11 Mar 2021

Well, that’s it. Sixty-thousand odd words later, and we reach the end of Volume 1. This project started with a two fold purpose: a creative outlet from my normal life, and to tell a story that I wanted to hear. To the first, nearly 90% of the story, together with various background worldbuilding was completed over the course of a week-long staycation late last summer, and represents about as much creativity as I have exercised cumulatively in the last seven years. To the latter, I had been inspired by another Western-style wuxia which was absoluting fascinating in many respects, but ultimately contained certain aspects that were intolerable for me personally as a reader.

A Prose of Years is… not great. I loved writing it last summer, but having picked it up in the last few weeks to clean it up and get it out of my pocket, there are clear flaws to the story. The prologue is weak. Evert is underdeveloped as a character; particularly, I would have liked to flesh out both his past life trauma before his death and his means of coping being thrown into the past. The tournament is a little forced as a plot device. The first person POV doesn’t work as well as I’d like. The slice of life (cooking, crafting) reads poorly (eek, ch. 1.12) and, having re-read it, I am now much more impressed at those few authors who can really pull off slice of life well.

That said, there are aspects I loved. The worldbuilding in particular was fantastic (to be discussed more below) or, at the least, very fun. Becca is definitely my favorite character, with both the Interlude: A Beast Made Man and the Break chapter being among my favorites. Vince is also hilarious as an impossibly good-natured fellow. And, it’s a complete story. Not the best, but considering how many dropped stories on Royal Road I’ve dealt with as a reader, having a complete story is half the battle.

And, in part, completing this volume was what led me to, well, completing it. Frankly, I wrote this for myself: publishing it on Royal Road is primarily a symbolic gesture that it is finished. And finishing this story was important for me both (a) to avoid being hypocritical on the point I made above, and (b) because I have other stories I’m yearning to write.

So, bad news and good news.

The bad news is that Volume 1 is the end of this series. Partially, I’m just not in the mood to write within this world I’ve created and in this genre. Realistically, I’m extremely uncomfortable writing about the romance (and I do mean romance) that the characters would necessarily develop over the 20+ years in-story. And particularly, the struggle that Evert would have if his romantic proclivities in this life don’t match up with his old life.

The good news is that since I am abandoning this universe, I’m going to post all of the background and outlining material I have as a series of appendices. We’re talking about 18k+ words, oodles of tables, and one poorly drawn MSPaint image [image hosting fail]. A broad outline of Volumes 2-6, extensive discussions of the magic system in place, and a few pre-written scenes either from scattered events in the future or important historical events which shaped the world.

With that, let’s roll out the appendices.

Best,

luda305