(I would've posted all this yesterday, but people would've been going."Woo! April Fools!", and it's not...)
As you guys have noticed, updates have gotten slower and slower for The 8th Day.
Part of the reason for this is related to RRL issues themselves with the story; the sudden rise to Top Monthly and the toxicity from some folks, the issue with the rating, the fight with the admin -- different little things which have somewhat tainted my enthusiasm with working on the story.
Part of the reason is also because I've been enjoying developing and working in my other two stories quite a lot. There's only so many hours in the day, and this is simply a hobby for me; so I tend to focus on whatever I'm enjoying the most, at the moment.
And, part of the reason is a simple dissatisfaction on my part about the style, progress, and format of The 8th Day -- which, I think needs a little further explaination and expanding upon:
As many of you know, The 8th Day was my first ever attempt to post and share a story on the web. The whole thing is/was a complete learning experience. There's even some comments in the chapters where people posted things like, "Are you using us for a psychology experiment, or something?" There wasn't anything like that going on, but I'll admit that I was experimenting with what does and doesn't work.
Some of the things I've learned:
1)I've learned that web stories really can't have any foreshadowing in them. You pick up a novel, you read it one sitting, and things stay fresh in the reader's mind. Post a piece of foreshadowing in a web serialization story, and even with my rate of updating chapters, it might be a couple of weeks (or longer) before what's foreshadowed comes into play. Readers can't wait weeks to see what you wrote come to fruition; they instantly chalk it up as a "Plot Hole" and it adds to their dissatisfaction and they gripe over it.
Foreshadowing just doesn't work, and it was something that's been woven fairly extensively through The 8th Day.
2) I've learned that it's impossible to understand the boundaries of a reader's logic. When it comes to writing fantasy, the reader needs to be able to suspend reality to enjoy the story. After all, does anyone really think a person can die, burst into flames, and be reborn like a phoenix? And yet, people are willing to accept, "In this story, that happens. It's all good, it's just a story." They can accept it and go on. A character can be impaled with a spear, yank it out, toss it on the ground, and heal naturally in the course of a few hours with no problems...
But a female who gets her nipples pierced? That's INSANE! The risk of infection is sooo great, they can die from it! Of course, an earring -- at it's worst -- makes a tiny little puncture in a person, whereas a spear completely impaled through a person isn't bad at all...
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
???
I've learnt that what people are willing to accept and what they get hung up on is impossible to predict. Who knows where the acceptable bounds of "suspension of reality" falls. I've learned that it's not something I can figure out at all, but I still don't know what in the heck to do about it.
3) I've learned that I really don't like those blue tables. They're a PITA to work with, they won't format down into e-book format worth a hoot, and they're unacceptable on any other book forum out there. If I want to share my story somewhere else, I'm simply out of luck since it contains those status tables.
4) After taking a break for a bit and reassessing the story, I've also learned that those tables, and a few other things, have slowly drifted it away from the story I was actually wanting to tell. I wanted to tell a story about "reality becoming game like"; instead, it seems as if I ended up with more of a story about a "game that seems real like". The game elements have taken center stage, and people keep getting hung up on them.
"Drake needs to spend points to raise his knowledge and get smarter.." -- Even explaining that there is NO stat to raise to just make someone smarter, people argue that he needs to do it. I tried to address this issue somewhat once by going back and editing every reference to KNO to make it SYS instead, but it still didn't seem to help for a lot of folks. They simply can't get past the way the character wants to spend his points...
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So, I've came to a conclusion and a dilemma, which is what the poll is for.
I've decided that I'm going to back up and redo The 8th Day. I'd like to swap it to a 3rd person style story, remove all those tables, stats, and such things, and see if I can't get it back to being "reality becoming game-like", rather than "reality-based game."
BUT, at the same time, stopping here is at quite a cliffhanger for all you loyal readers who have followed the story this far. Part of my mind is telling me, "At least finish up to the end of book/arc 4 and resolve the Brandr situation, before doing a reboot."
BUT, at the same time, there's that part of me which says, "It seems like a waste of effort to move forward another 30 chapters, just to end up backing up in the end. Why go forward, when the final destination ends up back at the beginning?"
SO, I'm going to leave the choice up to you guys.
Do I go forward and finish up Book 4?
OR
Do I say, "Well, I'm grateful for The 8th Day, it was my first attempt, I learned a lot, but now I want to just let it go and start 'The 8th Day -- Rebooted' instead"?
Make your vote, leave comments, and in a couple of weeks time, I'll end up going with whatever you guys decide on.