total utility. I’m not getting much in the way of feelings or emotions from him.
Also BTW is there a reason the text switches from 3rd person to 1st person after the prologue?
“It sort of feels like the author is a perfect EA machine who exists only to maximize total utility. I’m not getting much in the way of feelings or emotions from him.”
Do you think you’d find him more relatable and emotional if I strongly emphasized how he is afraid of dying again?
Though maybe trying to bring out points of joy might work better, but that could also make him seem more like what you are talking about.
I’m not really sure, sorry. It’s much easier for me to notice how the story is making me feel than actually working out why, or how to change it… I guess that’s why writing books is harder than reading them 😂
Anyway not meaning to criticize here—you’ve done a fair better job than I could have. Just trying to help here a bit.
I was just checking if you might have introspective knowledge about how you’d respond to that :P, also I think I may have been trying to demonstrate that I am in fact paying attention to and thinking about the criticisms—the important thing is in fact that X didn’t work for you (and didn’t work for several other people in the same way). Isn’t there some saying about product development that when the customer tells you that it isn’t working, they are right. When they tell you how to fix it, they have no idea what they usually don’t know what they are talking about?
The too preachy feeling definitely is something to soften out and try fiddling with.
For what it’s worth, I disagree with Yair’s assessment (in the sense that I felt differently to Yair, not that I’m doubting their feelings on the matter) - there are plenty of much shallower xianxia characters out there. I agree with other people that Isaac adjusts to his circumstances pretty quickly, but I can let that go for the sake of the story, because the character freaking out about the obvious impossibility of all of this doesn’t really add much, especially because your intended audience seems to be somewhat familiar with cultivation novels and isekai already.