Friday Updates (Week of 3-24-2023) (Patreon)

Coming back to write the Newt and Demon after being away from it for a month has been fun. I found it effortless to pick it back up again. The vibe is very steady, so I'm not really worrying about deviating from some tone I set before. "All alchemy, all the time" was the tag line.

I think that's pretty interesting, from a writing perspective. Usually my characters move around so much readers don't get to know a place. N&D takes place exclusively in Broken Tusk, so that's kind of a trip. Each narrative device that pops up usually serves a single purpose. I'm writing this story to focus on every single day, so that brings the problem of progression.

How do you show a character getting new stuff every few chapters if you're just looking at the daily grind? Twofold. Write some narrative reason for them to advance quickly, and once they get to a point send them wide. Theo started with 2 cores, giving him 2 ways to advance. He has 3 cores by this point and by book 4 he'll have 4. Then, there's synergy skills like constructs. Then we'll have reagent decomp and so on. Now alchemy isn't just about potions, it's about constructs and magic. Ding ding ding! Level gained! We all love that, right?

Well, there's a big problem I just discovered by writing that. What the hell is Theo going to take for his next core? He's getting into controlling mana and understanding magic theory so... Magic? Seems kinda lame if you consider the scope of classes in this world. A fun defensive kind of magic, maybe? Alright, something is forming in my head just by writing that.

Spitballing here... Town magic? Efficiency magic? Synergy magic... Uh... Well, maybe I need to think about it more. The theme for skills and abilities that Theo gets is simple. It helps the town. As long as it does that, I think readers will be satisfied, no matter what he takes.

Speaking of reader expectations... I've been thinking about that a lot. I used to write a lot of swords and sorcery style stuff. Pretty easy to be satisfying with that, it's just like a game tutorial. Show the reader an ability's description, give them a small example on how it works, then show it working in a clever way. N&D is way different from that. Expectations need to be set in stone, well in advance of when Theo gets an ability. Constructs are a prime example of that. They solve a bunch of problems (in the future) and their usefulness has been displayed multiple times. The tunneling potion, which just debuted on RR, is another great example. Theo is constantly running against problems that an earth mage could solve. "Man, we need an earth mage... earth magic... yada yada". Then, he finds a way to solve those problems, albeit differently, and poof! The mechanic was proven satisfying and effective.

So, all this means that whatever core he gets next needs to be satisfying. I might run a poll, but who knows. Something might speak to me by the time I reach the end of this book. Overall, I think everything is going GREAT! This book is going to end in 2 "Oh, shit!" moments. A one-two punch.

Anyway, this is more words than I anticipated writing. That's why these updates are tagged with "Rambling" and not something more sensible. I can only thank my patrons for your ongoing support.