@ztiworoh: Hey there ^^

I'm a hobby-writer but never really accomplished anything... in the end, I'm too busy with my job and other hobbies. But it always makes me smile to read from other writers and I think the direction you're going in sounds good.

What really makes a book for me are strong characters. I'd even say the plot is secondary. I've read books where the only plot you could find was the motivation and conflict of the characters. I read a lot of Stephen King, who is a master of building up unique, memorable characters. But that's just a personal taste of mine.

Writing the information you want to convey as conversations between characters is definately a good idea as it is more dynamic than a plain explanation.

I read a bit from the beginning of your story and, while I'm not a native English-speaker and have never read a book in English, your writing style feels nice and fluent. It's easy to continue reading and imagining the scenes you present to the reader. When I have more time I will definately read more of it :)

As I blogged last week, I'm trying to tackled the project of writing my first novel. I've decided that blogging about this here might be a helpful way to keep me motivated. I'm not really writing this with the goal of having it be a commercial success, so I'm happy to let the community watch my progress, add comments, or just read it as I continue to write and revise.

When I wrote last week, I'd just managed to break 11,000 words. Today I'm at just over 14,000. I've also gone back and revised a bit of my first chapter, shortening it so that the action starts a bit earlier.

My current challenge is dealing with exposition. This is a fantasy world and I want to provide logic to the magical elements that I'm introducing. I'm also introducing characters whose job it is to pass on hidden knowledge. I'm trying to balance action with exposition, and trying to couch that exposition into conversations. I'd love to get some people's takes on how that's going - is it interesting?

Anyway, I'm happy to continue blogging and giving updates if the community wants to track my progress.

As always, the novel can be read in a live Google Doc here.