Elfin Descent Afterward

Well, it took a whole year, but another story in the Orc Dominion series is complete. Elfin Descent is the longest story I have written to date, at well over 100,000 words. This led to some complaints about the plot being drawn out, which I will address later. Overall, I'm mostly happy with the story, and though it hasn't been as well received as my earlier work, it is still generally well rated on Literotica.

My main goal with this story was to work on characterization, which I felt was lacking in previous stories. In this, I think I had both successes and failures. I think I did improve the characterization of Lyriena and made her into a character people were rooting for, even if I made her a little too passive. Unfortunately, building her up so that readers were on her side when the plot demanded she be torn down turned out to be counter-productive.

The flip side of that was Trogar, who is definitely one of my more unpopular characters. My idea was to start him out as flawed, give him an arc where he grows into himself, and end the story as a better person. Unfortunately, several things went wrong. Conceptually, having two protagonists who are diametrically opposed to each other is problematic, especially when they don't put aside their differences and come together by the end of the story.

More directly, I made Trogar far too weak in the beginning of the story which set a bad tone for the character. Then, I didn't have his character start turning until Ch 8, by which point the story was halfway over. Then I had a series of Lyriena centric chapters, which meant I didn't have the time to really show any significant character improvement. All in all, it was very poorly executed.

Triumph is going to have two characters also opposed, but I am going to do things a little different. The orc is going to be a much stronger character from the beginning, but more importantly, the whole context of the plot is going to be different.

I knew from the beginning that having the main plot about a trade dispute ran the risk of being boring. No one wants to read a whole book about negotiations. That's why I threw in the Henry, Brahm and Sylvia subplots. Unfortunately, those, or at least, the Sylvia one, became more interesting than the main story. When I rewrite Elfin Descent, I am going to change things up a bit I think. Lyriena will recruit Sylvia instead of the other way around, and she will meet Henry much earlier. Instead of running away together, they will engage in some cloak and dagger style clandestine activities in the city.

Trogar, meanwhile, will seduce Elenorei and use her for intelligence while employing Soleil and Florette in a much more subtle manner. I might also give him a more active role in hunting down Henry's men in the city in order to liven things up a bit.

Another change I did with Elfin Descent was to change the nature of the story. Zentara and Rebellion featured slutty characters being slutty. I wanted Elfin Descent to be different, and for Lyriena to not just be Jeanette with pointy ears. This led to Elfin Descent being much more non-consensual. I think this immediately turned off some of my readers. Looking at how chapters are rated, my readers want to see the sexual adventures of slutty princesses. They don't, as much, want to see somewhat unwilling princesses being abused. That lesson is well learned, and something that will be taken into account in Triumph.

One of the things I wanted to do with this story was integrate the sex and the plot. I was somewhat successful in this, but as with Zentara, I got tunnel vision. I had a bunch of sex scenes I wanted to include, and this resulted in the plot getting dragged out. I don't think that the length of the story, word wise, is a problem, but rather the weak plot didn't justify so long a story. Triumph will be a similar length, though it will be spread out on a much larger battlefield with more characters, which will hopefully keep things more interesting.

When writing this story, for most of it I was two chapters ahead of what I was posting. This worked really well for me, as it help relieve pressure to write and it allowed more time for things to be edited and changes to be made based on how the future plot developed. It sort of fell by the way side by the end, but it is definitely something I am going to bring back for Triumph.

So where do I go from here? I am going to take the rest of the year off to work on my blog and a Twine game I started a while ago. Starting in January, I am going to write a short, four chapter story called Conquest. Conquest is going to be about Agmar invading the Catabrian Tribes, and will serve as a prelude to the final story in the series, Triumph.

Triumph is to be the culmination of the whole series. It is planned to have five POVs intertwined across all the Western Kingdoms. Right now, the POVs are Augras, the half-orc son of Trogar and Lyriena; Amelie, the Princess-Knight of Thest; Henry, who is leading a rebellion in Heste and captures the orc Princess Jasmara; and a Sandoran Princess who travels into the Angrian March to try and make an alliance with the free tribes of orcs; and an orc merchant in Ruar who opposes Jeanette's imperial ambitions for the Western Kingdoms.

The plot will revolve around the war between Thesta, Sandora, the Catabrian Tribes, and the Hesten Rebels versus Zentara, the Elfin Isles, and the Minotaur and Centaur mercenaries that Augras brings back with him from the lost continent.

Another thing that I am introducing to the series, besides Minotaurs and Centaurs, are the Mincentti and magic. Augras returns early in the book from the lost continent having learned the secrets of magic from the Mincenntti. However, it won't be fireballs and lightshows. Magic is much more ritualistic in my world, and has more of a macro effect on things than micro.

Thanks to everyone who provided feedback both positive and negative. If you have any ideas, suggestions, thoughts, or comments please leave them below or send them to me as feedback. If you do send them as feedback, be sure to include your email address if you want me to respond.

Also, I've received both fanart and fanstories about the world of Orc Dominion and I love them! If you have an idea for something you'd want to do I'd be happy to encourage you, work with you, publicize what you're doing, or offer any other support I can. I love talking about the world I've created!