Rambling incoming. I do have a little questionnaire at the bottom that would be very helpful in shaping the rest of this series, so if you don't care to read things like authorial intent and rough draft histories and all that fun stuff, scroll down to the bottom. And there's a poll! (popularity poll will come with the book 3 blurb later)

What book 2 almost was:

Writing book 2 was a much smoother experience than book 1, but it was not without complications. In the early rough draft stages of book 1, I thought book 2 would feature a quick, 10-chapter summer in Kuutsu Nuna, then another 50 covering year 2 of school. But as I've mentioned before, my original book 1 ending belonged much later in the series (it will now be the ending of book 3), so I rewrote the rough draft to reorganize events and to make Archie a more dynamic character. And in that rewrite, it made more and more sense that Archie would go to Khala. Originally, he went with the express purpose of finding the Tamani trees. While this made sense for plot and pacing, it felt flat in terms of characters and theme. I changed his motivations, and ultimately I think a strong theme came through in his (and somewhat Nori's) story this book: there is often a path to achieve both self-enrichment and helping others (in case you haven't caught on, the central theme of the series is about rising wealth inequality).

But to rewind a bit, those themes weren't in the initial rough draft of the Khala arc, because that arc was something like 8 chapters long. Again, I thought book 2 would be a small summer and a full year. But when my wife read those 8 chapters, she told me they were rushed and that she wanted to spend more time exploring this new land and culture. This put me in a bit of a bind—I couldn't do 25 chapter of summer and then 35 of the next full year. I decided to make the entire second book the summer.

Risky, risky. Many series die when they stray from their initial formula. I'd always planned on book 1 being the most school-focused, but to blow up the tradition of 1-book-1-year established by so many magical academy stories before...Well, I'll have a question for you about that later on. But I'm optimistic that this will work for this series. I've always had a plan of straying from the 1-book-1-year toward the end of the series, so it might be best that I've broken that expectation so early.

And speaking of breaking expectations, I hope people that loved the slice-of-life of book 1 still found enjoyment in this book as it traded a lot of those elements for more action-adventure and even horror elements. I wrote the Julienne chapters after finishing all of Archie and Nori—I saw that a lot of the humor and slice-of-life moments from the first book 1 were gone, so I threw Oliver into their party just to liven things up.

My thoughts on book 2:

Feel free to add your thoughts (disagreeing or otherwise) on my take on the book.

Plot:

The good: I hit those climaxes. In book 1, Archie's imprisonment was the most exciting thing to happen. I think I hit those heights on 3, maybe 4 different sections of this book.

The bad: The breadcrumb trail might have been too long. In a full, standard book format, I think it's fine, but I can understand how web serial readers might have gotten a little impatient at times. It's established in the first 20 chapters what the ending of the book will be, then we take 20 more chapters to get there.

The ugly: With this book going out in print, I wanted to keep it under or around 150k words. I prioritized Archie's and Nori's stories over Julienne's, which left me with a limited word count for his story. As such, it's a bit underdeveloped. I think I could have easily spent 5 more chapters in Toral and things would have only gotten MORE interesting with that addition. But as is, I can't say for certain if people saw Julienne's story as an interesting B-plot that refreshed the story or if they saw it as filler that kept them away from "the good stuff."

Characters:

The good: Khala crew, take a bow! Barley, Blanche, and Sutton all have great moments. Hawthorn is a great addition to the story. Shiso is a pretty good addition. Picea is the best treatment of a teacher so far (something that was easier to do considering the smaller scope and cast in this book). King Tritsun is interesting. And the Bhantla! My favorite minor character of the series thus far (unless you count Blanche as minor, but them's fighting words). For being a fantasy series, most characters are perhaps too grounded in reality. The Bhantla is a welcome departure to a more epic, larger-than-life person. And of course, Archie continues to develop as a character with minor relapses and reaffirmations of what he learned in book 1.

Stolen novel; please report.

Figgal and Moondrop, Neccio, Brulee, and Orzo are all interesting characters that I wish we could have had a bit more time with—some of them we will in later books. Julienne gets some nice development, and Yarrow goes from a shadow of a character to a dynamic, active character with implications that will propel him into a strong role for the rest of the series. I could've spent more time with him, but I think I got there.

And Waldorf. No, you're not forgetting something—he wasn't in this book. But it felt like he was due to the wendigo story spanning the book. It was tough to go a full book without the central antagonist of the series, but I think I got there.

The bad: I'm sorry, Mindy. There just wasn't enough time and Yarrow was more important to the plot, so he needed priority in developing. You'll get your moment.

The ugly: Nori. Having her in this category might be a surprise to some, or maybe it'll make sense. I've long held the belief that Nori should be the best character in the series. For much of book 1, she is, but she gets passed up by Archie's amazing arc at the end of book 1. And then she snatches it back in her first POV arc, which I think is the best part of the book and perhaps the series thus far. I was so happy that I finally realized her potential in the first 30 chapters of this book...and then the last 30 happened. She becomes passive and inactive. I considered giving her a longer section in yeti country, but it really felt like that part of the story belonged to Archie, so I stayed on him. Even while typing this, I'm realizing that Nori is either the best character or hardly a character at all depending on the plot. I need to do better about that.

Barley. While the time he got was well-spent, I regret my inability to find a way to give him a 4/5-chapter POV arc in Jakha without completely derailing the story. At that point, "I've returned to/near home and am experiencing it in a new light" was already played out in the Nori and Julienne stories.

With all of this being said, I'm very happy with the way the book turned out.

Questions for you:

1. Did you feel betrayed/dissuaded/disinterested once you first realized the entire book would consist only of the summer?

2. Do you still have any of those feelings at the end of the book?

3. How do you feel about the shift from a more cozy book 1 to a more world-spanning, adventurous book 2?

4. How did you feel about Julienne's inclusion in this book?

5. What was the thing you loved most about the book?

6. What was the thing that disappointed you the most about the book?

7. Did you prefer book 1 or book 2?

8. What are you hoping to see in future books?

9. Got any questions for me?

And then we have a minorly spoilerly, but very important question that I am desperate for some feedback on. It has to do with the POV splits in books 4/5, which might lead you to infer events and at the very least gives away that the characters I'm about to talk about are still alive in book 4/5. I will not reveal significant plot details. Please answer in spoiler tags:

I'd like to know your thoughts on this:

My original plan for book 4 was to have it be the second summer and feature Julienne as the main character in a cooking-centric storyline. Archie would be relegated to a share of the story resembling Julienne's share in book 2. Then book 5 would get back to Archie as the main character.

But with some of the reactions from Julienne's chapters in book 2, I fear many readers might drop the series upon realizing book 4 is a "Julienne book." Imagine if book 4's Archie/Nori/Julienne split was 20/20/60 or 20/30/50. (For reference, book 2's split was 60/20/20.)

I am considering combining books 4 and 5—we'd have a book that has both the summer and the full year. Julienne's story would get stretched to cover the full year rather than the summer, diluting his POV split. Ironically, even though Archie was going to have the smallest slice of book 4, his summer story is the most important to be told at that time in the story, so he would dominate the first few chapters. Book 4 would end up looking something like:

First 10-ish chapters cover the summer, with ~8 of those being Archie's.

Last 40-50 chapters would be split more evenly across Archie and Julienne.

This would probably result in a final Archie/Nori/Julienne POV split of 40/20/40.

And if it affects how you feel about it at all, Julienne would never be the main POV beyond this point.

I don't hate the idea of cutting out a book—I have other stories I want to write, and I'm still obligated to this story for at least another year of writing. The plot can easily accommodate the cut, but the character moments will naturally get squeezed a little bit.

I appreciate any thoughts you might have to share on the matter.

And finally, we have a poll! I think there are a few obvious answers, so I'm letting you pick 4 so we get some variety. Popularity poll will come later.

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