The Grim Reaper's Friend

TGRF's Fan Fiction Chronicles - Entry #91

One thing which was present in both Dilmir and Curse was convenience. Especially around the climax, in both stories there's one small detail which I had no easy resolution for, and so just resolved, using the first idea which popped into my head. The result was a resolution which came out of nowhere, an undeniable feeling of convenience sabotaging an otherwise believable ending.

I definitely don't want this to be the case with the third and final story in the Dilmir trilogy. So, following some 'suggestions' posed by TAF, I heavily scrutinized my outline, doing my best to purge all hint of convenience or contrivance from it.

The writing for the story is underway by now, but I wanted to highlight the methods I found for dealing with convenience. Both because I believe what I've found will be highly useful to anyone else facing similar problems, and because when TAF invariably finds something I've missed,...

TGRF's Fan Fiction Chronicles - Entry #90

Development for the final installment in the Dilmir trilogy is well underway, and I wanted to let my readers know what changes they can expect compared to the previous story.

The Curse of Feylund was I think received moderately well. The general consensus seems to be that it was a good story, but the first one was better. There are of course a variety of factors which could contribute to this, but I feel the main one is that it was built on the skeleton of the original.

The new Curse is a very different story from the old Curse (both had the same title). However, I built the new one off of the same premise of the old one, even using bits of the same development. I shouldn't have done this, because the stories were ultimately quite different. The result was I believe a character who didn't fit the story being told. Dilmir remained passive and reactionary throughout the tale, and there was I believe...

TGRF's Fan Fiction Chronicles - Entry #89

It's been almost a month since my last update, so I decided the time was ripe for another one. Not just because it's been a month, but because I feel like my last three updates were written in a rush, and there's a lot of stuff which got jumbled together. So I'm quickly going to highlight where my writing is at, where fan fiction is at, and where my forever-planned novels are at.

Writing
Ever since Red, my stories have generally gotten shorter and more formulaic. The obvious exception is HiS, but that was only long because the main character had something like five separate arcs to get through, and backtracked at least twice.

On the whole, my stories have decreased in size, until I was turning out things like Valkyrie and Utgar, both of which were 10-12 chapters. They were also formulaic, relying too heavily on character arcs and plot structure.

I've since re-evaluated my writing...

TGRF's Fan Fiction Chronicles - Entry #88

After some lengthy hemming and hawing, and after consulting my readers of Dilmir (those who have posted on the thread at least), I've come to a conclusion:

I will NOT be posting the Dilmir Rewrite I've been promising. I went back and forth on this decision a lot, but ultimately I believe it is for the best. I'll get into why in a moment, but the short version is that the story would have been mediocre at best.

However, I HAVE decided to repost the Dilmir sequels instead. I know, I know, the plan has changed again. I guess it's kind of my thing.

I was rereading the Dilmir sequels recently, and realized that they're way better than I remember them. Each has its issues and strengths, but they're structured well and escalate tension with ease, and honestly I found myself getting sucked in as I read.

Now the reason I can repost the sequels is because I have decided to edit...

TGRF's Fan Fiction Chronicles - Entry #87

If you've been following the thread for my Dilmir repost, you might have noticed that I have continued my dubious habit of informing you the moment there is any change of plans, only to go back on/change said plans the next day. I've tried to cut back on that in the past few days until I'm sure of what's going on, which brings me to now. Things are fairly well locked in, so it's time to update you on the newest plan regarding Dilmir.

For those of you who have long since learned to ignore anything I say (but are somehow inexplicably reading this), Dilmir is a story I wrote back in 2013. It was set in Feylund, and centered around elves and magic, with a good smattering of vampires. I wrote two sequels to that story. Together, the trilogy is referred to as the Feylund Series or the Dilmir series. For the sake of clarity in this FFC, I'll just call them the Originals.

Due to perceived thematic issues with...