Kind of funny that I’m echoing Franklin’s question from last chapter, but I suppose now is a good time to ask, “What next” for this story?

This I guess is stemming from waking up this morning to find that the story now has the lowest possible ratings for style, story and character, three out of the four advanced review categories, which essentially kills it, in my mind, for any RR stuff, just due to how ratings based everything on RR appears to be. That being said though, the scores in and of themselves isn’t as much what I want to discuss with you guys as the contents of the review that left the ratings.

I think the gist of it is that the story has too much infodumping and internal monologuing. Now, while this is a fair critique, I believe, I’ve also intentionally written the story as such because I was under the impression this is what the vast majority of readers preferred. Per discussion early on in the story, I had concluded that you guys wanted to read a “discovery” format, wherein Franklin goes about experimenting on various things, and the details regarding that experimentation. And the reason dialogue is being used, rather than just exposition, is because that seemed to be the preferred method to convey this discovery to readers. So, rather than:

Franklin did this, leading to this and this.

Which is how it was originally written, a lot of content was re-written as:

“Oh, so if I do this, then this and this happens.”

As for the infodumping, again, I was under the impression (from comments and reviews) that people liked all the numbers, realism, science and such, and that was what made this story unique and was the factor that led people to follow this story in the first place. In fact, it’s kind of paradoxical, I guess, for me that the reviewer mentions spending too much time at the start detailing the system, because from the poll after the Bristle arc, it seemed a good deal of you guys actually thought we jumped into exploration of the outside world too early, and more time should have been spent on the dungeon and systems, hence why I jumped back into all the tech, smelting and such.

Now, it’s also definitely possible that in my enthusiasm for all things science, I ended up landing too far on the other end spectrum, maybe? I know the last two chapters have been very number-heavy and detailed. In terms of writing, those two chapters I think actually took the longest out of any chapter so far, just due to how much research had to go into them, and I mean, it’s definitely “easier” to write chapters like the Bristle arc, where I can just imagination my way through. So, I guess what I’m saying is, if people dislike the format and detail of the last two chapters, I won’t be jumping at the chance to write them in that style either. The chapters could have been condensed into just, “Franklin creates a bloomery and uses bellows to smelt iron. Iron age achieved.” Done.

In any case, before this becomes too rambly, just wanted to touch base with you guys and see where the story should go from here. Please don't hate on the reviewer; I do think he/she has brought up a valid critique. At the same time, however, I don’t want a single review to color my entire perception of the story, hence why I've made this A/N, to get everyone's sentiment and feedback. As you guys are all aware, I’m fully open to feedback, so hit me with the cold, hard truth (my feelings will be fine).

Is this story (getting) boring? Dragging on?

Should I cut down on the numbers and technicals? Simplify the crafting?

Have more character driven chapters, and less system driven?

Keep everything as is?

Please, do let me know, so I can steer the story in a direction people enjoy reading. If you can leave a comment, or go upvote reviews that you agree with, that will give me a good indication of where to go next. Thank you guys for all the help and support!

Cheers,

Zack