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Phoenix: Reignited Edition Launches Now on Royal Road!
Friends and Firebirds, it is finally time! Today is the Royal Road launch day for Phoenix: Reignited Edition, an ambitious project to remaster the entire Phoenix Saga!
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What to expect with Phoenix: Reignited Edition...
* Every chapter expanded, remastered, and re-edited. On average, chapters are growing by about 40% with new descriptions, expanded dialogue, and extra scenes.
* Zero major retcons. Reignited is intended to be Lord of the Rings: Extended Edition, not Han shoots first. Switch between the original and remastered versions anytime, and you won't lose context.
* Between one and five entirely new chapters per book.
* Serialization of the entire story as one massive work rather than breaking it up by series like I did with the original series.
Release Schedule
The first ten chapters of Reignited Book I will drop throughout today, December 1, 2024. After that, we'll release a chapter seven days a week for the remainder of December. This will get Royal Road "caught up" with the other twelve platforms where Reignited is currently serializing effective December 31. Starting in January, we'll scale back the releases here on Royal Road to the same Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays schedule that the other platforms have.
The biggest thing you can do to help Phoenix: Reignited succeed is, quite simply, to enjoy it! Advanced reviews and follows on the new work would mean the world to me, as would a comment to tell me what you liked, what stood out vs. the original, all of it! If you followed Phoenix with the intent to "put a pin in it to read later," starting with Reignited is the recommended way to experience the story. It's just objectively better in Reignited. You can either binge and switch over to the original once you hit the leading edge of Reignited, or just keep with the release schedule.
The Method Behind the Madness
While I am immensely satisfied with the Phoenix Saga overall, there are certain things about it I am less proud of. Over the course of time, I've messed up minor details: forgot the color of Ranko and Akane’s couch here, didn't acknowledge someone's birthday there, let Ranko drink a Red Bull two years before it was available in Japan, allowed an illegal kick in a judo tournament, things like that. Nothing story-breaking at all, but flaws that I as the author can't unsee. Over the last year, I have been building a massive list of these minor issues.
There's also the reality that, over the last year and a half and nearly a million words, I've gotten objectively better as a writer. Nowhere is this more evident than in books II and III. When I started writing what is now Phoenix Ignited, I didn't plan on a story beyond book I, but once I decided to expand, I decided to go to four books right then. I was so excited to get to Rise at the end of book IV that I rushed books II and III something terribly. As a result, they are objectively weak compared to books V and beyond when I got my act together, and it's always bothered me.
I made a lot of rookie writer mistakes, like thinking I didn't need to set the scene at places like the bar that we had seen before, not splitting up dialogue paragraphs when the speaker changed, and not realizing I could change scenes without splitting into a new chapter.
There's also the issue of the music. As you may have heard, I am actively working on trying to get actual music composed for some of Ranko's songs. As I do, I'm finding descriptions I regret, which are pigeonholing the producers and composers I'm trying to employ - calling out a specific note that doesn't fit the key properly, or a spot where the lyrics have one too many or one too few syllables to match the beat.
Finally, I made some huge mistakes about the metadata around the story that have badly hurt its visibility and followability. Biggest among these was breaking the story up into one work per series (Phoenix, Ascendant, Odyssey) on Royal Road. This makes it very difficult for readers to see the full scope of the story and to set themselves as a follower on it. It also makes it hard for me to tag it properly and write good blurbs to attract readers.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
All that preface goes to say, I've made my share of mistakes and I've got a few decisions I wish I could take back and do over. I've decided to undertake an exciting, expansive, and intimidating as hell project to do just that, which I’m calling Phoenix: Reignited. The Reignited project is a complete remastering of the Phoenix saga from chapter one on, with a few key changes. My intent is for this to become the definitive version of the Phoenix story, at which point I will consider myself to be as happy as I'm gonna get with it, and don't have to mess with any of the historical stuff anymore.
What Phoenix: Reignited is and will do:
* Reignited is a re-release of the entire story, starting at book I chapter 1. Every chapter will be revisited and re-edited, descriptions added and conversations expanded, my list of errors referenced and corrected, and the comments consulted for any good ideas or backstory bits I mentioned that we think we want to pull into the text.
* The new edition will be serialized over time as one enormous work, rather than breaking it up by book or by series. I'll adjust the blurbs and other metadata. The original versions will remain publicly available to preserve comments and interactions, as well as allow people who discover Phoenix for the first time with Reignited to not have to wait to see what happens next!
* Brand-new, human-produced cover art (see above!) Thanks and credit again goes to @petz5 for the *amazing* art.
* Entire new scenes, almost certainly including entire new chapters, will be added. These will be “deleted scenes,” things I wish I'd added originally or suggestions people made in the comments.
* With notable, deliberate exceptions (such as Whispers in book VII) I will set a goal (but not a hard rule) of 1,500 words minimum for a chapter to ensure scenes are properly developed. This may include merging a few super short chapters, expanding scenes, and so on.
* There will be minor tweaks to some of the songs to correct issues with the lyrics and the beat.
* For some of the real-world cover songs performed, I will remove a line of two of the song lyrics themselves where needed. This is due to the terms of service on some platforms I would like to post on that prohibit sharing entire song lyrics for copyrighted songs.
* I will try to be more consistent about the application of content warnings where they are needed.
What Phoenix: Reignited is not and will not do:
* I will not retcon or undo significant events. Reignited is more Lord of the Rings: Extended Edition than "Han shoots first." If you read the original Phoenix story and switch over to Reignited at any point, you will not have a “I don't understand what happened” experience.
* I will not change the rating of the story, meaning there will be no additions of explicit sex or other major content warnings that were not there before.
* It is not a replacement or alternative to the continued development of new story content. The two projects will continue side-by-side. I had already made the decision to cut back the release schedule on new content to give myself a little more breathing room, and this is just something that's going in the gaps that would have been there anyway.
* I will not rewrite things just for the sake of rewriting them. That means some chapters may have only the most trivial of changes and others may be quite significantly changed. Based on my overall satisfaction with the original content, I suspect books I through IV will be getting 70% of the work.
Phoenix Odyssey Book XIII
While Reignited is a huge undertaking, the leading edge of the story isn't being neglected either! Phoenix Odyssey Book XIII has just begun! New chapters of the epic conclusion to Phoenix Odyssey drop Mondays. Follow the Phoenix Odyssey story for updates!
You're Invited to the Storytellers' Speakeasy
As I've mentioned before, the inestimable Princess Columbia and I have merged our fan Discord servers to create the Storytellers' Speakeasy, a community for fans and fandoms to converge. I'm shocked and pleased to report that in about two months, we've reached about 100 friends in our little group, including more than fifteen fellow Storytellers who share and collaborate on their own fanworks and original stories with us.
(Haunted Mansion voice) But, there's room for a thousand...
Whether you're a Storyteller in your own right, or just want to hang with us, see previews, beta read, kick it in a supportive community, and maybe - just maybe - hear me humiliate myself and sing Ranko's songs live on stream from time to time, we invite you to join our community.
The Speakeasy is a safe and supportive environment for all people, including and especially LGBTQIA+ folks of all stripes, and a sex-positive space. All NSFW content is separately moderated and hidden behind an opt-in role. We have active fandom discussions for Ranma 1/2, My Little Pony, Star Trek, Pokemon, Sailor Moon and several others, plus channels for gaming, writer support, trans/gender stuff, and more. We'd love to see you around the Speakeasy!
What are you waiting for? Go read!
Thank you all so much for your time, attention and support. Both the original Phoenix Saga and the Reignited project have been doing so much better than I could have hoped or dreamed, and it's thanks to each and every one of you.
From the bottom of my full heart,
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