Chapter 33：Feedback

[Music Recommendation: "The Name of Life" by Joe Hisaishi (Spirited Away OST)-available in Youtube or Spotify] ~ Please listen to it in a loop while you read this part to experience the utmost beauty of this chapter ~

Oh my goodness! Was he pranking me? Argh! I felt a mixture of relief and anger inside me. How could he prank me? I was so worried for real!

"Did you just—" I was taken aback that I sighed and scoffed right after the other. "Seriously, Kai? I was so worried about you! I thought something happened!" My voice was so loud that I'm practically shouting at him.

But despite my complaints, I heard him laugh so hard in the other line. I shook my head in disbelief. I never expected him to pull a prank on me. Though he did mention to me before that he liked bullying his father. So was this him, bullying me? I see. It seems we're close enough to bully each other. I'll make sure to pay him back someday! Hmf!

"So when are you planning to stop?" I asked, hinting my annoyance in my voice.

"Sorry about that," he said, still snickering. "It's your punishment for making me worry this last couple of days."

I couldn't refute that. "Fine, I'll take it this time. I said I'm sorry, though. It seems you do hold grudges. Hmf!" I puffed my cheeks like a blowfish. But my annoyance was quickly washed away by the fact that he worried for me just because I didn't reply to him. I had to bite my lips so I don't giggle over the phone.

"Good. And let's promise each other to respond as soon as possible next time we send a message. It's fine if it's late by a couple of hours, if we're somehow so busy. But not an entire day. Deal?"

He'd make a really good negotiator. "Deal," I agreed without a second thought. I wondered if this was how he treated his other friends, too, especially female friends. By how kind and caring he was, any girl would fall for him. Hora was right. I think I do have lots of competition. Sometimes I wish he wasn't so kind to everyone except me… but that's just my selfishness kicking in. And besides, I'm just a friend. What right do I have to have him all for myself?

"So… regarding your feedback. How was it?" Finally, I asked about my story. I felt so nervous and shy asking about it.

"Hmm… I'll give you honest feedback since I'm blunt and don't like beating around the bush. You ready?"

"Just how I like it. Yes, go ahead. I'm taking notes."

"Which do you want to hear first? The good or the bad?"

I gulped. "Ahm… the bad?"

"Alright. Bad points," he started. "First, you have a few misses on punctuations and some sentences were wordy. But they're minimal so they're easy to miss. A normal reader won't notice them except for me since I'm not like most readers."

'Oh, I see. This is really great. I never thought he's a wide reader, too.'

"Got it. Thank you. What else?" I made sure to write down everything he was saying.

"There are some scenes that would be better if you rearrange them, to heighten the foreshadowing. And some dialogues that can be omitted since they don't progress the plot. You're not writing a slice of life type of book but an adventurous fantasy. It's okay to put them for some comedy or chill moments after battles, but not too much. And there was one subplot that took too long to resolve itself. You shouldn't drag out subplots unless it's an important portion of the main plot. But if it's a standalone subplot, written to give a background story to one of the characters or events, then don't drag it on for too long."

"I see… I'll be careful on that one."

"Next, about characters. You have two characters that have almost the same personality and speech patterns that it's hard to identify which is which unless you mention their names. Be careful with that. When you create too many characters in one story, you're prone to make a couple of them have the same personality. Unless you intend it to be that way."

"Right! I did have troubles coming up with personalities for each of them. Amazing... you could tell all that just from reading it once. And here I am, never noticing anything in the books I read." Truly, amazing. I clapped my hands on my surprise. Kai was really brilliant in so many ways! Not just in playing games, he seemed to know lots of stuff.

"Hah," he chuckled. "I'm just more observant than most people."

"And we're just the same age. I feel so dumb compared to you."

"Hm? You're not."

"Aww… geez, thanks!" My cheeks flushed in embarrassment.

"Moving on. Your last opportunity is vocabulary. You have a few unnecessary but repetitive words. You need to revise those. It's understandable though, since English is not your first language. But make sure to continue working on those so you can express yourself more in writing."

"Yup, I'll keep on learning new words!"

He chuckled again. "Ready for the good ones?"

"Yes!" Ahh… finally, some medicine for my wounds. But I'm not too hurt. It's a learning opportunity! With this, I could further improve myself. Fighting me!

"First of all, you've done exceptionally well, especially since it's your first time," he told me slowly, as if saying it from the bottom of his heart.

Awww… I felt so touched. I might end up crying again.

"Even if you had the game as reference for world building, you still did great in expounding the world and its lore. And how you connected it all to the main plot was amazingly done. Great job on that one."

Tears started forming in my eyes—I knew it.

"The way you narrated the story, I can't believe you already found your 'voice'—your own unique way of narrating. Most authors struggle to find that 'voice' but you did it on your first try. If you didn't tell me your age, I would think that the story was written by someone older."

Aw. I think I cheated on that part. Technically, I am older, if I counted my past life.

"Characters, dialogues, scenes and its pacing, foreshadowing, mysteries, every element you put in the story mixed really well that it resulted in an epic plot twist. But do you know what your strongest points are?"

I was so overwhelmed by all the compliments. I never thought I did a lot of great things in my writing. So I asked, "Huh? What are they?"