Rise of the Guild Master

Hey guys, before we get started I just thought I'd mention that The Corruption of Coye vol. 1 is getting an audiobook made, and furthermore, I released an updated version that touches up each chapter and makes it even longer! It went from 28k words to 36k words(126 pages to 162), and beyond that, it was a full 3rd draft rewrite so everything is much improved in general.

Want a preview of the audiobook? Listen to the entire first chapter for free!

Also, there's new merch available!

Been meaning to write something like this, so here it is! There are changes I want to make that would fundamentally change large parts of the story, and I’m going to list my thoughts to better articulate. Changing my mind on these is virtually impossible so I do recommend you not to try and offer alternatives I could do instead, but if you have something to say I’ll still read it. Just telling you up front.

I want to remove the ‘Hero of Light’ aspect, but if I did that then I would still need a reason for the Guild Master’s eyes and eventually Task Master since that’s a pretty integral part of the character and backstory.

It also bothers me how he starts with a normal sized penis and then gets magically big after meeting Sam because of chosen one bullshit, but like... that just makes no sense to me now. If Luxy meant for him to have this power focused around sex and bonds with girls then why would it only activate once he met a specific girl vs just giving him a big dick which would lead to more confidence growing up.

Further, he can magically look at Sam because she’s destined or w/e, but then it gets expanded to just being able to look at whatever girl he wants ala Opal, Snow, Peri/Cherry. Either he’s always been able to look at women, or something else happens. Not sure. I don’t want him to lose the ability to look at women though.

It just reeks of my inexperience at planning crap like this out early on. I also don’t like the destined thing in general. I’d rather they naturally be attracted to GM because of his ability to draw people in and his actions rather than having a big magical bonus when it comes to them.

No magic semen as a result of removing the chosen one shit, too. I don’t think it adds that much(you could even argue it takes away progression/natural development) and is just another stupid level I have to factor in. I really don’t like having to manage time when writing. Like, introducing an element where I have to be like ‘wait have they had sex in the last 24 hours or is Sam weaker at this moment’ is just something I don’t want. You might think I could just make it into a pill or something, but that misses the point in that I just don’t want a micromanage-y element like that to begin with.

One of the big reasons I want to remove the hero of light shit is that my plan for the Demon Lord isn’t for like, ages and ages of books down the line and I don’t want the GM to have some destiny that is so far off that it makes him look bad for not doing something about it. This would need to change what the argument was that led to Grandpa’s death, but I doubt I would have much trouble with coming up with an alternative. Perhaps something like he just doesn’t want GM to have to deal with the Association in any way shape or form and is dead set against it.

Furthermore, having GM connected sets the expectation that this is a Demon Lord centric story when really it’s not. The Demon Lord is meant to be an extremely far off threat that gets mentioned here and there. Lore-wise, there hasn’t been a Demon Lord in over 1,000 years, so I think a lot of people wouldn’t even believe there is one and chalk what happened to Meri’s town as some minor Demon King making a ruckus and then chickening out. Showing a debut chapter featuring the Demon Lord so early was a mistake on my part, but back then, I was including random shit for hype left and right. It really should have only been a background thing that gets brought up here and there.

Removing the chosen one shit would also remove Luxy from her current role in the story, which some might not like, but I don’t like having a deity on GM’s side who provides help and answers as plot demands but only sometimes. It’s like, I wanted to write an underdog story but yet GM has a deity, magically chosen mates, innate ocular powers, two immensely high level helpers via Opal and Nikita, and so much other crap that I just don’t like it.

Also, the current portrayal of an out of touch lazy Goddess has strayed very far from how I’ve come to think of Lux Ultima in my lore. I don’t really see her that way anymore. I see her as a counterpart to her chaotic sister, who makes Karnalle worse on every whim, so Lux represents order. Lux would be more overstressed and she thinks more about the big picture and not the needs of the smaller folk of the Realm, which is how she would be out of touch. Same results but very different in execution.

Some minor shit I want to change in regards to the first book would be adding a lot more to GM and Sam’s early dynamic and making GM becoming more driven not an immediate thing. No sex between them for like a week, it’d be like the last hurdle after a week of improvements to his life.

Someone also rightly pointed out in a criticism that GM’s ambition and actions are a bit wonky, and I agreed with all their examples. So I want to have him make a lot more sacrifices for the girls in different ways. One way I have in mind is to make getting Sam armor a big part of the first volume. It’d be her current armor- retconned from being made by Gwin which didn’t make sense to begin with. I’m thinking they’d go out toward the end of the week with the intent of picking up something cheap to start with, but they see the set and Sam is super into it but it’d be really expensive.

I think GM would go behind her back and sell off a lot of his crap, probably like expensive alcohol leftover from his grandpa, to afford it and surprise her and represent that he’s taking steps on his own. Further, Sam would inspire/help him clean a few parts of the Guild early on to show he’s actually trying to improve his life. They might have to wait for Zutiria to help with that, though. It wouldn’t be a good cleaning job, but it’d look better than welp none of us want to do it so let's just wait to get cat maids.

So throughout their first week they’d flirt a lot and by the end of it, after the armor, the thing would play out as normal. Sam calls him out on not acting on their obvious chemistry and he’d get the whole ‘do what you want’ thing, only now there’d have been a week of development to reach that point.

I have more things in mind for changing other things, but I’m mainly focused on thinking about what would be the first volume with Sam right now.