—it means ending the chapter at a weird time with no real payoff.”
“Ah right, so like ending on a cliffhanger,” I said, nodding knowingly. “I saw people do that in my market research. Good for Donateon conversion, I hear — whatever that is.”
“Exactly!”
“Not gonna tell me what Donateon is, then?” I asked.
“You got your specialisms sorted?” Daemon responded, ignoring the question of my own. “Got all your skills unlocked?”
“How would I know if I was missing any?” I pointed out.
“Fair question, guess you wouldn’t. As long as you have all the core ones: Market Research, Worldbuilding, Character Depth, the two Writing ones, and Editing, you should be fine.”
I stared blankly back at the mouse.
“...Which one don’t you have?”
“The last one.”
Daemon breathed a sigh of relief. “Well, that one’s not important, not really.”
“But you just said it was!”
The mouse shrugged. “The bosses make me say that. They want the best stories out of—” Daemon suddenly snapped his mouth shut. “Look, it doesn’t matter. All you need to know is: you’re doing just fine. Alright?”
“The reassurance does make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, yes — even if it’s coming from a talking mouse.”
“You do know I’m not actually a mouse, don’t you?” Daemon asked.
“Well, what are you then?”
There was a moment of silence while Daemon thought about this answer. “I don’t actually… know.”
“You… don’t know what you are?”
“Does anyone truly know?” the mouse… creature said.
“Yes! Of course they do!” I replied, finding my croaky voice growing oddly shrill. “We’re literally living in a world that has a System that tells you!”
“It tells you, maybe. It doesn’t tell me. All I know is what I’m for, not what I am. But, look, we’ve spent over a hundred words talking about metaphysical identity and that’s far too long for any story.”
I blinked. “A hundred—”
“I’ve got to go,” Daemon interrupted.
“Let me guess, a blind man has just been reincarnated as a marksman?”
The mouse hesitated. “How did you know?” Without waiting for an answer, he popped out of existence.
With that, I was forced to return to my work, but now that I wasn’t screaming with every waking moment, the words seemed to flow more quickly. I reached, I believe, a sort of flow state, which was something I’d spoken about a lot in my past life as a marketing consultant, but never actually experienced it for myself. There seemed to be no filter between brain and fingertip, the words flowing out of me like urine after too much caffeine. Now that I was embracing the process, rather than resisting it, I realised… this whole blank page thing wasn’t so bad after all.
Before I knew it, I had crafted a satisfactory cliffhanger at precisely 1,500 words, and the chapter — my first chapter — was done.
Words: 1,500
Chapters: 1
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
A new stat blinked into the corner of my vision, but before I could spend too much time dwelling on it, a new notification popped up too.
+100 Writing XP
You now have sufficient experience to level up one writing skill! Please select from the options below:
- Writing Quality
- Writing Speed
This was a new one. While the other skills had just naturally had experience points funneling directly into them, writing XP seemed to have to be manually assigned between two different skills. This made for an interesting mechanic that I could ponder about for a good long period of time. Or I could just skip to the chase, which would be far more interesting for everyone involved, and then we could get back to the action.
There wasn’t much to decide, in this case; I knew exactly which of the two stats I was most interested in. Yes, I was slowly growing to enjoy the writing process, but it was still a chore, something that I had to do. I could never see myself fully enjoying it, so being able to do it more quickly… that certainly had its appeal.
Writing Speed selected!
+100 Writing Speed XP
Writing Speed increased to level 2!
Title unlocked: Speedy Fingers
+20% to finger movement
+100 Class XP
Class leveled up!
You are now Class: Level 8 LitRPG Author
At level 8, you unlock:
(1) Title slot
This System really loved the old exclamation mark; I was starting to get sick of the whole jolly vibe it had going on. But I couldn’t harbour it too much resentment, as it had also given me, from the sound of it, a supernatural ability. I immediately pushed Speedy Fingers into my new title slot, and when I danced my fingers in the air, they seemed to move inhumanly fast.
I knew there was magic going on here. I knew it! I knew the sandwiches were magic! Though that didn’t explain why magically conjured food had to be damp and/or limp. Maybe that was the stick to the notifications’ carrot — motivation to do well, to advance, to output the best litRPG stories you’re capable of. It was certainly working for me — surely somewhere between level 8 and level twenty billion I would get a decent burrito.
I turned back to the computer and began writing chapter two. As I got to work, I immediately found that not only were my fingers moving faster than I’d thought ever possible, but the rate at which my brain was working seemed to be faster, too. Though, the increase to the thinking speed was not as fast as the increase to the finger speed. And that’s because of the title. You understand, yeah? I’ve spelled this out clearly enough for you? Great, let’s move on.
I continued on with the chapter, beginning every paragraph with the word ‘I’ and stating in clear, concise, and certainly not at all fluffy language the actions that the protagonist was taking. It was almost a list, in paragraph form. The character did this, then he did that, and the reason he did that is because he was about to do something else. This was what I’d noticed really resonated with the readers, so I was keen to get this right.
I then, upon reaching a little over 2,100 words, according to my handy stat counter, took a break. Normally, when I’d been writing, it took me hours to get this many — over six hundred! — words done, but with my upgraded skills, it had taken me only just over an hour.
I opened my fridge during my break, keen to see what sort of food I’d been upgraded to, and discover to my disappointment that they were still sandwiches. But the bread was fluffy, soft, and the fillings didn’t taste like they’d been waiting in the fridge for a few days. I was moving up in the world, and not only did I have the class level to show for it, I had the sandwiches.
I noticed, more and more, something forming within myself. A feeling, perhaps, or an urge. Writing — or having written, because I definitely enjoyed that more — wasn’t enough, not any longer. No, now I wanted to do something with the writing.
I considered editing it, but I wasn’t exactly keen to waste my time going over words I’d already written, when I could be spending that time writing more of them. Daemon was right, editing was for suckers! Instead my urge was for something else: I wanted to share my amazing chapter and a bit with the world at large.
I logged onto Splendid Street, the site that seemed to host all these litRPG stories, and I went about making my account. I put in my own name as a username — in time I would learn that this was a mistake — added a cheeky photo of a cartoon cat as my profile picture, and typed in a fun little biography about myself.
Handsome marketing expert turned writer! Follow me for the best litRPG stories you’ve ever seen!!!
If that didn’t sell people, nothing would. Why would people want to read other stories, when they could be reading my stories: the best stories they’ve ever seen? Sometimes I impressed even myself with my marketing abilities.
But that part, as it turned out, was the easy part. Setting up my new story was a whole other matter, and had a lot more requirements. Some of it I knew already, after all, I knew what my story was called, that was the first thing I knew even before anything else. The name had just popped into my head, as though delivered by god, and I knew immediately that it was perfect: The Stabby Sorcerer.
Then there were the story and genre tags. Again, these I knew, or near enough, from all of my incredibly thorough market research. For these, I just selected as many as was allowed, pulled from thin air.
But then I ran into something I could not do: the cover.