Professionals know

After taking all the feedback into account, I engaged with a professional editor—a daunting task. My friend's feedback had been that the editor had been brutal. It was all worthy feedback but brutal all the same. I prepared myself for some pretty harsh criticism.

The response was tough. Not enough description, grammatical faux pas, potentially offensive phrasing, unrealistic scenarios, amorphous blobs responding together, and the constant phrase: "Show don’t tell."

I think I implemented nearly every piece of advice I was given. Consequently, the book swelled to over 150,000 words. Eek. Again, I followed the advice and split it into two books. Hence, Realms Corrupted was born, and my trilogy was suddenly four books.