HS3 - Act 1 Edits (Patreon)

I've been talking a lot about editing changes I've been making and considering. I figured I would mention them, now that they've been made or are being made. For reference, Act 1 covers until the Nurevia PoV chapter.

This is creative stuff, so skip it if you're not interested. For whatever reason, every Heretic Spellblade book has been a bit of an editing nightmare. There's a reason I say that the early chapters are WIP.

You won't see these until you get the book (i.e. release or beta reader copy). I'm likely to post edited Act 2 chapters soon, however, as feedback on unedited chapters is less useful at this point.

The changes already made are:

A new chapter before visiting Aleich that introduces Gharrick Pass and Seraph. This will require changing later chapters.

Removed the Anna Empress subplot. This greatly simplifies the politics of the series, and allows more focus on characterization. I don't feel it added much, the tension between Anna/Alice can be more interesting if it's character-based rather than political, and it just added unnecessary political complexity.

Adjusted Alice's scenes in Aleich so that Nathan is the one pushing Alice to take action. He has serious issues with agency in the early parts of the book. I still want the Emperor to be plotting, but Nathan should be pushing Alice to take the throne now that Anna is out of the picture for that.

Changes being considered are:

Adding extra 'character scenes'. If you read Demon's Throne, these are like the scenes between Rys and Fara. The previous HS books have these, but primarily for Fei. The main one I want to add is something related to the ball.

Rewriting the reveal scene completely. I'm holding off on this one for another reason.

There is one major edit that will affect the whole book, that I'm uncertain about. Making it will probably make my life very hard, given I delayed the book already and this would be a huge edit.

Namely, whether to stop leaving a bunch of girls behind when going places. Treating all the girls like a JRPG party who are magically able to be with him with no negative consequences solves screentime issues. Cutting Fei and Seraph out of the first third of the book hurts them and the book. The same applies to a lesser degree to the middle of the book for different girls. I can come up with a semi-logical explanation for how they're with him.

There are other solutions for this, but they come down to writing style and what I've found works.

Realistically, I could probably release the book without this much editing. But I like actually refining and improving it.

Also, to clarify, based on feedback on the Patreon chapters, I haven't reduced the size of Aleich mini-arc. But it does need adjusting.