Arc 1 Retrospective


    Hi! SovWrites here. So, this project has been a long time in the making. And I don’t just mean that in the sense of actually writing it. What do I mean by that?


    Well, I’ve been writing a long time. I started out with really bad Halo/Half-life crossover fan fiction in middle school, and kept branching from there. As a kid I wrote for the same reason I read, or binge watched tv dramas, or played video games — as an escape from a difficult home life. I’m sure many folks have a similar story.


    As I got older, I realized I enjoyed writing. I was just as entertained by the stories in my head as the ones I consumed on screen or in print. I wanted to be good at it — probably because I wasn’t good at much else. I started getting into the hobby as a craft, trying to figure out how other story tellers pulled off their stunts, how I could do it. I worked hard to find a voice.


    I started getting interested in web serials about seven years back, when a friend hooked me onto works like A Practical Guide to Evil and Worm (plus other Wildbow content). I had this epiphany — I could be sharing my work with people online, without the stresses of publishing and editors. I started rewiring my plots into more episodic content, stopped worrying about traditional divisions by book or trilogy. It made things a lot looser, made me enjoy the process more. But that wasn’t the end of the uphill climb — I spent years with false starts, not finding a project I felt truly passionate about or enjoyed for more than a few chapters. I drove my writing workshop crazy, changing my stories or dropping stories every few months.


    Why am I reminiscing like this? Well, I’ve got my writing out on the internets now. I’ve got a single arc of this story successfully published online. I’ve proven to myself that I can do this. There were some pitfalls, some things I’m not satisfied with, some hiccups and instances of poor planning on my part, but I’ve done a thing that, a few years ago, seemed like it might never happen. I almost gave up on my writing, convinced myself it sucked and I’d have to accept perpetual writer’s block.


    Glad to know I was wrong!


    You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.


    My original idea was that this would be a very Ravenloft/Castlevania inspired plot, with this band of misfit do-gooders struggling through a back country full of monsters, their own monstrous tendencies eventually compromising them. What ended up happening was that I sort of meandered my way to a conclusion. Solid premise, shaky execution. Another thing I need to work on.


    All that being said, this is web fiction. I didn’t expect it to be perfect. Hopefully, the plot is still parsable enough to keep people invested through the little hiccups. These are issues I’ll be taking into account going forward. I think I became wrapped up in wanting my arcs to be shorter, say 20 chapters or so each, when what I need to do is let an arc take as long as it needs to in order to get the story I want to tell across. I need to work on my character building as well.


    Finally, the protagonist himself. Alken can be tough to write. I do stand by my decision to do a first person POV — Al is simply too taciturn to work as a main perspective unless you’re in his head, getting that internal monologue. My original draft was in third person, and he wasn’t such a sad sack then, but I need him to be kind of a sad sack considering his job involves ritualized murder... otherwise, it’s a bit hard to draw sympathy for him. His voice is something I’m constantly working on.


    With all that navel-gazing out of the way, I do really appreciate anyone who’s been following the story. If you took the additional time to read this, then I doubly thank you. As of right now, I do not have anything like a patreon — I don’t want finances to be a motivator for my writing, and I work an hourly job that keeps me fed. That being said, it’s something I may do in the future, when I have more of my stuff online.


    For now though, I’m currently editing the next arc, revising some chapters, adding new ones. I don’t expect it to slow down my posting schedule. I may drop down to two chapters a week if I feel like I’m getting burnt, but that isn’t much of a risk presently. I’m going to post an interlude with a bit of a teaser for the next arc, some foreshadowing and lore tidbits, and then I expect to have the first chapter of the next part of the story up next Monday.


    Thanks guys,


    SovWrites