Jesus, that Arc took a long time.
Hello! My name is Funatic. You may know me, because you’re reading my work. You may also know me from my other works called The Gamer, 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 time 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 (https://www.patreon.com/Funatic) do please consider sending me some 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 time, I did a little series of chapters called Sunday Pilots. As you can guess (or remember) these were 1-3 chapter pilots of numerous 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 something else out at the side seemed 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 somewhat balanced, with the protag not immediately 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 sometimes 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 some of the stuff said later. Things formed 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 experiment in discovery writing, this whole thing was an experiment.
Drip-Fed was originally meant to be a much, much slower story. More about the exploration of the slime going through ever more dangerous environments, evolving to a stage of communications, joining society, having problems due to his origins. We wouldn’t even be out of the dangerous environments stage yet if I hadn’t received feedback that the story of the slime 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 same visceral impact as a prolonged engagement 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 slime.
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, something 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 Metal Fairy. Aclysia was introduced, adventurers were introduced, and with them came 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 became imminent.
I don’t lament this decision. I like worldbuilding. This is simply to explain how inconsistencies in tone came to be. New ideas would mingle with old ideas. A steady release schedule meant I continued writing. The drawback of the way I publish is that there is little time for rereads. If this was a book, I would have redrafted it several times. Especially this latest Arc.
But, again, I don’t lament this. My product isn’t perfect. It’s not as polished as I could make it if I had put in the time. That does irk me 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 someone 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 frame, 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 time 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 experiments 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 me hurrying the pacing along through shorter chapters came 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 outcome. I like to see them grind against each other and wonder who will come 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 come 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 prime example for this is me needing to explain why Reysha had little obstruction the deeper into the church she went WHILE going deeper into the church.
Explanations about how something is possible should never be given while something 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 time and chances to do something.
Whew, nice to have all of that off my chest. In summary, this means that Drip-Fed will have some restructuring going on. I have a second Season to outline in its entirety.
For the newcomers, 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 some way. Arcs are what you will recognize by my naming scheme on this story. These things tell off a chain of events that culminate in something 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 time 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 Gamer “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 same 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 come 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 announcement is that I will do a Q&A for this story in two weeks’ time (this is two weeks after this chapter hit the public, so about five weeks for Patrons). Do send me your questions in comments, via PM or on Discord, however you prefer. If I get too many, I reserve the right to skip out on some, but I doubt that will happen. I am not nearly popular enough for that.
Do ask me 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 developments 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 comments or on the Discord server. Do let me 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 some 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~
NIICEEEEE...what a great work, i must say that this leagues of the quality that expected. I hope that this be a long and prosperous story i praise your work and talent.
Thank you so very much for this amazing series. Out of all the things i have read on scribble this is byfar the best, and i think it will stay that way. Once again thank you, and have a great day
Thanks for the chapter!
Oh, yeah no, that's not how I imagined Apexus. He is way cuter in my mind.
I haven't seen any problems and inconsistencies, so I don't know what you are talking about.
As for Requiem, I liked it. Though now that I think about it, why did Apotho send Apexus for the Skinwalker? Why would that benefit Apotho?
Gets him somewhere he can't run into Aclysia and Reysha, primarily, and helps with the infiltration and bothering of the Cardinal later.
@Funatic Makes sense.
We wouldn’t even be out of the dangerous environments stage yet if I hadn’t received feedback that the story of the slime just eating things was kind of boring. People were missing character interactions. As did I.
Bah, those are just lazy people who don't understand the art of world building. Character interactions is good and all but less is fine, just look at So I'm a Spider, So What? The main character spent like ten solid years without interacting with much of anything more than food and all of those ten years were detailed out in so very many chapters. I GUESS she did kind of eventually break her mind into pieces and technically interacted with those broken pieces but I wouldn't count that.
If the reader does not see mediocrity in the work, then the work is not mediocre. As an author, you can think anything, but it is the reader who decides what the work really is.
Although this decision is often erroneous and is subject to change when time passes, but ... Still, it is the readers who make the work popular \ recognized \ classic \ masterpiece, regardless of the author's thinking.
In the end, any masterpiece that no one except the author has seen remains an unknown work and often remains it forever.
Don't let doubt drive you into a corner and keep writing. Self-criticism is useful, but only if there is not too much of it. And in your case, it is on the brink.
*Scratches head*
I don't think you should read that much into me from an author's note. Looks a bit odd. I don't have doubts about doing or publishing my work, I just never think I have yet reached the pinnacle of my craft. Calling my work mediocre is more a meme to myself. I'm well aware of the absolute shite that's out there and that I'm in the top 10% of writers just by virtue of thinking about power consistency. Dwelling on how I am better than most just doesn't serve a productive purpose. I'd rather keep thinking about how I can improve. Mediocre it is, therefore.
But I do appreciate the flattery.
You bastard! I love you
Interesting to hear all this (your thoughts as an author), I've enjoyed the story thus far and look forward to more.
Thankz for this arc
I really liked it!