TGRF's Fan Fiction Chronicles - Entry #107

It's been exactly a month since my last update, thanks mostly to the site going down for an extended period of time. During that time, quite a bit has changed with my writing. I'll get the small update out of the way first.

Novels:
Progress with my novels remains slow but steady. The fact that the whole thing hasn't imploded yet is a big win, and I'm taking that to mean I'm on the right track.

The magic system needs a bit of refinement, but the important parts are in place, and I know the basics of how the plot will unfold for the first story. Now that I know that, I can worldbuild for real, letting the setting develop naturally as the plot fleshes out in the background. Chat GPT is helping immensely in the speculation department of how the world would adapt to the magic system.

My plan for my novels is to write the first story as a standalone with series potential. Assuming...

TGRF's Fan Fiction Chronicles - Entry #106

Concerning DoD:
Since my last update just over a month ago, I've only gotten approximately half way through the outline for Dawn of Darkness. This isn't due to a lack of interest or any problems. It's simply because the story is turning out far larger than I had anticipated.

I revisited a few things which I felt the outline needed, most notably a consistently ramping feeling of tension. I'm quite happy with the way the story gets progressively more and more tense now, and I feel that this story has really nailed that more than others.

DoD is also making use of light worldbuilding and side character development to feel far more full and realistic than some of my previous stories.

If everything turns out, DoD should be quite excellent. It's just taking a while to get there. I'd judge my actual progress to be closer to 60% than the 50% my signature shows, because the second half...

TGRF's Fan Fiction Chronicles - Entry #105

It seems to be around that time of month again, so here is the latest update on where I'm at with my various writing projects.

Dawn of Darkness
DoD, my sequel to Valkyrie, is well on it's way. Development is complete, the outline is sorted, and I'm now going through the outline, working out exactly how each scene plays out. This is the equivalent of writing the first draft. I'm probably getting through at most a chapter a day, which is slower than I would like, but still a decent rate. At this pace, I would guess the story will be written and posted sometime in May. June, if there are delays.

This story does continue the unfortunate trend of being a 'what happened next' story. That is, the premise is more of a history than an actual idea of what would make a good story. All of the Dilmir sequels fell into this trap, and DoD did as well, with me focusing too much on what would happen now that...

TGRF's Fan Fiction Chronicles - Entry #104

Not that long ago, there was a six-month-ish gap in my writing, marked by a strange inability to stick with any one story. I've mentioned this before, and talked about why I believe that happened.

One of those reasons was my increasing speed in the development of stories. I had watered down a story to its most basic parts in an attempt to better understand such things as character arcs and the 3-act-structure. And while I definitely gained a new understanding and appreciation for those things, I failed to maintain the other part of stories: the meat on the bones. I had successfully boiled away everything which made the story into a story, leaving only structure behind. This is what caused my 'short story syndrome', which I've mentioned before.

Following the 6-month gap, I turned my attention to the Dilmir series. But while those stories were all respectable lengths, they did not cure the short story...

TGRF's Fan Fiction Chronicles - Entry #103

Since my last update, Archmage of Feylund has been released, concluding Dilmir's tale. If you haven't read it, definitely go check it out. And now that it is completed, it's time to turn my attention to the future. There are two main avenues the future of writing for me is currently comprised of, so I'll break them down separately.

Future Fan Fiction
While I would at the moment say that the release of future fan fiction is quite likely, I won't say it's a certainty (indeed, based on my track record in these FFCs, I should never say anything I might do is a certainty).

I have a story, which is a sequel to Valkyrie, my tale of Utgar's origins. Currently I'm titling it Dawn of Darkness, though that could change. It picks up immediately (give or take a few weeks) after Valkyrie, and centers around Utgar, Taelord, and Runa. Currently it's moving along nicely and starting to take shape. Barring a...