November 10, a Sunday. While Caro and Capitolium are both chugging along towards the word count objective of NaNo, it seems like the latter invites Caro to come into her server’s voice chat.

“Remember when you said a while ago that you were bitter about how some romance books were horror in all but name, and I was bitter about hockey romance? Turns out that I feel like you were not ready for the whole truth about what makes me bitter about today’s literature!” Capitolium starts unpacking his baggage about past readings.

“You complained about poor integration of hockey, and how some hockey romance books glorified unhealthy relationships, one way or another, I remember as much. But do you think I needed to start writing to understand the whole thing?” Caro asks him, unsure of why writing would make her understand better.

“No, but it definitely helps. It’s obvious to me that you don’t write around tropes; you don’t try to force certain things just to make a specific scene or plot line happen”

I still have room for improvement. However, what room for improvement I might have might vary from a reader to another, so my mileage may vary accordingly, Caro continues to write about how Emma was feeling a little spoiled by Gus, and how he wasn’t going to spend much time with her because of Emma’s hectic schedule. I’m almost done catching up to Capitolium’s word count, and I feel it’s within range; maybe he could drop extra donations on me, or gift extra subs, at the end of the month.

Glitter enters the VC as soon as she could, even though Caro isn’t on air.

“It’s the first time I ever saw the VC active when you’re not on air!” Glitter exclaims. “It better be good…”

“We were discussing how the issues that made me bitter about hockey romance were bigger than hockey romance alone. Yes, I know about how popular it is, and how it helped grow hockey in ways it wouldn’t have otherwise”

“The problem you’re talking about existed for as long as literature existed as an art form. It’s nothing new, but the one thing that made Caro’s work salvageable was about how she wasn’t willing to start from a trope. She instead went for a plot line and a theme” Glitter comments on what she read from Caro so far.

“There’s wanting to read near-identical books, based on one’s personal circumstances, in whole or in part, but I believe part of the increase of the formulaicity of literature might be because of how tags became key for readers to find books they like, and publishers, or platforms, began marketing books accordingly” Caro follows up on Glitter’s comment.

Caroline, assuming it’s her real name, is perhaps one of the smartest women I have known in a while. I’m sure she can understand everything I could have to say, and then some, Glitter sighs before she talks again.

“At first, tropes meant a writing prompt. I read a few of those NaNo winners writing romance last night, and you could tell that they feel a little bland because they wanted a specific trope, which in their minds, came with specific scenes, lines and motivations to put in specific places in the plot, and even traits if they add in some sort of incompatible personality-based trope in the mix” Glitter comments on tropes becoming increasingly specific.

“Glitter, you now have a better idea of what makes Caro, despite her lack of experience as a writer, worth reading. By the same token, I feel that it applies to me as well. However, you previously complained about how we both put in too much hockey in our storylines!”

“I guess I might be guilty of building the hockey part of my story around the trade deadline. However, because of indie literature and other forms of entertainment, trad publishers tend to be more risk averse than before, so they, too, feel like the market want XYZ tropes, and they don’t seem willing to publish anything else”

“Glitter, I didn’t know you were as frustrated as I am! You were the one who recommended the horror book in all but name to Caro before this challenge even began!”

“Keep in mind that, even in the indie fiction space, that, while you can get really, really good books once in a while, it’s going to be a high risk, high reward kind of thing at best, and the only redeeming quality of commercial fiction is, well, language quality”

“Glitter, there’s one more thing I would love to unpack. Too stupid to live. I understand that sometimes poor decision-making can drive a plot, but the kind of poor decision-making I would rather read or write is either about complex decisions with no optimal outcomes, a luck factor, high-pressure situations or bounded rationality” Caro comments about what irks her regarding decision-making in books.

“Oh yes, decision-making. If a plot works only because of a key moment where a core character is bone-headed, I say, it’s more of an author failing. However, what do you mean by bounded rationality?” Glitter asks the streamer, rolling her eyes upon hearing about bounded rationality.

“Bounded rationality kicks in when you lack information or resources to adequately process what you have, so you then take shortcuts”

Speaking of decision-making, I must decide what makes my lead’s job unsatisfactory, and what she liked about romance books would actually translate to couples therapy. Which brings me back to my short story idea: during yesterday’s stream by Legnica, I heard about how European educational systems in general tended to make students specialize earlier, but I still struggle to choose where to set it. If I wanted to set it somewhere in Europe, and I believe it to be the case in Korea as well, then the unsatisfying job would be some part-time job a high school student would take. In the US, on the other hand, the unsatisfying job would only require an advanced degree to get out of, assuming one is already a college graduate, Glitter now starts thinking of her own short story.

“But why did you hide your displeasure until now?” Capitolium asks him, in a tone of voice that left no doubt to his anger. “Glitter?”

“I decided to stick to watching Caro play this online TRPG because of disagreements over the hockey portion of Player Masher, after Caro told me to do so. She was displeased with what she perceived as my toxic attitude back then. Yet I was willing to answer her questions so long as they had nothing to do with hockey!”

“Glitter, what did you dislike about hockey specifically? Why did you rec me a book that was a horror book in all but name?”

“I recced you what you call a horror book in all but name because it was what I deemed the most representative of what hockey romance was back then. And, even though I didn’t realize it at the time, there actually is an overlap between romance and horror. But I must have read, like, a dozen books or so since, including your manuscript!”

“You still haven’t answered what you disliked about hockey, or reading about it!” a displeased Caro keeps pushing the question.

“I get that these hockey game scenes were, compared to past hockey romance books, lovingly crafted. But. in past books, they often got in the way of the romance. Also, one of these NaNo winners on Legnica’s server thought that simply reversing gender roles in a trope would make it less cliché, but it really didn’t”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Is that so? Is that how some NaNo veterans roll: by writing near-identical books of their own? Marie-France was the first to tell me about how people wanted to read near-identical books. Yes, cookie-cutter plots and characters do allow people to write much faster than they would have otherwise. But now perhaps I feel like I might have been too hard on Glitter. She is smarter than I initially believed her to be, Caro starts thinking while she is also reminded of the economics of publishing.

Meanwhile, Glitter, feeling that perhaps her short story could end here and now, DMs Legnica about how it works to become a MFT in Poland, feeling that perhaps a change of narrative scenery could be welcome.

Glitter: I tried looking for Polish MFT licensure requirements for a short story, but I couldn’t find anything specific to MFT

Legnica: You must remember that there is no licensure specific to MFT in Poland, but if you want your lead to practice it down the road, you still need psychotherapy licensure, and ideally EuroPsy certification

I don’t want to bore her with the details of what the Psychotherapy Rada of Poland, or its regulatory body, if you will, requires, since I don’t have the feeling that she wants to go the whole nine yards, Legnica muses. Especially since something’s gotta give in short stories.

Glitter: I want my character to be some small-town girl who wants to practice MFT because she isn’t satisfied with life in her hometown

Legnica: May I suggest that she attend the Jagiellonian University long cycle then?

Glitter: Jagiellonian?

Legnica: I forgive you: non-Polish folk mostly never heard of it

Glitter: How hard is it to get into Jagiellonian for long-cycle psychology?

Legnica: Pretty difficult but not like law or med school; for a few it might be a backup plan

Time to finish the short story, here and now! Glitter then gets to work researching what it entails. There must be good reason why Legnica suggested I have my lead attend Jagiellonian University in Krakow. However, I realize that maybe I can have this as the impetus to have her study hard for the local tests. The details of how much she scores on each might not matter so much, nor the details of the tests’ content, only the outcome does.

But it also means that Glitter should make her lead agonize over the implications of the decision. After all, it is a major decision, whom everyone knows can be nerve-wracking for teenagers, and certainly a few of the more intellectual.

So when the stream begins, a few hours later, all three make good progress on their respective stories. Such as Capitolium having to dedicate 2 chapters to the World Juniors, with the billet family spending the holidays at home, and watching every Canada game at the WJC.

“Welcome to the stream, and may tonight be the night where I will finally clear the battle pass in full! I worked for months towards the battle pass, I only have a few points left, and I have yet to go into the arena”

And this means sending a few of her characters on dispatch quests, mostly battle-based, before she can decide on who to deploy in the arena. As many fights as she can get, or she needs.

In the first fight, she uses a warlock’s leech spell so that any damage it inflicts heals him, knowing that the opponent has nothing on hand that can cleanse leech spells. Ow… the opponent is in a world of hurt; their strongest unit is about to get pawned, and the rest of the party is going to be blown to smithereens!

But then her warlock is killed, forcing her to reevaluate the entire deal, and turning the match into a duel of the wits. By doing so, she is reminded of the prior discussion of decision-making in storytelling, but does not wish to discuss it until the end of the match. Which she wins, but with both players down to the last unit. Almost in a sudden death. With the regulars in the server’s VC:

“That was one hell of a match!” an elated Sampoong comments on the match that just ended. “Just the right amount of back-and-forth with all flaws being exploited by each other!”

“There are times where things go wrong, but context is key here for poor decision-making. For stuff such as arenas in this game, I don’t dwell on what could go wrong since I have a pretty good idea of the luck factors involved. However, here, the aim is to provoke the other player into making a poor decision. And I sure as hell prefer such when in an adversarial plot” Caro harangues the viewers.

“This is the main thing I loved about you as a streamer when you’re playing this game: you never play poorly on purpose” Glitter beams.

Marie-France: You made me realize playing this game can be very stressful

But not all opponents for the day were able to provide equally juicy gameplay footage. When all the battle-based dispatch quests are complete, it’s then that Caro is reminded of the second number next to hers, and how it was still a little higher than her own word count.

“Tonight, I have the opportunity to both hit the half-way mark and to beat Capitolium to it!”

“If you succeed, Caro, you will have an advance installment of the reward I promised you for completing the challenge, and that you never once mentioned!” Capitolium then starts buckling down, not wanting to be outdone by that streamer.

With almost an entire day’s worth of new words to write to reach the half-way mark, the other viewers seem a little daunted by the prospect of both Caro and Capitolium having to write that many words to get there.

“The first sprint of the night is: you have fifteen minutes to get to the nearest five hundred words!” Caro announces as a starter.

But when the first sprint for the night is announced, all viewers with active writing projects start writing theirs, with varying levels of enthusiasm. Glitter starts feeling headaches when the first sprint starts. What the hell am I writing? The faster I can get it done, the better!

Glitter seems to have arrived at the point where the ending is near, after being driven by a fear of failure alongside an ardent desire to get a fulfilling career, but a viewer realizes that something’s not right with the short story as currently written.

Maridun: Glitter, your short story sounds like a how-to guide

Yes, it seems like Glitter’s lead has agency. Yes, her motivation is clear. But it’s how she goes around acting on her motivations that make me feel like she sounds like a how-to guide! Maridun refrains from giving more details before the sprint ends.

But while the sprint is underway, it seems like Sampoong and Lagado are trying to encourage the viewers in this sprint, or word war as some call it. Glitter’s hasty writing makes her end the sprint, as well as the whole project, early.

“What do you mean, I sound like a how-to guide?” Glitter asks, furious at Maridun’s words. “I couldn’t get into the details of what the local tests were, only that she needed to do well on these as an obstacle! And the core thing driving her is an escape from a miserable country life!”

I won’t let this upstart writer win this sprint, nor overtake me! Capitolium’s writing goes into overdrive, not suspecting that, similarly, Caro also feels like the promise of an advance installment as good enough to make her write this chapter of Emma at home for the holidays faster. Especially as she draws more hockey romance lovers into her channel this month.

Come on! One more word, stay on target! Caro starts stressing out about the need to get out more words, and faster than Capitolium. Not realizing that her chat has gone crazy over not either writer’s manuscript, but Glitter’s short story.

Jacques: Better a how-to guide than nothing, I guess…

Maridun: Actual how-to guides might have Glitter’s tone, but are structured differently

“Sometimes, people might understand a how-to guide better with an actual example of how it’s done” Glitter defends herself. “Which is why some romance readers might be tempted to treat a romance book as a how-to guide, especially contemporary ones”

The bell rings, and the sprint ends. The viewers taking part in various writing projects submit their word counts. Even at the speed Caro wrote in the past 15 minutes, she still feels a little down. I lost the sprint, and I’m not getting any closer to beating Capitolium, only to the halfway mark, she ruminates, upon seeing the word counts, and her head then hits the table.

But after applying Bengay on her hands, Caro skims what was said in the chat about Glitter’s short story as it got completed. A mere 2k words in length apparently.

“That looks like a vignette of everyday life, and sometimes dissatisfaction with a career, or career prospects, can lead one to take such actions” Caro remains brief about Glitter’s short story.

While, for much of the stream, both writers keep going at it, in an attempt to out-do each other, by the end of the night, oblivious to other viewers engaged in those sprints, they brace themselves for one last push to 50k words.

This time around, Caro goes on a tear and she simply writes faster than ever before. Meanwhile, Capitolium shows signs of fatigue, and he just seems to have lost some steam going into the dying moments.

At the end of the final sprint, she updates her word count on screen, and she shows the tenth badge for 25,000 words being awarded, as she wrote a total of 25,030 words by this point. A dismayed Capitolium managed to blow his lead against Caro, and yet still earn the achievement.

“Ten down, six more to go!” Caro shouts in exuberance.

“Now that Caro made it to the half-way mark, time to distribute free subs!”

Of which he distributes 29 for a month, and a list of viewer names scroll in the chat as the recipients are named.

“Thank you, Capitolium, for gifting all these subscriptions!”