nemorosus
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Jackal Among Snakes, Self-Critique
🕑 Added 2024-11-23 06:34:42 +0000 UTCI think it’s somewhat unorthodox to critique your own work just after it’s finished, but I care more about becoming a better writer than I do acting like there’s nothing to improve on. JAS is my first completed series—hopefully the first of many—and I’d like it to be my worst, if only because each after is better than the last.
Length
Jackal Among Snakes was too long.
To exemplify this, I’ll talk about character arcs. Argrave’s character arc had essentially come to a close by the sixth volume. He had gone from being a reluctant hero losing himself in humor to cope with what was happening to a confident king, ready to tackle the calamity. From thereon, while Argrave had some moments of introspection, there wasn’t much for him to change or improve on. I didn’t want to reverse his character growth, so I had a somewhat static protagonist.
Elenore’s growth similarly stalled at some point, also coming to a close when she confronted the person who had been responsible for her maiming. The last couple volumes, a lot of the reasons I liked the character had faded to the background in wake of the ever-constant and ever-supportive sister. Anneliese was much the same way. I think it isn’t necessarily a problem to have characters who’ve reached the end of their growth, but it was magnified by a problem I’ll go into later on: character bloat.
I gave myself three years in-universe at the start of writing this story to have ample maneuverability, but ultimately, I think a lot of the story could’ve been compressed. Others, meanwhile, should’ve been expanded.
Romance
The romance between Argrave and Anneliese was an interesting experiment. Typically, romances conclude near the end of the story. I hated the trend of dragging a romance on forever. Thus, I concluded it at a time that I felt was natural, near the end of volume 3. As the story continued, I saw for myself why people drag it on—it’s a great deal more difficult to keep a happy, communicative couple interesting without going into straight-up slice of life cutesy stuff whose only purpose seems to be to warm the reader’s hearts. I hated the alternative, too—manufactured drama born of a misunderstanding that splits a couple up. Anneliese was an empath. They wouldn’t reasonably fight for very long.
Other romances filled the void, somewhat. Elenore and Durran, Nikoletta and Mina (kind of). Melanie and Dario were intended romance partners, but I couldn’t find a way to fit it organically due to character bloat. Raven and Lorena also filled that role, very minorly—in case it wasn’t obvious, Lorena’s daughter came from when she saved Raven after losing himself to the Smiling Raven. I really enjoy romance, and I’ll continue to include it in all of my stories. Part of me wishes that Argrave and Anneliese weren’t so immediately compatible. None of those mentioned had real rivals, either.
Character Bloat
I think that the ever-expanding cast proved to be more of a burden than it was a boon. While the introduction of new characters allowed me to explore a voice from different cultures and introduce different personalities, it ultimately took away screen time from the characters that had more development and were simply more interesting.
It also made it a little more difficult to keep track of all the moving parts and neatly wrap things up. I think I did a decent job concluding things, but I have no doubt a few people slipped through the cracks. I was also admittedly hesitant to kill characters off, because in my experience, people react poorly to character deaths. Even still, having deaths for the sake of deaths is just as bad. Going forward, I don’t want to feel the need to ‘trim’ characters. Garm’s death was planned long in advance. All character deaths should be planned that way, in my opinion.
World Expansions
Someone once called the tendency for Argrave to travel to a new region and solve its problems ‘MMO expansions.’ That always amused me, probably because it was largely true.
Rather than stick to one consistent setting and develop it and the characters contained within it, Argrave was always on the move. I stuck with this tradition to the very end, and while ultimately the plot reigns supreme, setting still plays an important role. I think I would’ve been better served containing the story within the Kingdom of Vasquer.
Poor World Building
The magic system was simple and easy-to-understand, which was largely to its benefit. It was also very restrictive in many ways, because it had a hard ceiling. A-rank ascensions opened it up to be more unique, but I think it should’ve been more unrestrained and vaguer from the beginning. The GameLit aspects of the story were gradually phased out, almost to the point where I wonder why I included them to begin with.
Deities were poorly done. I tried to straddle both ideas—them being comprehensible, almost mortal figures, and being entirely foreign and Lovecraftian. Having them descend directly was a drag on the story—it’s no coincidence readership began to drop hard in volume 7 when the gods were first introduced.
Antagonists like Induen, Felipe, Levin, and Ji Meng were infinitely more interesting than the gods. Orion was initially an antagonist, and now he seems to be a lot of people’s favorite character. I’m proud of that shift. The part where Erlebnis was humanized and declared blood vengeance on Argrave proved to be well-liked, further proving my theory that grounded antagonists are better—or at least, I write them better.
Maybe I’m off-base here, but I think the gods should’ve remained distant patrons providing blessings, not physically present in the world.
Missed Opportunity
Garm should’ve killed Durran in their soul-melding. I think that story would’ve been genuinely more interesting, but I was stuck to my notion of Garm’s sacrifice and decided against it. In hindsight, Garm’s presence would’ve improved the story. Ancient wizard, betrayed by his own son, kept as a head on a stake for half a millennium, and returned to a body? Yeah, that’s just more interesting. Sorry, Durran.
I also didn’t employ Argrave’s previous body inhabitant too much. It was prevalent initially quite strongly, but the fact that Argrave was a real bastard before Vincenzo took the wheel didn’t come up much after the first couple volumes. A part of it was because he’d proven himself, but another part of it was because I let threads die. Ruleo held a deep grudge against Argrave, but that sort of petered off into nothingness.
I think I could’ve done Dimocles better. He was meant to embody a typical RPG protagonist, funnily enough—the guy that gets every powerful relic, does every quest, has an overpowered build, and collects followers and artifacts like they’re objects to put on display. I still want to explore that idea in a future story; the driven sociopath that treats gaining power and risking his life as a fun game, and views everything as something to be collected and stored in his home. The embodiment of someone playing a game, rather than a person living life.
There should’ve been a lot more fantasy creatures. I didn’t include nearly enough fantasy elements that were outside of Gerechtigkeit’s control, and just natural elements of the dangerous world.
Loss of Tone
I think a reason a lot of people enjoyed Jackal Among Snakes was because of the injection of humor at points. The levity lessened a great deal as the story went on, both because Argrave himself became more serious as a character and less reliant on humor to cope, and because I thought the subject matter demanded a bit more seriousness.
In hindsight, I think I should’ve kept a tongue-in-cheek vibe throughout the whole story. A lot of the media that I enjoy—most prominently, The Sopranos—turn even the darkest stuff into a joke. I think laziness is partly to blame. Adding amusing incidents to stories that aren’t just ham-fisted punchlines requires a great deal more planning and editing than a lot of other writing. For me, at least.
Still, I like to think I’ve done dialogue pretty well all throughout. I’d be curious to hear people’s thoughts on that.
Ending
The reception for the ending has been largely positive (I think), but I’m of the opinion that it’s only satisfactory rather than excellent. The message that I wanted to convey was about the pointlessness of looking for answers to unanswerable questions, while in the story, I wanted people to come to sympathize with Griffin a great deal more. It wasn’t as emotional as I had intended.
I’d always had the idea for an ending in my head. It came about after musing about how the explanations for how a supernatural phenomenon are always worse than the mysteries. Where did vampires come from? Why does magic exist? Why was the cycle of judgment set up? What do the Heralds want? What is the Shadowlands, and why do Shadowlanders exist?
I have answers to most of those, but I think they’re better left unanswered. That refrain is a lot more interesting than the tell-all. Contrasting explanations and unreliable narrators give a world realism, life. A lot of why Lovecraft is horrifying is because the majority of the horror is left to the reader’s imagination. I think that can be extrapolated beyond horror and to fantasy in general. I don't think I've done that idea justice with this ending.
Now, it’s your turn. Tear me to shreds, you little bastards. Pull my writing apart at the seams. Tell me what sucked and what didn’t. Give me a healthy dose of reality; lord only knows I need it. I intend to move on from Jackal Among Snakes permanently, but I'd like to walk away having ironed out errors I might've made during its runtime.
Comments
Nemorosus
I appreciate the concern, but I have very little anxiety when it comes to future works. Before JAS, I've had multiple stories that flopped and never saw completion. If I lacked for self-confidence, I wouldn't have published this story at all. I'm actually quite excited to write new projects. I honestly just wanted to hear audience feedback.
Gwalmeich
I'm not much of an intellectual nor do I make for a good critic, but I do know that you must avoid beating yourself to much. Confidence is a very important aspect of, well, anything you want to do in life and perfection tends to leads to less... human work of arts. Nothing wrong with striving for perfection, but by the end of the day, imperfections is what defines us as people, what makes us so interesting. Anyway, I like your work and I hope to read more of it in the future.
Nemorosus
Well-done drama is good, but after reading hundreds of romances a lot of drama just makes me shake my head because it's typically resulting from a refusal to say one sentence to explain things.
Nemorosus
Not very many... or at least, I don't remember them. Theories about heritage were always strange. Anneliese's father is actually [blank], et cetera.
bioenthusiast
I like the romance between Argrave and Anne that was what drew me to JAS originally. Big fan of it. (The best part to me, no unneeded drama. Especially liked how he would never compromise when it came to her and vice versa) I think there could have been more of the noble maneuvering and less of the odyssey. Essentially more of the jast banquet type stuff. Argrave seemed to shine in that bit. Also the whole “guy who knows way more than he should” thing was kind of dropped toward the latter half of the story, personally I think this was a mistake. And yea the gods probably should have been far less mortal and present. Also I agree that the snarky fun in the first few books was gradually lost Overall great stuff, looking forward to more of disregard fantasy.
Arcane
I can't really come up with any critiques as I let the the book on RR pile up chapters starting at 630 to around 670 and I've forgotten any problems I might've had. For whatever reason, I lost enough interest to let chapters pile up. Maybe it was because Agrave lost his 'all-knowing' advantage and so it just became a fantasy story or the chapters were too small for me. Can't really say. I do wish we knew how Vincent arrived in Argrave's body and why he had the mirror. Besides that, I have a question. Was there any theories by readers on RR or here that you found amusing or outlandish. For example, Erlebnis being future Agrave.
Nemorosus
Problem with that route is that a lot of people partly come to these sorts of stories for a power fantasy. I do agree that there probably should've been more consequences in the wake of Erlebnis' actions, but people tend not to want serious shifts in the dynamic of these types of stories.
WarStrider72
Just came here to read the critiques and eagerly awaiting your next book.
Josiah Henderson
I honestly really enjoyed the romance and the fact that they trusted each other so much. It was a nice change of pace from drama filled relationships. I understand it might've been a more interesting story if there had been more difficulties romantically, but I just liked them both being strong, capable characters that loved, supported and trusted each other through the thick of it. I honestly think that was one of my favorite parts. Overall, I loved this story and consistently looked forward to the next chapter over the past couple of years. I look forward to reading whatever you do next :)
MountainFox
I think my biggest gripe is the fallout after Erlebnis. He should have been seriously injured or paralyzed by the brain damage. Certainly not being able to finely control his movements. I expected lock in syndrome where he knew the optimal course of action but had the means taken away from him. Mentally, his memories should have been even more disjointed, but that sort of fell away within 10 chapters. It highlighted the lack of stakes for Argrave. Which was honestly quite the missed opportunity. This was the chance to make him more reckless in finding a cure or more conservative, giving the side characters a chance to shine and pick up the slack. That could have also given Anneliese a chance to physically outrival him, giving their relationship some friction, while also diverting Argrave's attention to the soul and immaterial, rather than making him do it all. Just my 2 cents. Congratulations on finishing the story!
Nemorosus
Very good point about rivalry. Argrave got married to the only person who might've actually rivaled him. I think the flaw with the Bloodwoods, the Great Chu, and the Castellan of the Empty is that they were all very impersonal conflicts. Argrave didn't really have much stake in them beyond protecting his people. By the time I brought Lindon on board, I think I recognized that as the mistake.
Nemorosus
Interesting. I thought most of the Amazon readers came from Royal Road. I've no idea how many actually found the story from Amazon alone. I'm glad I reached some new people. I think a lot of the decisions made, i.e. ranking magic or doing GameLit, was largely just appealing to that audience rather than having genuine intent to write a story like that. The skills and traits were always essentially irrelevant. Part of me wonders if it worked and that's why JAS received some success, or if it would've been fine regardless.
Nemorosus
I'm hesitant to do a hardcover, and even a paperback at this point, because it's honestly felt like I'm just enriching Amazon and ripping readers off. I've set all the prices for the paperbacks at 17.50, if I recall correctly. At that price, I get about 2-3 dollars in royalties, if that. Amazon is undoubtedly making the bulk of the money from that purchase. I imagine hardcovers would be worse. Contrasting that with eBooks, I get a flat 70% rate, or a couple cents per every page read on Kindle Unlimited. With a 4.99 price tag, I make about the same as a paperback sale while readers are paying 33% of the price. It just doesn't sit well with me to charge so much for my books to make the same. I don't know. Maybe I'm thinking about it all wrong. I really only buy hardcover books if they're history or classical stuff, so I can't put myself in the shoes of a prospective hardcover or paperback buyer. Furthermore, sales for paperbacks have been very low.
mhaj58
Be careful what you wish for; JAS was amazing for a majority of its run. What you said about Argrave and the other characters as they came along was a joy to read. However the arcs before Sophia made me fall off the wagon. You were dragging out the Chu empire and the Castilian of the Empty and I wasn’t feeling the things that got me into the story. A little drama about Argraves insecurity about not being good enough for Anne would have been a good element. The fact that Argrave had no real rival or equal to push him farther was a miss. Raven was the closest thing and even he became a subordinate rather than a friend. I also wished to see the wiki for Heroes of Berendar. Thinking of the alternate routes taken by Elias, Nikoletta, and the other characters would have been interesting. The ending was very good and although I know the story is over, I would love to see the characters gathering together for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year. I also want to know what happened to Vincenzo? Was he transmigrated, is he dead, or did some power copy his mind and implanted it in Argrave?
mark harrell
I agree and disagree with some of the points you mentioned. I think the story morphed from a more contemporary litrpg/ isekai concept and foundation to a more traditional fantasy adventure. Which isn't itself an inherent negative, but I personally really feel like those elements didn't really contribute to the work. I think the occasional pacing issues and the "mmo expansion" feel could have been mitigated if the stories plot events/setting changes did not tend happen all sequentially in a tidy order of foreshadowing (like the game world Argrave knew). As you alluded in the post the litrpg or even the isekai(imo) aspects of the story wasn't really critical, and clashed more often then not with the more traditional "get the gang together and kill Sauron at the end of the big journey" pacing. Argrave could have really just awoken to the gift of real foresight, then embarked on his character arc he went through with only minor plot differences. Argraves character arc is inherently limited with how far it can go because Vincent didnt do all those bad things pre-story, Argrave did. And Vincent was a pretty cool guy from the start regardless. This combined with the fact Vincent was mostly determined from the very start to go on the big journey lead to your struggles with writing him later in the series imo. I think you have a genuine triumph in finishing this story. And I would 100% buy a hardcover collection of the work.
Carlos Torres
You asked for it. I signed up on Patreon after binging through five books on Amazon in a weekend. I really enjoyed the series, and here are my opinions: Length Yeah, it was pretty long, but the MMO expansions kept it from retreading water. Everything felt like the plot was always moving at a steady pace. The epilogue felt like a bit of a stretch in length but ended before it became annoying. Romance Dude, you know how hard it is to find a simple, non-harem fantasy romance? I like harem fantasies as much as the next guy, but as I get older, I really appreciate stories about two people being in love. It felt nice to read the interactions between Argrave and Annelleise—just them being dorks with one another. Character Bloat I get it. With so many characters to juggle, some are bound to fall through the cracks. I'm sad that a certain Aisha Clan-Clan-looking elf didn’t get more screen time, but I’m biased. World Expansions Planets are big—what can you do? Poor World-Building Like you said, not everything needs to be explained. The magic ranking system felt kind of pointless after S-rank; it seemed like everyone was S-rank toward the end. At least you didn’t go full Dragonball SSJ4+. Missed Opportunities Stuff got complicated and fell through the cracks—understandable. Loss of Tone I think George R.R. Martin and Brandon Sanderson would have trouble writing the most serious, dark fantasy story continuously straight, posting a couple of chapters per week, for a couple of years. It seems natural that, after a certain point, someone would get tired of being serious and slowly change direction until they realize they’ve veered off course. Ending Like I said before, I liked it. Not everything needs to be answered. It was starting to overstay its welcome a bit, but it ended nicely. I’m a really big fan of The Expanse's epilogue, which jumps thousands of years into the future, and this gave me similar vibes.
