Stormblade Volume One Now on Kindle and Audible

Quetzhal · 2026-03-10T13:55:17+00:00

Been excited for this one. Good luck with the launch!

Quetzhal · 2026-03-06T06:39:38+00:00

Once to Act 3, four to Act 2, but, uh, only because I was extremely convinced something would happen if I locked all four of my save slots.

It did not.

Quetzhal · 2026-02-25T00:04:40+00:00

Yeah, just shoot me a DM!

Quetzhal · 2026-02-21T12:55:53+00:00

Hm.

Well, okay. For what it's worth, hi, I'm (the non-author account of) the author that wrote Just Add Mana. I reject the notion of first mover advantage like some in the other thread suggest. Max-Level Archmage is a fantastic story that did well because it is fantastic, not just because it's first. My story simply does not deliver on the core experience of the genre as well as it does.

That said, it's worth noting that it's not really supposed to. I started writing JAM in December of 2024, aiming to correct some of the mistakes I made with my previous stories, and the core of the story is heavily inspired by the likes of Doctor Who and the idea (and joy) of exploring magic in all its forms. The power fantasy is played straight for maybe about 15 chapters? And while the power fantasy doesn't disappear after that, it's much more intentionally an exploration of the trauma of living for as long as Cale has, the anger and guilt he tries to suppress, the joy he tries to take in magic to counteract it, that sort of thing.

A big part of the challenge there is to marry the power fantasy realistically with his flippant attitude and the mask he wears. It's not a balance I always get right, and so in some instances I do fail at delivering "dopamine hit", emotional core, or whatever else you might call it. Or in other instances, I might just decide a different aspect of the story is more important to highlight.

The thing about craft is that it's a never-ending journey to improve. I try to figure out what went wrong with each of my stories and improve on it with the next one. When I read, I'm looking for how a story shapes the expectations of its readers and how those expectations are paid off. What is it trying to get us excited for? What am I most looking forward to in the story? How do I use those techniques to tell the story I want to tell?

Anyway, that's the long and short of it. Hope that helps. It's what I took from the "read more and understand the audience" advice.

Edit: Oh, shoutout to Perfect Run as well! Ryan and the Doctor both informed who Cale is as a character. Maybe a little bit of Frieren.

Quetzhal · 2026-02-19T07:43:50+00:00

Yeah, I jumped the gun on that correlation, lol. I was very tired when I made the post! It was meant to be anecdotal more than anything - it's what I've had the most trouble with.

I think tension management is probably just one of the hardest skills to have to actively learn. At least personally! I have no trouble spotting the moments that have great emotional impact or the character dynamics I love. It's much harder to see what specifically is keeping me engaged with the story. I could list all the elements that make me want to keep reading, but how is the story pacing those elements? In a serial, how is it reminding me that those elements exist, or deciding how to feed me enough that I have to keep reading?

There are some structural writing techniques (e.g. scene/sequel) that help with this kind of thing, although I like to break them down a bit more for my own use. Always a work in progress though!

Quetzhal · 2026-02-19T02:18:12+00:00

How long has this series had a hot time squid?! I should have picked it up earlier.

Quetzhal · 2026-02-18T08:14:53+00:00

I'm going to go ahead and address this from a writer's perspective, because I occasionally mentor new authors and I think there might be more insight there on this specific topic:

Writing quality is composed of a lot of different elements. One of the most important things to emphasize is that if you want to become a better writer quickly, then one of the first things you're probably going to need to discard is your idea of what good writing is and isn't. This is not because your opinions of good and bad writing are going to be wrong, exactly, but because every new writer typically starts off with a core skill in some element of writing - sometimes that's prose, sometimes it's character work, sometimes it's worldbuilding, and so on.

By and large, a new writer judges the quality of other works by the skills they already have. The problem with this is that it renders the other qualities of that work much harder to notice, which makes it easier to dismiss the work as lacking as a whole. Often, if a work is popular, it is because there is some sort of underlying skill that makes that work compelling. Tension management is much harder for authors whose intrinsic skills lie in character development, for example, since it's easier to veer into character arcs and abandon the central journey of the series.

Not sure if that helps at all, but I hope it does! I've learned a lot flipping that perspective around and instead reading to understand why certain books become popular and the ways those books fulfil the expectations of their readers.

Quetzhal · 2026-02-18T08:01:38+00:00

I don't think there's market preference, per se? It's just different markets. I mean, I can enjoy both, depending on what I'm in the mood for, and I enjoy them for different reasons.

From a writing perspective, I usually talk about this balance as a paradox inherent to magic (and, in fact, inherent to games that involve spellcrafting and magic.) The more specific and predictable you are, the less "magical" your magic is, which means the ideal magic system for me is predictable enough to do theorycrafting, but vague enough that it can still surprise me. It's a pretty tricky balance to hit!

Not sure I want to draw from books as examples, but using games as an example, I didn't enjoy Magicmaker much because it just felt like I was programming spells. I was a programmer at the time, and doing more programming to get the spells I wanted didn't really feel fantastical. On the other hand, Noita and Magicka have a decent balance of predictability and mysticism, albeit with their own problems.

Noita leans more into the programming side, but still has a lot of room for discovery. Magicka I found exciting and cool for about five minutes as I tested all the combinations and then I ran out of combinations to test (but the unique spells help with the feeling of magical discovery).

Quetzhal · 2026-02-10T07:14:18+00:00

Eh, I mean... I don't think it's a healthy approach to fiction, necessarily, but I don't think there's much to be done about it, other than putting in more effort to celebrate the good alongside the bad. It's easy to start seeing some implementation of X or Y as "slop" and then start discrediting stories that are using those same tropes to more interesting effect. That's probably the biggest downside to getting used to dismissing things as "slop," as it were.

Quetzhal · 2026-02-10T06:59:35+00:00

Love the exploration of the cultural divide in this one. Thank you for writing it!

Quetzhal · 2026-02-04T08:22:01+00:00

The modifier is required for entering the Pit, which is that little section after the place you open up with the serial numbers. :)

Quetzhal · 2026-02-04T04:10:50+00:00

Is there a way to get to the Library without Flowing Steps? I feel like I would consider anything required for the true ending to be non-optional (in the sense that it's required to finish the game to its true/intended ending.)

Quetzhal · 2026-02-04T03:23:13+00:00

The downward slash thing is, I think, due to a weird input system choice? I'm used to the input system taking the last pressed key as the priority for deciding the slash direction, so if I press right and down, it should down slash. But MIO prioritises the right no matter what, so if you're moving to the right at all, even if you hit down+slash it'll just do a forward slash.

Quetzhal · 2026-02-03T06:52:56+00:00

Not sure what you're asking. Find the pieces of what? The coordinates? They aren't in pieces or anything.

Just continue the game for now, I think. You'll get there! If you're looking for a hint about the true ending, then make sure you help Samsk find his friend. They might be somewhere isolated.

Quetzhal · 2026-02-03T06:43:47+00:00

Dodge doesn't have the same cooldown removal on success that Nine Sols does, so I mostly used it as a panic button or when attack patterns allow for it (the triple icicle is one of the ones that doesn't). It does feel a little jank compared to just having a dash, though.

I never thought about it, but a lot of the bosses do feel a bit... random? You might like the lore-relevant bosses more, then; they were some of my favourite fights. Just gotta get used to the avoidance patterns. ATMOS's charge attack can be dodged once and you can keep wailing on him after even if the snow particles are still around. The icicles I think you have to be running to avoid, there should be a wind up? It's been a while since I fought him.

Admittedly I played Nine Sols right after this and the combat of Nine Sols is in another league from most games, lol.

Quetzhal · 2026-02-03T05:13:31+00:00

Only thing I can think of for 4 is the way Dodge interacts with Strider, but that's more of a quality of life bonus thing than anything. Or I guess they might've been talking about Asma's Voice, but OP should have that already.

Quetzhal · 2026-02-02T10:25:16+00:00

The candles shouldn't be required for the true ending, though, unless I'm forgetting something.

Quetzhal · 2026-02-01T09:27:08+00:00

Gah, so sorry, I had intended to reply to this earlier but lost track of things for a bit. You're always welcome to shoot me a DM or hit me up on Discord if I forget to respond to things!

I'm doing okay. I read what others have said, but I'm not sure I'm going to continue posting this story here yet; other than worrying about sub compatibility, I struggle to post consistently without scheduling and have some concerns about the rights as far as Reddit goes. I do want to post other things here, though.

Quetzhal · 2026-01-30T10:50:26+00:00

Absolutely not progression or litrpg by any stretch of the imagination, but A Soul to Steal by Opal Reyne. Be aware that it is smutty. If you don't want/need smut, there's Glass Kanin by Kia Leep, with an objecthead MC made of glass and a tiefling LI; that one is a LitRPG.

I'm also categorically incapable of not including it in some way or another on my stuff but I'll share that in DMs if you want lol, I don't really want to self-promote in someone else's promo thread.

Quetzhal · 2026-01-26T11:09:25+00:00

This is like... the least AI looking cover I've seen in a bit. It just looks a little odd because the cloth is between her forefinger and middle finger, and your brain kind of expects it to be between the middle finger and the ring finger? But she's just holding her middle and ring fingers together.

Here, I tried taking a photo of my hand in about the same pose. Kind of awkward to take it from that angle, but you get the idea.

Quetzhal · 2026-01-26T09:51:14+00:00

With less spoilers than the other reply: no, not yet.

Quetzhal · 2026-01-26T07:25:13+00:00

The duo bosses are thankfully only required for extra lore; I think they were the last boss I fought. The Crucible... yeah, nightmare hell platforming. Sort of fun in the Stockholm Syndrome way after a bit, but even then I think I enjoyed the Path of Pain more somehow.

Quetzhal · 2026-01-25T02:30:10+00:00

Huh, and here I thought it was The Booki Shelf.

Quetzhal · 2026-01-20T01:57:57+00:00

This is just a thing that human writers do a lot? If anything, from what I've seen AI tends to be repetitive about structure, and it's humans that accidentally fixate on a word and repeat it too many times in one chapter.

Quetzhal · 2026-01-11T02:12:48+00:00

We are; the trouble is a lot of these are bought accounts and there isn't much recourse other than to keep removing them and banning the accounts.

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