Content Warnings/Information
Even if you aren’t sensitive to content, please at least skim points 2, 5, and 7.
1. Violent Solutions is not a light-hearted story. Bad things happen to people, sometimes just because they’re unlucky, and there are some mature topics which are addressed in either direct or indirect ways. If you’re just looking for something where the good guy beats up the bad guys etc., there are other stories which you would prefer over this one.
2. Violent Solutions is not a political story. I want to make this very clear from the outset: The characters in this story are characters, not people, and not strawmen, not mouthpieces, not an excuse to spout ideology on my part. The politics, social issues, and religion of the setting will come up in some parts of the story. The opinions expressed by the characters around those topics are the opinions that they would reasonably have, not necessarily my own opinions and not even necessarily opinions which are reasonable. If you agree with their opinions, okay. If you disagree, okay. Do not strongly interpret characters’ opinions on political, social, or religious issues as being reflective of my own (the author’s) opinions. Do not apply characters’ opinions on political, social, or religious issues to the real world.
3. There are events which take place in this story that are, by modern standards, not only criminal but excessively evil. Sometimes the perpetrators get what’s coming to them. Sometimes they don’t. Sometimes the victims of those actions may not even see themselves as victims. The world in which the story takes place is starkly different from our own in many ways, and not just because it has supernatural elements.
4. The protagonist of Violent Solutions is not a good person. I won’t spoil too much here, but the protagonist of this story is not only capable of, but also willing to commit, acts which any normal human being would never commit. Do not take this as my condoning such actions, because I certainly don’t. The protagonist acts in such ways because of their history, experiences, and nature.
5. The protagonist of Violent Solutions is not a consistently objective narrator. This is usually obvious in most stories, but due to how his internal voice is structured it can certainly come off as though he is narrating objectively. Sometimes he is, sometimes he very much isn’t.
6. Some events and plot setups will take a very long time to pay off. Violent Solutions is planned to be three volumes, with the large majority of the plot points worked out ahead of time. As such, there are some things which are brought up in Volume 1 which may not see payoff until Volume 3. Sometimes explanations for certain things may take a long time to come about, but there are explanations and the world follows a consistent internal logic. Even if something looks like it doesn’t make sense at the moment it occurs, with the benefit of hindsight it probably will make sense.
7. The non-English language spoken in Violent Solutions is a computer generated construction. It is designed to be pronounceable and consistent in spelling and etymology, however it is essentially a randomized bank of words. Any resemblance of words in that language to words in any other language is purely coincidental. My main language is English, and I have passing knowledge of French. For other languages, I know only handfuls of words. If something a character says resembles a term in your native language which is offensive, it is not intentional.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Notes from the Author
Some assorted promises and messages which aren’t directly about the content of the story.
1. If for some reason I cannot or will not finish Violent Solutions (and it isn’t because I become physically unable to use a computer) I will post the summaries of events which were not written into full chapters so that readers can have closure. I hate it when stories I like get dropped without any plot resolutions, so I’m not going to do that to you.
2. If Volume 1 doesn’t do well, I may not continue to Volumes 2 and 3. This is rather obvious, but if it turns out people really don’t like the story I’ll cut it at the end of Volume 1, dump the summaries for 2 and 3, then mark this story as complete. I’m not going to give a hard definition for “not doing well” because it really depends, but let’s say that my expectations are pretty reasonable. If I believe that a majority of readers are enjoying the story due to feedback and comments, I’ll keep it going. UPDATE: Well we're doing Volume 2, and unless something awful happens we're doing 3 as well.
3. Any potential donations are not a factor in whether or not the story continues. At the moment I have no monetization plans because, well, I’ve tempered my expectations and I don't want to assume success on a first try at something. If it does take off and I do set up a Paypal/Patreon just know that you do not have to donate to keep me interested, and donations are not my motivation for writing. I have a day job which pays quite well, you don’t have to give me anything if you don’t want to.
4. This story is in what I would call a “second draft” state. Anything posted has been proofread and edited by me, and possibly gone through a private test reading. That doesn’t mean it’s perfect (obviously) so if you see errors please tell me. I've already noticed various typos during editing which don't show up on a machine spell-check (this → thus, for example) so there may be more that I missed. The worst I’ll say if you point one out is “actually that’s intentional”, so don’t be worried about pestering or angering me.
5. I used explicit dialogue tags for each line of dialogue deliberately. What that means is that there will always be a speaking verb with a character name or pronoun when a line of dialogue is spoken. It’s common to omit these tags when writing, but I want to ensure readability and some character voices are similar.
6. Chapters will be posted 3 times per week. I’m thinking Monday-Wednesday-Friday. Each chapter is between 2000 and 2800 words, with the average being around 2100-2200.
7. If you leave a rating, especially a negative one, please at least leave a short review telling me why. I don’t mind feedback, even negative feedback, but I at least want to get more than a star rating if I can. No need to go all out, a sentence or two is fine if you don’t have anything else to say. You could also explain in the comments if you prefer.
8. There may be delays between the release of volumes. I’m a bit of a perfectionist, so I prefer to write full groups of chapters then post them up on a schedule. Since I have a day job and a semi-busy life, if I can’t get through the (writing → machine editing → manual editing → test reading) cycle of the next volume before the previous one is finished being posted there will be some time when nothing is posted. If this happens, you’ll get a time estimate of how long it’ll take before the next chapters start uploading. As of right now, there are no delays anticipated, but you never know.