@MultipleChoice, so I finished Book 2 a few minutes ago and I decided to put my two cents here, as a fan and as someone who’d like to put his thoughts in paper. WARNING: This does contain spoilers for Book 2. It’s also long.
I must say, the technique you use as you write only seems to improve. The banter is interesting, none of the dialogue feels spaced, all the characters talk of relevant, important things, to the plot and to themselves.
And speaking of the characters in Book 2, I’ll say that as much as I didn’t like Basho in the beginning, he did grow on me, and I would apply that to making my ronin write poetry with him. I didn’t feel like a character establishing moment, but at the same time it fleshed out the relationship between the two. Without it, I’d probably think he was a bore, so seeing more of that in the future might be nice.
As for other characters, you do seem to be getting the voice thing very well. Each of them feels unique amongst themselves and I can make up their main characteristics. I can feel the differences between the group, is what I’m saying. And, the way I see it, those differences are what the makes the conflict interesting, Take Masami’s idealism with the MC’s pragmatism as an example of why that worked well with me (but that’s a thing more common to Book 1, and since we’re talking about Book 2, I’ll change the subject). And the Baron worked well, despite not seeing much of him, he did remain an interesting character.
Now, as I have mst of stuff I liked out of the way, I’d like to touch upon the ones I thought might have been better, since contructive criticism.
The Momoko subplot, actually, could have had more nuance. What I mean by that is, while I think Momoko is interesting, and I have been led to believe that she would have a nice dynamic with the protagonist, I also don’t really know a lot about her. And while choosing to have her leave or make her stay is probably the most thought I put on the book, I just didn’t really know her enough as I did Hatch or Toshie. She was a stranger. I don’t know, maybe that was supposed to feel like that. But a nice way to fix this is putting a few moments between the MC, characters, and their defining moments. If I had seen more of Momoko, maybe the choice could have had more impact with me.
And, this might be (and is, kinda) a small thing, but I think you should try somthing other than cliffhangers in Book 3. They work, yes, and this one did follow your article on your website to the latter. But I think there are better endings. This one felt like a punch. I think that, if you managed to finish the conflict begun in each respective book, you could make newer endings that can do things cliffhangers can’t
So, that’s all I could muster for now. Good writing technique, although the way the plot is conducted is questionable. But all in all, it’s a good CoG, unique and good in many ways, and you should feel proud. And considering how your last attempts went, I think you only have room to improve now. And I’ll be looking forward forward to see our favorite ronin’s return.
