Critique for yet another Demon Lord story!

Myewphi

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Here is a link to my story - Demon Days

I really love the mc being a demon lord trope as well as litrpgs but I absolutely hate overpowered MCs, harems, blatant sexism, and a few other things that always go with em. So... I decided to put all my hours designing stories in my head to good use.

I know its kind of arrogant to have my motivation be "ill make this, just better!" but i cant be the only one fed up with these tropes being paired with all the worst parts of the light novel community.

If you feel similarly to me, please help me by pointing out all my mistakes so i can fix them! Well, advice on how to fix em would help too.
 

Nixil

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For some reason I thought I was going to be reading a really unique and refreshing take on the genre, but it was a pretty generic demon lord story. That is totally fine and probably what you set out to do (the demon lord trope minus the things that you said), but at the current stage I can't even tell the difference between your take on the trope and the many demon lord mangas that I have read. But that is fine, the premise doesn't have to be unique to make a good story.
Now this may just be a problem with me (I lost ~50 iq reading machine translations) but I found it really boring to read. So this isn't going to be proper feedback, as I found myself eventually skimming through it, and you don't really need to take what I will say seriously as I didn't properly read through your work.

I started skimming when I realised that it was all just explanations and went straight for the battles. I understand that, yes the explanations might be needed and that this is probably the least interesting part of the story, but the problem is you put it right at the start when you should be selling to the reader why they should read the book. The explanations weren't presented in an interesting way either, rather than a tense do or die situation or the protagonist doing trial and error, showing their dedication and allowing us to empathise with them, they are just given instructions to do it.

The battles themselves were also quite lacklustre. This is probably because their is really no motivation for anything and the people fighting are literal one dimensional cardboard cutouts. This is a byproduct of the way the demon lords were created, I understand that. They have no history, no real sense of purpose, just a single trait/personality given from you. This also applies to the protagonist. The simple solution would be to just introduce them later on when they could have purpose and properly flesh out their personality. Give them a reason to do things.

I honestly also think that they have stayed way to long at the palace? There is no point in keeping them there or even starting them there. What have you accomplished by doing so? You have introduced the system which you can have the protagonist figure it out themselves. You have introduced the demon lord rivals (?) which are currently cardboard cutouts and potentially ruined any tension from the rivals as they are all being used as jokes.

After writing all that I think I just wanted an edgy demon lord and action while this was too lighthearted and heavy on the explanations.
I may do an actual review if I ever read it again and I hope this feedback is okay with you even though I didn't properly read your work.
 

Myewphi

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Oct 2, 2019
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For some reason I thought I was going to be reading a really unique and refreshing take on the genre, but it was a pretty generic demon lord story. That is totally fine and probably what you set out to do (the demon lord trope minus the things that you said), but at the current stage I can't even tell the difference between your take on the trope and the many demon lord mangas that I have read. But that is fine, the premise doesn't have to be unique to make a good story.
Now this may just be a problem with me (I lost ~50 iq reading machine translations) but I found it really boring to read. So this isn't going to be proper feedback, as I found myself eventually skimming through it, and you don't really need to take what I will say seriously as I didn't properly read through your work.

I started skimming when I realised that it was all just explanations and went straight for the battles. I understand that, yes the explanations might be needed and that this is probably the least interesting part of the story, but the problem is you put it right at the start when you should be selling to the reader why they should read the book. The explanations weren't presented in an interesting way either, rather than a tense do or die situation or the protagonist doing trial and error, showing their dedication and allowing us to empathise with them, they are just given instructions to do it.

The battles themselves were also quite lacklustre. This is probably because their is really no motivation for anything and the people fighting are literal one dimensional cardboard cutouts. This is a byproduct of the way the demon lords were created, I understand that. They have no history, no real sense of purpose, just a single trait/personality given from you. This also applies to the protagonist. The simple solution would be to just introduce them later on when they could have purpose and properly flesh out their personality. Give them a reason to do things.

I honestly also think that they have stayed way to long at the palace? There is no point in keeping them there or even starting them there. What have you accomplished by doing so? You have introduced the system which you can have the protagonist figure it out themselves. You have introduced the demon lord rivals (?) which are currently cardboard cutouts and potentially ruined any tension from the rivals as they are all being used as jokes.

After writing all that I think I just wanted an edgy demon lord and action while this was too lighthearted and heavy on the explanations.
I may do an actual review if I ever read it again and I hope this feedback is okay with you even though I didn't properly read your work.

I really appreciate the feedback. Partly I think this might not be your kind of story as I was planning on a somewhat slower paced and mildly lighthearted beginning, that and I personally like reading stories with lots of explanations so there will be those no matter what.

That being said I fully agree that the explanations are rather lackluster and the personalities could use a lot of work. The rivals do have a lot to their personalities that ive written in my notes, but so far the mc has only really gotten to see a very small part of them so only their most obvious traits are visible (that and I still need to get better at really showing a characters personality at all).

Thank you for the long criticism as it definitely helps point out where the story is struggling most. One thing I also need to do is find a way to mention that the story is more lighthearted and still a rather common take on the genre as well, so that people know what to expect better in the future. While the story is planned to get heavier in the future as the MC starts to question certain things that were taught to him that he just blindly accepted, it will likely get serious at a rather slow rate.
 

Assurbanipal_II

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I have never met any Demon Lords with an actual back bone worth the name. They are too soft, too nice, too squishy, too dodgy, and the majority of them just talk no bite. Stalin would turn in his grave if these people are most evil bunch the world has to offer.
 

Myewphi

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I have never met any Demon Lords with an actual back bone worth the name. They are too soft, too nice, too squishy, too dodgy, and the majority of them just talk no bite. Stalin would turn in his grave if these people are most evil bunch the world has to offer.
lmao demons in the universe my world takes place in arent based around being evil, and demon lords as well arent meant to be inherently evil
 

Assurbanipal_II

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lmao demons in the universe my world takes place in arent based around being evil, and demon lords as well arent meant to be inherently evil

So, what are they then? Glorified rulers of a race called demons? Anyway, the point is that they have no spine and lack a lot of backstabbiness for that as well.
 

Myewphi

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So, what are they then? Glorified rulers of a race called demons? Anyway, the point is that they have no spine and lack a lot of backstabbiness for that as well.
You are misunderstanding what they are by a lot. Please read the story before giving critiques here :/
 

Assurbanipal_II

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You are misunderstanding what they are by a lot. Please read the story before giving critiques here :/

I am not commenting about your story, I am just pointing out common tropes that need improvement like you asked.
 

Myewphi

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I am not commenting about your story, I am just pointing out common tropes that need improvement like you asked.
ohhh I see i think you slightly misunderstood what I was asking for, sorry bout the miscommunication
 
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