So... in light of the latest 2.5 review, and after doing lots of thinking, I've decided to edit the early arcs of the story. It might take a while. The reason I deleted the chapters is because it's easier to just reupload them after the edits I made. Also because I'm going to stockpile; the deleted chapters will count towards that stockpile and reduce the amount of chapters I have to write. That means you don't have to wait as long before I start posting again.

It's not like I'm taking the review at face value, (although it does have very good points) but also because it made me realize I've been doing this all wrong. I've been so excited to finally be able to write again that I just wrote whatever I wanted without thinking about the audience. The story ended up trying to become too many things at once, and failing with all of them. I'm fixing that.

In a way, I'm lucky the review came so early in the story's conception. There really isn't that much to lose. Maybe I'm overreacting over a single review. But getting a 2.5 stars review so early, especially since its about the beginning (arguably the most important part of a story), I'm inclined to take it to heart.

Here is the changes I'm planning to make to the story.

>Shorter chapter lengths. I'm trimming a lot of words involving worldbuilding, characterization, exposition and descriptions. Basically, there will be less show and more tell (gasp! it's counterintuitive, I know). Fiction with shorter chapter lengths seem to fare better here, so that's another reason. My target words/chapter used to be 3.5k. Future chapters might have closer to 2.5k, more or less.

>Removal of the "Future Haya" voice and a lot of the foreshadowing elements. This just breaks immersion, honestly. The review is right about that.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

>The style will be more concise and straight-forward. No more attempts at literary, and much less metrical writing in the future. This is going to be a prose novel. (Its stupid to think I could mix styles like that, or to think I could write literary in the first place. I love literary, I love the emotions it brings, but it was arrogant of me to think I could write them when I'm not even a native English speaker. I'm just besmirching the genre with my attempt, so sorry about that.)

>Faster pace and progression. Unfortunately, this means I'm also scrapping a big chunk of plot out of the story. I have already plotted up to arcs 2 & 3, but with this change I'm removing them from the story entirely. This is the biggest reason why the edits might take a while--it's not just the chapters I'm currently writing and have already written, but future chapters as well.

>Cover art. I think the review is spot-on about this: my cover art is misleading. I don't know how I'm going to fix this yet, might even have to reactivate that Creative Cloud license and do it myself. This is last on my priority, and I'm going to work on it only after I've finished stockpiling chapters.

I don't know if I can give you a timetable. I'm planning to stockpile chapters, maybe some 40+? I don't know. Might take weeks or even months.

As an apology, here is an old sketch of Haya I did back in 2019.

[https://ibb.co/HnRxS60]

[https://i.ibb.co/86GdCqJ/sketch-Fahaya.png]

Also of some other characters that haven't made an appearance.

[https://i.ibb.co/gDf1kRM/sketch-Mel.png] [https://i.ibb.co/CbtLpN7/sketch-Latasha.png]

If you have any suggestions or questions, feel free to comment below or PM me. So sorry.