Jesus, that Arc took a long ti.
Hello! My na is Funatic. You may know , because you’re reading my work. You may also know from my other works called The Gar, CHYOA Edition, where I write a branch, Who a King Must Do, where I make Anduin conquer all the ladies of Azeroth by fucking them into his harem, and Welldark, should that be released by the ti these photons hit your eyes (which it didn't - but imma shill it anyway).
That’ll be almost all the shilling I will do. Here is a link to my Patreon (/Funatic) do please consider sending so spare change. It helps.
If you’re reading this already on Patreon, I once more SLAP YOU WITH THE GAUNTLET OF THANKS! Here goes hoping you continue to like what I do and find it support worthy.
With that done, let’s actually talk about this story, its past, its present and its future.
Once upon a ti, I did a little series of chapters called Sunday Pilots. As you can guess (or rember) these were 1-3 chapter pilots of nurous second projects I had flying around in my head. Thanks to an increase in skill as a writer, I was able to keep producing one project consistently, so putting sothing else out at the side seed sensible.
Drip-Fed was the last entry into the Sunday Pilots. It was my desire to write a story like Re:Monster made manifest. Except I wanted it to be sowhat balanced, with the protag not imdiately going ahead and then quickly becoming ridiculous. That was about all I started with. I didn’t expect the 1000-word Pilot, that was slightly rewritten to represent the Prologue, to win the vote that followed.
And I know it sotis shows.
Much of the planning of Drip-Fed is not as thorough as I want it to be. Its worldbuilding from early chapters doesn’t quite line up with so of the stuff said later. Things ford slowly and this being one of now four projects I write doesn’t help. I am not stretched thin by any margin, I just never stopped to give Drip-Fed the proper thinking about its world, made the world as I wrote it instead. It was an experint in discovery writing, this whole thing was an experint.
Drip-Fed was originally ant to be a much, much slower story. More about the exploration of the sli going through ever more dangerous environnts, evolving to a stage of communications, joining society, having problems due to his origins. We wouldn’t even be out of the dangerous environnts stage yet if I hadn’t received feedback that the story of the sli just eating things was kind of boring. People were missing character interactions. As did I.
Perhaps the story as I thought it up would have worked better as a comic. I certainly visualized most of it, and visual storytelling often doesn’t translate to the written word. It’s hard to focus so much on action if “And he punched and punched and punched and punched” doesn’t have the sa visceral impact as a prolonged engagent in Dragonball, JoJo or an actual real boxing match. Visual things can make repetition interesting. Writing deals better with highlighting the important things. Writing does character better. The story I thought up didn’t have characters. It only had one sli.
I could have stuck to it. I think I could have still made it entertaining for a dedicated fanbase. It would have been a niche thing, it could have been quite fun. It wasn’t, however, sothing that I felt like I or the readers really wanted.
And so things had to adapt. Quickly, by writing standards. This was the start of the second arc of the story, the tal Fairy. Aclysia was introduced, adventurers were introduced, and with them ca the whole baggage of worldbuilding that the confirmation of an existent society always brings. Because I had no set vision for this world, only for the premise of the protagonist and his path, things that I hadn’t much thought about beca imminent.
I don’t lant this decision. I like worldbuilding. This is simply to explain how inconsistencies in tone ca to be. New ideas would mingle with old ideas. A steady release schedule ant I continued writing. The drawback of the way I publish is that there is little ti for rereads. If this was a book, I would have redrafted it several tis. Especially this latest Arc.
But, again, I don’t lant this. My product isn’t perfect. It’s not as polished as I could make it if I had put in the ti. That does irk a little bit. However, I think I can do better within my production schedule going forward without changing that behaviour much. I dislike redrafting anyway. I fix logic mistakes if I catch them, but I am not soone who gets stuck in editing hell. Certainly, for the better for a stream of content.
All of that complaining being said, the world is pretty firmly established now. The building blocks are in place. Inconsistencies should be drastically reduced now that I drove the nails into the fra, so to speak. I have notes from the decisions I made that I can refer myself too. The foundation has a few loose rocks that fell off, but overall its stable. I could have done better with more ti and effort, but it’s there and it’s good. Certainly, good enough to build a house on.
A number of epiphanies were had while writing Drip-Fed in the style I did.
I don’t do well with shorter chapters. One of Drip-Fed’s experints was to limit myself to the 1 to 1,5k word range. I usually go from 2k up to 5k. This will be extended to Drip-Fed in the future. At the cost of more extra chapter releases. It’s pretty clear that hurrying the pacing along through shorter chapters ca at the cost of my characters. Characters are what I enjoy making the most. I like to watch them struggle, reward and punish them where appropriate or where the world leaves no other outco. I like to see them grind against each other and wonder who will co out on top with the resources I have given them. I often know who before I write it. I don’t before I make an outline.
Speaking of outlines, I won’t purely discovery write again. I didn’t do proper outlines until The Hunt. The results of this were way worse set-ups. The Hunt is easily my favourite Arc this Season (a terminology I will co to talk about in a minute). Requiem suffered from the lack of structure in previous Arcs. Things weren’t established as well as they should have been because I didn’t know I would need them. The pri example for this is needing to explain why Reysha had little obstruction the deeper into the church she went WHILE going deeper into the church.
Explanations about how sothing is possible should never be given while sothing is accomplished. Reminders are okay, but the facts need to be established previously. I did a bad job of that despite the Arc already being so long (by Drip-Fed standards) to fit everything else in.
Knowing that had a severe impact on my writing motivation for a lot of the Requiem Arc. I knew it was actually bad in places, from a story structure perspective. Now that we have slogged through, however, I hope I can pick things up. Structure aside, the beats are what I want and the pieces I now have on the board are things I know how to utilize.
Another thing I learned was hard to use was the All-Knowing Narrator. Didn’t use that guy before. Harder than I thought. I will keep him around, though. I am not done learning off him yet and I feel a switch of Narrator wouldn’t fit. Drip-Fed is told the way it’s told now. It’s established and I think I can do more exciting stuff with the All-Knowing Narrator once I have mastered the thing. We’ll see how that goes.
What I can guarantee right now though is that I don’t want to pull away from Apexus as much. During this finale, he didn’t quite feel like the protagonist. Of course, this was predictable, given the forces I put out to be his opponent there, but he could have used way more screen ti and chances to do sothing.
Whew, nice to have all of that off my chest. In summary, this ans that Drip-Fed will have so restructuring going on. I have a second Season to outline in its entirety.
For the newcors, here is the explanation: I structure my stories into Steps, Arcs and Seasons. Seasons are an overarching narrative, at the end of which almost all story strands going on are resolved in so way. Arcs are what you will recognize by my naming sche on this story. These things tell off a chain of events that culminate in sothing giving and the paradigm of the world shifting. Steps are basically invisible to you. It’s just the way an Arc progresses in smaller instances.
I will be taking ti off publishing this story to the end of that outlining. A month, to be exact. Yes, an entire month. For most of you, even longer than that (an additional 2 weeks to be exact), because I want to put Drip-Fed properly next to my Gar “paywall” and have it be 5 chapters ahead for 10$ and upwards Patrons. Currently, its only 3 chapters ahead for everyone.
Do not worry, no chapters will be hardlocked. It’ll all reach you in the sa release schedule as before.
I want to finalize the worlbuilding, I want to properly resolve the way the trio handles what they accidentally released, I want to make sure the magic and Class system holds up to scrutiny once it gets a closer inspection and I want to design the entire Leaf they end up on next, so that I don’t have to co up with Dungeons and landmarks on the fly. I do that adequately well, but things don’t fit nicely if I do that.
Apotho is unleashed, the Safe Leaf left behind. Mystery shrouds the future, uncertainty the present. The trio will once more be the centre of the story, as they move elsewhere, hoping to continue their life, which Gizmo’s dying ember preserved. Worlds await them, worlds I am eager to bring to you.
Season 2 of Drip-Fed is coming. I shall announce the working title as “Reactions”.
An additional announcent is that I will do a Q&A for this story in two weeks’ ti (this is two weeks after this chapter hit the public, so about five weeks for Patrons). Do send your questions in comnts, via PM or on Discord, however you prefer. If I get too many, I reserve the right to skip out on so, but I doubt that will happen. I am not nearly popular enough for that.
Do ask questions directly or give questions to the characters. Just specify which ones. Questions towards all characters won’t receive an answer, It would take three eternities to write all of their thoughts out.
I’ll accept questions until the Q&A is released.
I think that covers everything. I hope you all enjoyed this story so far, as grim as recent developnts have been. Things will get into a lighter note again. I also have a lot of things to say about my characters, but I think I’ll let their future actions do the talking, rather than assure things here.
As for my goodbyes, I got a nice piece of fanart (or Funart as I like to call it, because I have a bad sense of humour like that) that I want to share with you all.
(Made by JohnDoe on the Discord server)
I’d also like to request your feedback in the comnts or on the Discord server. Do let know what your favourite things were, what you disliked in the story, where you think my writing style could be improved etc. I am never done learning and I will need so pointing out of my blindspots and all that.
If you could write Reviews or rate this story in general, that’s also be splendid. I do aim to do this for a job, so getting pushed in the algorithm is a sad necessity.
Let’s turn a new Leaf, everybody~
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