Hey guys, Sixbees2 buzzing in, just wanted to real quick make a post now that Act 2 is over. I'm a guy that loves documenting the process of things, and I feel like these little infrequent posts where I share my own thoughts on the story would be fun to look back to.
So, in Act 1 [Welcome To The Jungle], we got introduced to the world, character and power-system of CyberGene. Act 2 [Every Breath You Take] served to really give me an opportunity to dig deeper into these characters and expose them at their ugliest; we get to see shades of Ripley's inner greed and desire with the contrasting numbness of the Personality Matrix, and Diana's willingness to go ahead with even the sides of her she hates if it means getting her revenge.
To be honest, it wasn't until I wrote down this Act that CyberGene really came glued together as a story. From this Act onwards, I had a very good idea of what I wanted this story to be. And in particular, its trio of villains for the first few volums.
Enter The Uncaged. I won't say too much about them, but that I wanted each of them to be multifaceted and for each of our two protagonists to have differing relationships between all three of them. All three of them are characters I gave serious thought to, and you'll learn more about Skeleton, Soul Killer, and The Dogwhistler as the story progresses.
From them, came my ideas for the next three Volumes.
But that's getting ahead of ourselves, Blood and Steel is very much an origin story for our heroes and they'll find who they are in the Third Act. It's the most fast-paced of the three Acts with Ripley's chapters mostly taking place all in one day, and Diana's meeting with Soul Killer being more than what she bargained for.
Here's some teasers for what to expect:
Ripley and The R0N1N arguing over breaking and entering methods.
Diana getting five-star meals.
Soul Killer in the flesh, and flesh, and flesh.
The Katana Zero Soundtrack.
Tendencies.
Dreadwire being chased down, a lot.
Diana hunting with her father.
Blood and Steel in all it's glorious forms.
The echoes of a Thunderous Omen, and the weaving of Webs of Lies.
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And with an Update like this, I thought I'd also let you guys know what theme songs I have for each of the characters.
Ripley, as Dreadwire gets 'Shapeshifter' by Celldweller. I imagine it as him taunting cars while he zips away with the Arachnodyne.
Ripley's relationship with Mirage is perfectly captured in the song 'My Only' by Cloudfodder
Diana in Act 3 has 'they're all around us' by Poppy... you'll understand why next chapter.
Otherwise, I feel like 'Smile' by Wolf Alice fits her very well.
As for the side-characters?
Diamante gets 'Heart-Shaped Box' by Nirvana, while the Iron Devil gets the Doom soundtrack, but for a specific song I'll go for 'Slayer's Paradise (Gangster's Paradise)' by Geoffplaysguitar.
Missy has 'Seven Nation Army' by The White Stripes
Anthony is... 'Side Character' by Cloudfodder
Mr. Skeleton receives 'The Grim Reaper' by King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard
And Mirage?... I'm going to give her multiple songs since she's... you know.
'Absolute Territory' by Ken Ashcorp.
'how could you love somebody like me?' by Artemas
'BODY/PRISON' by Health ft. Perturbator
'I may be a doe..' by Banshee
'Mind Games' by Sickick
Finally, Selene gets 'Heads will roll' by Yeah Yeah Yeahs... just kidding, it's actually 'Cheerleader' by Porter Robinson.
If these are a lot of songs to search for... don't worry, because they're all on the official CyberGene Vibes Playlist from yours truly.
And for one last thing, I'm looking into publishing CyberGene in novelization sometime in the next year or two, my biggest issue (and it's entirely my fault) is that I wrote these books as... very long. Too long for any publisher to drop their wallets and invest in a giant slab of paper they don't know if they'll get returns on or not. To give you an idea, Blood and Steel is 420,000 words long. The second volume which I'll only tease as T+W is likely going to be a bit longer considering Act I of it is about 150,000 words and Act II (which I haven't finished writing yet) is about 170k. What I'm probably going to do is edit each Act of my following Volumes to be an individual book, but that doesn't quite work out for Blood and Steel since it's first Act is a huuuuge setup with very little actual plot or progression.
So here's what I'm thinking, and I want to hear your input on it, I'll probably split Blood and Steel into two parts. Part 1 will likely be about 250k words (which is still pretty big), starting from the beginning to the Indra Harmony and Yvette incident but instead of immediately going to Ripley up in Metal Heavens' business, I'll reorder the chapters so Part One ends with Diana reading Juliet Grazhe's findings on The Uncaged. Lmk your ideas.
And about that publishing business... since we're done with Act II, if you've enjoyed this novel in all twisted glory, please don't hesitate to rate, review, follow, favorite, or just talk about it. Every little bit helps a lot to get this fairly niche book out there to more people, and might convince them to take a look at it (despite being a dreaded dual-perspective novel). Plus it gives me more bargaining chips against the corporate overlords of the book business (publishers). Muahaha! Sixbees2, buzzing off.