OLN: The Devil's Spice

Project of creative fiction that can be related to light novels or of an original nature.

Moderators: Fringe Security Bureau, Senior Editors, Senior Translators, Alt. Language Translator/Editor, Executive Council, Project Translators, Project Editors

User avatar
Kanda Hikaru
Devoted Haruhiist
Posts: 51
Joined: Sat Sep 20, 2014 5:18 pm
Favourite Light Novel: Tsukumodo Antique Shop

Re: OLN: The Devil's Spice

Post by Kanda Hikaru »

I am posting a review I received from a different forum here. I will keep the reviewer's handle anonymous because I have not received his permission to repost this. It is a fantastic and detailed review. It really fired me up. I am currently implementing the changes he suggested to volume 1.
Spoiler! :
So, I finished it just now.

First things first - great job. I'm super impressed at what you've done and it was a lot of fun to read.
The thing I enjoyed the most was the characters and interactions between them. You really nailed the character personalities and the dialog is a blast.

Other immediate impressions:
Nooooo! Kureha! You Itsuki! I didn't see this coming and thought you handled this fantastically. Each character's reactions turned out very interesting.
Did Ageha really go kill that one guy in Akiba dressed as Ichigo (Bleach)? I wasn't exactly sure who he was supposed to be because you didn't describe the costume enough, but this was hilarious.
Great job with the action scenes. I often have a hard time following what is going on in fights, but most of the time I could understand what you were getting across with the action flow.
You included some "typical harem moments" but with your own unique twist, which I thought was great. The comedy moments and dialog are good and actually funny.


Now for the negative.
I feel like some of my criticism might come off as a little harsh, so try not to take it the wrong way. Keep in mind that overall I really liked it. None of this is saying you did a bad job or anything, just writing a novel is a ton of work and needs a lot of iteration.

My number 1 complaint, far and above anything else, is the editing.

I really struggled through chapter 1 and 2 until I was able to just turn off my inner editor and read the story without worrying about that stuff. It still kept popping back up throughout the novel and bothering me, though.

There were a lot of instances of incorrect tense usage ("has" instead of "had" was the worst).

While your word choice was pretty good most of the time, sometimes it was very confusing (sorry, no examples off the top of my head).

There is some unnatural dialog in a few places.

The whole thing really needs at least another edit pass, if not more.

Other complaints:
You left me wondering what ARMS stood for for a very long time (like ch 3 or so?). Some lines might have been unintentionally funny. Like in chapter 1, "I hope he doesn't have any ARMS." I don't think you needed to explain the acronym so early, but a short mention of it being cybernetic enhancements would have helped a lot. You wouldn't want to do the explanation in Ageha's thought line, but maybe an earlier line describing Ageha taking advantage of his own ARMS would have been good.
My confusion over ARMS was only surpassed by me wondering what NGC stood for until the epilogue. Going back, it looks like you used the full name in chapter 1, but you didn't use the acronym at the same time! Maybe other people reading it didn't have this problem, but I was pretty confused. A simple "Nikdaou Group of Companies (NGC)" might have solved this issue.
Early on, there is the stuff with the Excell company, but later you started calling it Exceed? Was this just an error or is it 2 separate companies? I was confused.

In a few places, the dialog got confusing. I've noticed a lot of LNs do this and I don't like it in those either. Most of the time I could follow, or count back and see who said what, but sometimes in the 3 person conversations I didn't know who said a line. It also gets confusing when someone says something twice in a row. I only had this problem like 3-4 times, so it wasn't too bad. You don't want to add in too many things to break the dialog, so I understand what you were doing. The back and forth between Kaika and Ageha, for example, is well served without anything extra.

I was pretty confused by the brothers talking about Saionji. Maybe I missed something but didn't think Saya was supposed to be anyone important in the company. Then it turns out she's on the board? This was really confusing for me as I thought she was just some random person that Kaika picked up as her butler.

Saya's art - it looks like you basically copied Tokyo Ghoul's Touka. The hairstyle is so similar that I wouldn't be surprised if you said you traced it. Also, this is my personal preference, but the hair covering one eye thing just looks dumb to me. All that said, I did like her character.

When they're in the museum vent, it wasn't clear why Saya couldn't just crawl a little further along to let Ageha do his thing. This could be easily resolved with a line mentioning that the vent ended here, or something, making it impractical to back out.
I don't know french or fancy dining terms. It would be great to have some notes or something at the end of a chapter so I don't have to go look up what primo and secondo or cucina means. The food terms were also all completely lost on me. This wasn't a big deal, though.

Other random thoughts:
I can't believe you didn't have a picture of naked Kaika barely covered by random things in the scene. You really let your readers down here
You should have a link with all of the illustrations.
On the illustrations, I always like illustrations, and yours weren't bad. I wouldn't say they're great, though. I love the cover.


*Scrolls up* Man this is a lot of feedback. Hope this is what you wanted from my review.
Overall, again, fantastic job. I really enjoyed it and am looking forward to volume 2!

Things I think would be neat to expand upon in the future:
Ageha's grandfather/family
The kids from the flashback in the present day
What made Ageha into a crazy murderer
Fleshing out the setting a more

I think you have a lot of potential with what you've set up here.
oyabun
Reader
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Sep 22, 2014 6:39 am
Favourite Light Novel:

Re: OLN: The Devil's Spice

Post by oyabun »

Good review, pretty much detailed and spot on. I agree on both positive and the negative comments.
User avatar
Kanda Hikaru
Devoted Haruhiist
Posts: 51
Joined: Sat Sep 20, 2014 5:18 pm
Favourite Light Novel: Tsukumodo Antique Shop

Re: OLN: The Devil's Spice

Post by Kanda Hikaru »

Great news!

The mysterious reviewer has become my editor! After he did a pilot edit of the first chapter, I was so impressed by his work that I invited him to edit the rest of volume one. He accepted, so the front page will be updated to include his name as soon as he has decided on a pen name.

Chapter one is already edited. The rest of the chapters will be updated as soon as we have worked through his edits.

I'm ecstatic that someone actually liked my work enough to offer to be an editor and for free at that. This should allow me to focus on the 2nd volume, which I plan to start writing this weekend. It will take a long time before I can publish it though. I just wanted to give everyone a heads up that a volume 2 is indeed coming, and volume 3 is firm.
User avatar
Kanda Hikaru
Devoted Haruhiist
Posts: 51
Joined: Sat Sep 20, 2014 5:18 pm
Favourite Light Novel: Tsukumodo Antique Shop

Re: OLN: The Devil's Spice

Post by Kanda Hikaru »

I have updated the first post of this topic to reflect all the links in the blog for ease of access.

My editor has already finished editing chapters 1 and 2 and is currently working on 3. His work is fantastic. The chapters he has edited read much better than before, and parts that were too cryptic or confusing were rewritten for clarity. His help made me realize how critical an editor is for a writer. Even though I could edit someone else's work, I definitely could not do a satisfactory job editing my own.

I have completed writing chapter 1 of the second volume, but like volume 1, I will release the entire book at once. This is because I find myself changing a lot of stuff in the earlier chapters as I write the story.
User avatar
Kanda Hikaru
Devoted Haruhiist
Posts: 51
Joined: Sat Sep 20, 2014 5:18 pm
Favourite Light Novel: Tsukumodo Antique Shop

Re: OLN: The Devil's Spice

Post by Kanda Hikaru »

Chapter 3 has been edited!

I am starting on the 3rd chapter for volume 2.
User avatar
Kanda Hikaru
Devoted Haruhiist
Posts: 51
Joined: Sat Sep 20, 2014 5:18 pm
Favourite Light Novel: Tsukumodo Antique Shop

Re: OLN: The Devil's Spice

Post by Kanda Hikaru »

Chapters 4, 5, and 6 have been edited!

I am now on the 6th chapter of volume 2. It is around the 2/5s mark for this volume.
caparo
Vice Commander Itsuki
Posts: 48
Joined: Sun Feb 23, 2014 9:26 pm
Favourite Light Novel:

Re: OLN: The Devil's Spice

Post by caparo »

Hi. Just posting here to say I finally finished reading volume 1. It was a fantastic read! Your writing flows naturally and I like your illustrations.

A minor complaint: in the first chapter, I was confused about what NGC stand for when I first saw the acronym because Nikdaou Group of Companies wasn't written anywhere in that chapter. It was only after reading chapter 3 that I understood what it meant.

What I like the most was your characters. You did a great job in developing them and their interactions were fun to read.

Btw will the second volume have 15 chapters like the first volume?
User avatar
Kanda Hikaru
Devoted Haruhiist
Posts: 51
Joined: Sat Sep 20, 2014 5:18 pm
Favourite Light Novel: Tsukumodo Antique Shop

Re: OLN: The Devil's Spice

Post by Kanda Hikaru »

Thank you for reading the entire thing! Your comments really fired me up. I will devote even more energy to volume 2!

About NGC, my editor told me that it was not necessary to explain what it was until chapter 3, where it suddenly became really important to know. According to him, the original version, which had the full name near the first mention of the acronym, felt like it was info dumping way too early. I agreed and moved it.

Volume 2 is planned to have 13 chapters and an epilogue. It will be roughly about the same length in terms of word count, though. It will still be quite a while before I upload it. I am halfway through writing it now after finishing chapter 7 yesterday. After writing all the chapters, I will do my personal edit pass to make sure things make logical sense. A lot of rewriting will happen in that phase. Afterwards, I will start doing the illustrations as my editor, assuming he still wants to continue editing, works on the chapters one by one. Once the illustrations and edits are done for a specific chapter, I will upload it to the blog and post it here.

I am planning a more aggressive advertising campaign for the novel after all the volume 1 chapters have been edited. I think I will post it in chatrooms and other forums. This still does not change my goal of having this on the Baka-Tsuki front page, though.

EDIT:

Chapter 01 has been updated to incorporate your suggestion.

I have also updated the synopsis so that it reveals more of the content of the light novel.
User avatar
Kanda Hikaru
Devoted Haruhiist
Posts: 51
Joined: Sat Sep 20, 2014 5:18 pm
Favourite Light Novel: Tsukumodo Antique Shop

Re: OLN: The Devil's Spice

Post by Kanda Hikaru »

Chapter 09 of Volume 1 has been edited!

No real progress for volume 2 due to abnormal workload and illness.
User avatar
Kanda Hikaru
Devoted Haruhiist
Posts: 51
Joined: Sat Sep 20, 2014 5:18 pm
Favourite Light Novel: Tsukumodo Antique Shop

Re: OLN: The Devil's Spice

Post by Kanda Hikaru »

Volume 1 Chapters 10 and 11 have been edited!

I went on a roll with volume 2 and just finished chapter 11. I am now neck and neck with my editor, who is almost done with editing chapter 12.
User avatar
Kanda Hikaru
Devoted Haruhiist
Posts: 51
Joined: Sat Sep 20, 2014 5:18 pm
Favourite Light Novel: Tsukumodo Antique Shop

Re: OLN: The Devil's Spice

Post by Kanda Hikaru »

Volume 1 chapter 12 has been edited!

And in other news, I have already completed the first draft of volume 2!!! It has the same number of chapters and is only 600 words longer, but that difference may get reduced as I do my first edit pass. I will hand it off to my editor after that and start working on my illustrations.
User avatar
Kanda Hikaru
Devoted Haruhiist
Posts: 51
Joined: Sat Sep 20, 2014 5:18 pm
Favourite Light Novel: Tsukumodo Antique Shop

Re: OLN: The Devil's Spice

Post by Kanda Hikaru »

Great news!

Volume one is now fully edited! I will now be more aggressive in advertising it in other sites.

Many thanks to my amazing editor, Kyle Tolray, for fixing up the mess I made in volume one. I hope he's (you're, if you get to read this) willing to continue editing the succeeding volumes.

I have finished the initial edit of chapter 6, volume two. I am also currently working on the illustrations for the new volume. Here is the cover page for it. It has mild spoilers, but nothing important.
User avatar
Kanda Hikaru
Devoted Haruhiist
Posts: 51
Joined: Sat Sep 20, 2014 5:18 pm
Favourite Light Novel: Tsukumodo Antique Shop

Re: OLN: The Devil's Spice

Post by Kanda Hikaru »

PDF and Wattpad links for volume 1 are now available here and in the first post!
User avatar
Shigure
Astral Realm

Re: OLN: The Devil's Spice

Post by Shigure »

So far, I've read only Chapter One, but I do intend on reading more when I have time. Seriously, I have to finish my first chapter and read yours in order to relax or maybe try and give some advice or maybe constructive critism. If I can, that is!

So far, I've found Kaika to be quite the nice character, scheming and planning her father's death coldly - and yet apparently having quite human, therefore biased reasons. She smiling, covered in blood was a rather delightful (?) scene, really.

As I've read just a bit, I can't really give you advice, but then again, I do intend on reading more.
User avatar
Ophis
Kyonist
Posts: 14
Joined: Wed Apr 30, 2014 9:17 pm
Favourite Light Novel:

Re: OLN: The Devil's Spice

Post by Ophis »

The premise of this got me fairly interested. The feedback from the guys above seems positive too but, that tragedy tag puts me really off.
DON'T.LIKE.IT! :evil:

Well, I'll see if I can give a try later. :wink:
I, appear from the closet. Ehem.
Post Reply

Return to “Creative works”