kdrobertson
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Stellarforged Pacing Poll
🕑 Added 2025-09-20 01:00:06 +0000 UTCFollowing up on yesterday's post, this is the more specific poll for people who have read the chapters. It's about the pacing and feel of the opening chapters. I'm also interested in detailed comments and thoughts if you have any, because a poll can only capture my own assumptions here.
Before I jump into it, I'll say something. I am still taking a break, and I'll be on an actual vacation shortly that will prevent me from doing any writing or work. But I'm still going to be thinking about story ideas etc. Because of the way Stellarforged's debut played out, I'm in the dark about the true reception and what potential issues there might be, so I need a way to reset my own thoughts before I while away at the series. With Demon's Throne and Neural Wraith, I already know the issues and how they should flow, but Stellarforged is both new and had a rough start.
I do plan on working on Stellarforged in private after this, because I think a major mistake I made was taking too much input from people too early and it helped kill it (I probably could have written 2x-3x as much if I'd just written instead of pausing for reception). So whenever it returns, it'll be with a backlog to be posted.
Anyway, pacing.
From my perspective as the author, I'm trying to accomplish multiple things with the opening of Stellarforged.
I need to worldbuild, introduce Ethan, do an Earth start, do the plot hook, subvert the plot hook fast enough so that it's obvious that Ethan will have agency and be in charge (and Sai won't just shank him the second they get to the Rim), start having Ethan take charge, and move on to action so people don't get too bored.
It's a more complicated opening than my other series, so I'm more uncertain whether I need to modify it to try to bring action earlier or adjust the casino heist/action stuff that was coming up in favor of just moving on.
This is where the poll and your comments come in, so I actually have some idea of whether the opening chapters feel overly long or slow, or if the action needs to be brought forward etc. I've made the poll multiple choice in case you agree with multiple assertions, although comments might be more useful.
Comments
Tactical Bagels
The casino heist setup feels like a sidequest that’s way too early on in the story. I don’t know if there will be other stuff in the heist that’s conveniently relevant to the main plot, but right now it has the sense of a random multi-chapter time-filler that’s distracting from the main story and could be skipped if Aklati just… never lost her wings. I do like that it’s establishing that Ethan has agency as a combatant, and shopping arcs are fun, but the shopping needed to be done regardless, and combat is easy to insert.
Michael Turner
Any chance we get some artwork for the main girls in harem so we can get a face to the females who are talking.
Socratic Don
The first chapters are fine and well paced in my opinion. The only thing I would work on is making it more clear that Ethan is taking action/making plans to ensure he is more then a pawn. This could be accomplished by adding a bit more to his internal monologue about some plans he is starting to form. Maybe talk more about how bringing in Aklati could help him, or how growing close to Yany & Heafi could give him allies. This doesn't necessarily need to be in the first six chapters either, you could focus on it somewhere in the next few chapters, but you probably should work it in sooner rather then later.
Scipio
I really enjoyed the story, side note it has a decent amount of characters already introduced in my opinion but they were well done and interesting, so basically every scene I found enjoyable.
