January 1st, 2025 Progress report: new assets in the works, such as interior of Buster's car. New photo of Olivia at the Formal to fit with rewrite of that backstory. Also, sprites for an OC (new art teacher). Whole parts have been rewritten, but story structure itself is unchanged.

I received some good faith criticism from another fanfic author which I took to heart and used to do some edits, major and minor, to the story. Here is the criticism as relayed by Sebek:


**1. he stated that the plot lacks subtle dialogue and characters are too direct with stating their issues/solutions/messages, so it leaves little for the readers to figure out stuff by themselves**

I've received similar criticism in the past on the R&R mod and I'm working on improving that. I tend to be a stream of consciousness writer, and when you get into the zone, it can be easy to get carried away and start doing what amounts to a running commentary on your own story. I thought that was a bad habit I had unlearned years ago (I used to be much worse) but it's an easy mistake for any writer to make, regardless of their skill. Often times, the quickest way to ameliorate this is to be ruthless with editing and cut entire sentences or paragraphs if you have to, and make things more ambiguous.

**2. Olivia is openly hostile towards Anon but it would be more in character for her to act indifferent and keeping distance - "She'd either wheel away or tell anon to ♥♥♥♥ off instead of showing off that she hates humans**

This I don't agree with, but I respect it. This Olivia is still sore after what she went through the year before and is displacing her rage onto Anon, not necessarily because he's human (I don't think she hates humans anymore than Anon "hated" dinos, she's just edgy in her politics) but because seeing him with Lunara and Kiara displaced her rage towards Mia and Ben onto Anon.


**3. Damien and Liz trust Anon too quickly and overshare with him many things, like Damien telling him that Olivia talks about him in home; in context of quasi-E1, according to him, they seem to have an inclination to act like Anon is able to fix Olivia, like they have some kind of an omnipotence**

Fair point. Again, this goes back to the first point, and it's essentially treating supporting characters like they're married to the plot and are only doing what is required of them. I've done several rewrites to address this and make things more organic in how the plot progresses

To use an analogy, it's like a construction project where you forget to remove the scaffolding when the building is done.


**4. Ben convincing Olivia to wear E1 dress is extremely out of character for both of them - unlike Inco Ben held no power over Olivia
that's all
I think he considers the 4th point as the biggest flaw
still, he stated that it's just his opinion, so it's all subjective**

This is perhaps the most salient criticism. I asked Sebek to create a whole new asset to address this. Anon will still find a picture of Olivia, but she won't be wearing the E1 dress and will have gone to the Formal alone after a pep talk from Damien. Ben will still have taken the embarrassing photo in full view of everyone, thus sealing his own fate. Also, Liz won't exposit to Anon about what exactly happened, and will give him the photo no matter how he responds to her


So thank you again to that author (don't know if he wants to be named or not, and he said he's received similar criticisms about his own writing). I don't think it's all subjective, I think most of the criticisms were objective and on point.


I've been rereading my copy of Self-Editing For Fiction Writers to sharpen editing skills; ended up cutting or rewriting numerous lines, as well as replacing some wall of text narrative summaries with more dialogue and character interactions. If a line you happen to like ends up not being in the final product, just know that it's for creating a leaner, meaner, VN.

The writers at Cavemanon may have bad grammar (don't hate me for saying it, Red Pen made a mod based around editing Wani), but one thing they excel at is cramming lots of story and characterization into relatively few words. Snoot Game is efficient at story telling, relying little on sections of narrative summary and doing more showing versus telling. This type of succinct story telling is what I'm trying to emulate for greater narrative momentum. No long winded tangents that stream of consciousness writers like myself get hung up on.

To put it in perspective, Snoot Game, if novelized, would probably only be around 70-80k words long. In my experience, the best novels are the ones in this word count range. Hell, Ernest Hemingway won the Pulitzer for a novella only 50k words long (The Old Man And The Sea). Less is more. Less blabbing, more action.

New update will be in the next two or so weeks, but as always, no promises. And thank you everyone for the friendly comments. They mean the world to us.