I've mentioned before that I never expected Master of the Tutorial to be much of anything. It was this random idea that I had put on a my list of ideas to explore later, if perhaps I needed a new project to work on or something to break out of a writer's block by just thinking about something else. When it started receiving traffic beyond anything I've written and released on Royalroad before, I was shocked. I had a little success and there were some people that wanted to know what was going on with Tess. Granted, there was a number of harsher criticisms being thrown at Master of the Tutorial at that initial point as well. Those were... difficult to stomach at first. I've never proclaimed to be a great writer and Tess's story was not exactly bringing something entirely new. Perhaps that was why it sometimes felt difficult to continue. I was showing inadequacy and having it pointed out killed a lot of motivation.
If I had to point to the greatest failure as the writer of Tutorial that this project has shown me, it would probably be not having a thorough plan for my story's arc. It was mentioned that the invasion and multiverse aspect felt like a weird turn from where the story had seemed to be going. Honestly, that was actually more planned out than everything from the beginning until the demon lord fight. Yet, that plan was more of a multi-chapter outline that vaguely kept me on the route to the end. There was actually a lot that got cut as I went along as it just didn't fit with how the story progressed as I fleshed it out verses what the outline detailed. For example, Oena was supposed to originally join Tess and Charles in bringing down Chariel, but it just made no sense for her to be there.
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The other big flaw that a lot have mentioned were the cast of side characters that came and went. Yea, I probably could have made the story work a lot better had I developed a core group and gone from there, but to me that was the pitfall of making Tess the ultimate swiss army knife. If she could do anything I needed, then I had no reason to keep people close to her. Instead, it became interactions to try and show how she was still trying to remain connected to others or overcome her weaknesses. Surface level interactions? Yea, I admit it, not the best.
There won't really be new content here for Master of the Tutorial. Maybe the occasional new side story. Instead, any 'new' content will be rereleases of chapters as I slowly work out the flaws in my writing and fix things up. The story itself isn't going to change through this, though some details might over time. There's also not going to be a timeline for this, as this work will become a side project.
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What's Next?
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If you haven't already, check out the poll above regarding what's next. It's going to remain open until the end of 2024, as what's next won't start until next year. So far, it's looking like the Dog Isekai is going to be the next release. I'll make sure to post here when the first chapter drops so you can easily find it.
I'm going to take some of the lessons I've learned from Tutorial and apply them to the next release. Having a more thoughtful plan is chief among these. My goal is to continue to improve my writing, and if I happen to convey that through an interesting story, then that's great. I also hope that I'll be able to have a greater backlog of chapters so that I might have more frequent releases once again. And while I'm not saying that there will be a donation option come future releases if you think I'm worth the investment, I haven't ruled out the possibility either.