In writing this story, I have over extended myself. I committed to chapter times, and word counts. I have over extended on word count, with some chapters far and above the word count. In an attempt to restructure, I am going to take some time and do some rewrites on my backlog of chapters. Right now, with work responsibilities and family needs, I can not maintain the longer chapters. This is very much an overestimation of my time, by me.
This is NOT a hiatus. Because as many times as I’ve seen that here on RR, that usually means the story is over, because those stories are rarely ever touched again.
I am not working on any other stories. I am restructuring the backlog, in an attempt to get ahead, while maintaining stricter limits on myself. I want to see this story through to the end. If I continue at the pace I am going, I can only see myself burning out.
I know this may bother some, annoy others, and not even register for a few :)
But this story means a lot to me.
My sister and I posed a challenge to write our own stories, we have a year to do it, and I am dedicated to mine.
If you have any questions, concerns, comments, gripes, complaints put them in the comment section and I will be more than happy to reply there. I won’t be giving any spoilers, but I can share where the story is headed. In a general sense at least.
Now that the Announcement is over, I thought I would fill you in on where this story was born. So if you care about that, read on. Though there will be some rantings, you’ve been warned.
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So, first off I’d like to let you in on some of my more favorite titles here on RR. I think this will give you a sense of where it is my tastes tend to lead me, and what influenced my decisions when writing The End Father.
Chaotic Craftsman Worships The Cube
I love crafting, in video games, IRL, and some of my favorite stories in general involve crafting. And while I do love it, I don’t want you/readers to think MY story will dive too deep into it. I wanted Ethan to have a crafting profession, yes. But I wanted it to be something I had never seen before. Chaotic Craftsman has ALL the crafting. Except for the one I wanted to try and read/write about.
Ethan has Magic Smithing. This is not enchanting, which from the way I view it, is taking mana, and infusing it with mundane, magicless, objects. It isn’t spell crafting, which I view as crafting spells, or regents that are used in the casting of spells. Magic Smithing, (spoiler) which will eventually evolve into something else, is the crafting/smithing with Mana. I hinted at that. What that means to me, is that Mana is the stone, metal, thread, fabric or whatever you want to craft with. Much like Mark's constructs. But constructs are temporary. Constructs have no permanence in the world. Magic Smithing is the profession that can make items similar to constructs, but they are real, they are permanent. I also want to point out that in The End Father, Constructs are bound/created with internal mana, using ambient mana as building blocks. Magic Smithing is all internal.
The Primal Hunter
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This is probably a pretty well known title, I liked the crafting element of it the most. Alchemy is a weird crafting skill to use and hype up. A lot of people I know just see it as creating potions. Zogarth did a good job, imo, of talking more about the ingredients and the processes. The fight scenes, the progression, arcs are all interesting and I enjoy the story.
But my interests were more in the family element, at times I found myself more interested in his family, than Jason himself. Not that he isn’t an interesting character. I just wanted to go down the rabbit hole and see what it was like for a family after a System event.
I think the part that struck me the most was a single line about how his brother missed his newborn son’s early development.
Which led me to wonder if there were stories like that.
There is one that comes to mind, about a family of 4 that are summoned to a different world, but I stopped reading after the youngest was “kidnapped” by a goblin. If you know you know.
Paths of the Akashic
This is probably my favorite read right now. Probably because if given the chance I would 10000000% jump on a spaceship and ditch Earth for the greater universe with my family in a freakin’ heartbeat. My wife knows this, and has come to terms with it lol
The soul mate was an interesting element, and could have some pretty cool implications down the road. Sadly, no crafting. His brother does craft, so there is some element there.
This story more teases the family element I was looking for. Also, the aloneness of his initiation was an inspiration. When you read a lot of stories about the System arriving they fall into two categories (imo). In groups where the MC gets separated, then gets OP. Or they are alone, met up with randos, then get OP.
I chose alone, separated, and a slow grind. I don’t think Ethan will ever be OP. I mean, it is a progression story, so there will be the whole getting stronger thing. But I am not envisioning him getting OP because of some special trait or whatever.
Ethan is very much along for the ride, against his will. Everything so far has been “Planned” and that is all I am going to say about that.
Now as far as the family element, I wanted to show the family dynamic in such a way that they all kind of have skills/powers that are a representation of their inner self. As a father myself, I have noticed how my children will take on elements of their parents. How as a husband, and father, I put a lot of weight on myself. I wanted to show how a mother can, and oftentimes is the binding element in a family. How each person is an individual, but still connected to each other.
The idea for Joe was in some way a reflection of my own questions in regards to the mysterious figures who meet MCs and then are rarely if ever mentioned again. They, in my mind, existed before, and after interacting with the MC(s). I wanted to explore what it would mean for them to be taken. Or otherwise separated from the System as a whole.
Now the big one.
The System. I HATE how the System is addressed in stories. It is either some mysterious force no one knows about, and in the last billion trillion years, no one has ever thought to look into it, or there is some hand wavey one liner about how you can never know what it is.
In my opinion, the System has been a major character, it is mentioned in almost every chapter of a story. I thought of what my knee jerk reaction would be in a System event. At the end of the day, I had to admit that my lizard brain would hate it. Even if I wasn’t happy before it arrived. The idea of having something forced upon me, would upset me. Especially if it upended everything I have ever known, took everything away from me. This led me to start thinking of the System as an Antagonist, and not just a plot tool, or device.
From there I thought about the end goals of the System, what was it that a System could want. What was it that motivated it to expand? What could a seemingly all powerful being want/need? Why would the System have needs, have restrictions? These questions lead to confining the System to a role, it became something more than a plot device, and became a character.
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I hope this explains where I am at, where I am coming from, in regards to this story. As for where I am going, I have no plans to take down chapters EVER. This story has an end. It will not be 1000 chapters. But it will be a story I want to tell in its totality.
This story is an adventure, and I am very much along for the ride, as you are. I am learning about myself, my abilities, and my upper limits. Sometimes when you overextend you need to learn to pull back.
This ‘chapter’ is very much a teaching/learning moment for myself. I regret having to do this, but I have to teach myself, to learn, to pull back. We can’t always barrel forward through difficult times. Sometimes we need to pause, take stock, and adjust fire. This is my shoot, move, and communicate post. I have written, I progressed, but I was not communicating to myself my burn out.
Okay, that is enough ranting. Time to sign off.
As always, I thank you from the bottom of my heart, I appreciate every single read, every single comment. Thank you. This is all so very stressful for me, but you all spur me on, Thank you.