Hello there! So I am going to end this series here (for now). I don’t know if anyone read the author notes but in one of them I said I noticed some mistakes in my work, so I wished to go back and fix them.

  Well, I went back and found that this book is practically built on mistakes. So you can think of this afterword as a review from the author, if you wish :) (PS, staying in character I am just putting raw thoughts down here, almost no editing at all done XD)

  I will get the short positive out the way first:

  I believe that my character's voice is distinct, and the major characters are interesting. Perhaps that is in my head but I think they are consistent in the broad strokes, that the arguments between the two main characters are entertaining and serve a purpose to the narrative and plot. For the antagonists, the one I am most proud of is Colonel Walker. I think I nailed the power dynamics when he was speaking to people and showed that he was still a somewhat good dude.

  NOW ONTO THE FUN STUFF:

  I shall get the big, non technical parts of writing out the way first. As I was going over my work, I realized that I did not utilize chatgpt correctly. Certain passages I thought I only fixed the spelling mistakes on had been changed in such a way that the story itself was compromised.

  You might ask yourself why I used chatgpt, which is an excellent question dear reader. You see I have never done anything like this before, so I knew my writing was going to be bad.

  I thought chatgpt would make my writing go from bad to mediocre, which I would have been happy with. It uh, did not do that. "but what about just fixing it in editing?" what an excellent question! And that leads me to the second large mistake I made when I wrote this book: getting too fixated on numbers, and releasing ALL of my catalogue far too quickly.

  I have written 200 000 words, which I am very proud of. However I wrote the first 100 000 in about two months, actually did some editing on it before I started releasing… and I liked the funny numbers going up. So over the course of the first month of release, I released EVERY single chapter of my back catalogue. (50 chapters)

  Which turned out to be stupid idea. Who knew?

  I will not blame chatgpt for my mistakes although I will NOT be using it in the future for my writing. I have graduated from it I think XD. I will blame my bad choices for the rest of my work on my decision to release every chapter when it wasn't ready because from then on I was just trying to keep up with the schedule I set myself (three chapters a week). So two months to write 100 000 words to four months to write the next 100 000 words.

  And that meant most, (strong argument to be made for ALL) my chapters were not edited correctly. This impacted… every level of my writing, from scope, plot, character beats and inconsistencies etc (i even found EGREGIOUS spelling mistakes in my earlier chapters)

  So the lessons I have learned from the mistakes above are:

  Don't get overexcited just because of some early engagement. You made a back catalogue for a reason, use it.

  EDITING WILL SAVE A SHIT PIECE OF WORK! When I first went over my earlier chapters, editing really did make a difference, and I think it could have truly made my book far better than where it currently stands.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  DON'T USE CHATGPT! It made my writing go from bad to egregious, the exact opposite of what it was meant to do. Trust thyself, trust the process.

  So ill be going into spoilers now for structure and that kind of thing, so if you want to skip it go ahead :)

  As I said before, I think my characters are distinct and interesting, which I stand by. I also said they were consistent in the broad strokes… which is accurate, but it's the small details I kind of messed up.

  So the problems I messed up with character are: (just using examples to show you what I mean)

  The recent match between Sofia and Boris. If you read my book you can see I have a tendency to default my antagonists to cold, edgy arseholes on a power trip. I unfortunately made that same mistake with Boris before the match started, which is not what his character is like. He is loud, in your face and violent so him being quiet and menacing doesn’t really suit him.

  (I also did the same when he was sitting across from Sofia at the dinner scene, but that was a less noticeable example since he didnt engage with her for that long)

  I said earlier that the arguments between Sofia and Boris were entertaining and drove the plot forward, which I do think is true… except for their very first argument. XD

  Boris’s beating was just found out by a character in power who was bothered by it and Sofia was in the room as Boris recounted what happened, and when Sofia gets outside she is angry with him because he lied about his name. Sure the argument is entertaining, but it's so out of nowhere it makes no sense for her character which is a bit disappointing.

  The biggest mistake in terms of character was showing off Llorona so early. I should have kept Colonel Walker as the major antagonist rather than having her so involved. I also had the same issue with her being an edgy asshole rather than showing her off as the big bad I know she can be.

  Ok, onto plot:

  Perhaps it is a structural mistake, but originally I wanted to make this a slice of life, which is why we followed Boris so closely everyday when he first became sleeveless. This was a HUGE mistake.

  It led to excessive bloat and repetition (show him bonding with lower ranks over and over, showing him escape over and over) when I should have just skipped over those parts and only shown the important scenes that would drive the plot forward.

  More of a big issue kind of thing as well but, POOR PLANNING!

  I didn't plan out chapter by chapter scene by scene, I bad big moments in my head that I would meander too through my chapters (which led to more bloating and repetition). However this isn’t a total negative, because lieutenant zenzele emerged that way. She was never meant to play such a big part in Boris’s life but she kind of just came alive in there interactions.

  This also means side characters that didn't exist suddenly did and other important plots elements that kind of just appeared. I would have said that I was practicing what George R. R. Martin described as a gardener's writing style, letting things kind of just come alive through the keyboard, which would have been fine if I was EDITING.

  I can’t actually go over every single issue that I found, but I think you get the point. SO, in my analysis of my book every single place a writing element exists, from character, worldbuilding, plot, grammar, prose etc… I failed, and if I didn’t it could have been HEAVILY improved on. For a final rating I would give it a 2/10.

  And yet, despite my colossal failure, I had fun. I enjoyed this, and next time I will do better. So to anyone else that went on this journey with me and read to the very end, thank you! It really does mean a lot! I do still believe in this world despite not even getting to almost any of the worldbuilding I had planned because of my piss poor planning skills, I’m still in love with it. I believe there is a 7/10 book that is a hundred thousands words long buried in here somewhere, I just need to fish it out.

  That being said, I am taking a step back from this world and will return to it at a much later date! I wanted to dip my toes into the litrpg genre and see if I couldn’t write a 5/10 book, a substantial improvement over what I just wrote.

  So yeah, that’s the review. Solid 2/10. Going to change the title to: The Tower of Kaleidos - FIRST DRAFT so yall know what's what.