NOVEL NEXT Misfortune of being an editor
"Then I'll begin," Lav was actually excited to share his story with Eric. Lav has heard a lot of good things about Eric's accomplishments and reputation on earth, especially from Nol. Lav was someone who loved to read and learn, so he wanted to soak up as much as possible from Eric's teaching.
Although Lav was initially not pleased about Nol cursing someone, especially a human, in hindsight it proved to be very good for Lav. Sadly, Eric didn't know he had such a good student and instead was drowning in his despair and self-pity. Hearing the excitement in Lav's voice, Eric wondered what this witch student of his wrote.
"It's the year of 3072, humans and demons have long entered the era of technology and science-"
Ah, so it was a science fiction.
"On the planet Murim-"
Murim? Wasn't that a martial arts world?
"Magicians were trained to help the cyberwar-"
Eric coughed blood. Fuck this witch! He was literally a mad witch who threw all kinds of genres together! This boy here, did he even know all these terms he threw around?
Sci-fi, Magic and martial arts- How? Did he think it was all the same?
How was he educated? Oh my lord, Eric was about to faint. This was by far the worst clusterfluck of a plot he has ever seen. Someone please come and save his pitiful editor soul that was about to be ripped into pieces by these demonish bad writers!
"Hans went piew piew piew with his railgun that shot ice magic at the Demon Lord, the archvillain and worst offender in the whole universe-"
Hold up, isn't this basically expressing your darkest desire of toppling the Demon Lord? Are you seeing your not-blood-related dad as a villain you ought to destroy? Fucking hell, was Eric witnessing the beginning of a coup d'etat?
"Howl, his small horned dragon pet used the 100 ways of a chantra dragon kick! This ultimate Murim technique passed down from ancient times. The kick was so strong that several holograms were produced!"
Eric wanted to cry. What the fuck was this shit?Just! What! In! The! World! Went! On! In! This! Poor! Confused! Son!
Even if Eric wanted to come up with praise or compliments he couldn't! His editor side roared and slaughtered all of his organs and shell of his body to be freed and trash Lav until the end of oblivion!
But seeing Lav's hopeful anticipating stare and the realisation that just with a snap of his finger, Lav could kill Eric, Eric had to endure and smiled, "Ok Thano-cough, I mean Lav that was... very interesting. I can see that you have a wide imagination which is good. Your story is fresh, original and-" utter trash, "Very passionate."
"Yes! I studied a lot about human stories and history and came across these popular genres."
"Ah...haha...haha..." Eric's brain threatened to stop working, explode and splatter its glory remnants into every demon here, so they could acquire some sort of brain cells! But Eric also understood a crucial point, these were demons, so Eric had to also teach them the human way of thinking.
Dammit, this wasn't in the contract. What a contract? A curse! The worst one-sided labour, no, slave contract out there!
Eric tried to point out, in the nicest way possible, the flaws and problems of Lav's story before he moved on. This session here, Eric had to survive! How many were still left?
"Then Leon you want to go next?" Eric encouragingly smiled at Leon who, to Eric's surprise had a decent story, cliché but popular and not too bad writing.
"I haven't gotten far yet," Leon bored said as if all of this was a chore he didn't want to do.
Then why are you here? Somehow seeing Leon's couldn't-care-less-attitude made Eric's blood boil. No one's forcing you to stay here unlike me! So if you're here already, show some enthusiasm!
"It's a nice isekai story. There are a lot out there in the human world but yours has nice character and a refreshing plot. I hope it'll stay like this further down but do think about the plot more. It's a bit boring and nothing happens, although different from what I've seen, you are missing a unique selling point of your story. What's original about it and sets it apart? Think about it and draw your story around it because that'll be the core of your story and your MC is right now too passive, make him more active and your plot will also naturally advance,'' Eric wanted to say more but decided to base a whole lesson around these points.
"Noted," Leon said but didn't take notes. This brat. Eric secretly rolled his eyes.
"I'll go next," Nadia's icy voice and her white hair somehow flying around her, grabbed Eric's attention.
"Please do!"
"Then villain king has its fangs over the magical world of Ern-"
So fantasy...
"Who will be the one to set free these shackles? Oh, so great hero come and save this poor world-"
Why does it sound like she's actually chanting it? Eric looked around hoping that Nadia wasn't really summoning something.
"The legend passed down says one day the hero surrounded by his beautiful harem of elves, witches and orcs will defeat the villain king-"
Harem? What the fuck? Shouldn't guys write this shit? No offence. Could it be that actually girls secretly write them?
"The hero then arrives, it's a- unicorn! The journey of the unicorn begins."
Dead.
Eric had the urge to drop off his chair and strangle himself. There were loads of different non-human protagonists but a unicorn? Eric didn't even have any reactions to spare. He ran out of it.
"Good imagination," Eric fluked praises around, "But it's quite generic. Just like Leon's, find your USP and then-'' Eric waffled a bit before he realised. All of them were writing more or less online novels than traditional books.
Since Eric was just too talented, he was familiar with both but he did specialise in traditional book publishing instead of webnovels.
These kids didn't know what classics were and just went for the popular mainstream. Tsk Tsk Tsk.
Either way, it didn't matter. The basics of storytelling were still the same.
"The last is Van," Eric nodded at Van who with a deadpan face collected his documents to read them.
Eric anticipated his last students since he finally could leave this way too long session! Eric just wanted the nice bed and some good food that was waiting for him and of course bathe in the onsen swimming pools and just relax. Oh wait, he also wanted to explore this gigantic palace.
Eric already floated on clouds when he saw that Van looked at him with a disgusted look. Alright, prickly, control your expression.
"Go ahead?" Eric pretended nothing's happened and Van did the same.
Then he started, "The title is-"
Oh, a title, apart from Lyna no one had one, "The misfortune of being a twisted author."
Ah, Eric liked this title a lot. A lot, A lot. Hehe.