So. This story represents a number of firsts for me. At over 30,000 words it is at this time the longest continuous series I have ever written. It's also the first big series I've written since Dragon Tale way back in 2017 and, of course, it's the first series I wrote specifically for Scribble Hub.
Hopefully the first of many on that front.
In a lot of ways this was an experiment too. I think that some of the things didn't really work (jumping around in time in the first arc) and some really did (The Day/Dream/Daydream labels and the first-person/third-person tense changes that happened with them). Overall I'm pretty happy with what I produced...although I do worry that character voices are not distinct enough.
This was also a very educational project for me. I now have a much better idea of how long I can work on a project without taking a break (spoilers: The break between each arc was not intentional) and I know how to mitigate that. I know that I should probably aim for slightly shorter arcs than I used for Finding Roles and, ideally, alternate between projects between arcs. This is a lesson I plan to put into practice going forward, taking turns writing an arc at a time for two different projects.
Mostly though? I've learned what to do if I get really stuck on a chapter. There were about 4 months between the end of Arc 2 and the start of Arc 3 on Scribble, right? Fully half of that time was me trying to write the penultimate chapter, After Party. This is because I had it in my mind, and in my draft, that it needed to be a party. And I had whole weeks at a time where I would go to my computer, pull up the doc for Finding Roles, and stare at the start of that chapter without any idea of how to start it.
This is because I was trying to write the wrong thing. The story didn't need or want a party. It needed an emotional calm where Tessa could unwind and talk quietly with her friends. As it is, I'm still not totally happy with this chapter. I think the lens of the party hurts it by distracting for the chapter's actual meat, and that ideally Tessa would talk with all of her friends in it rather than just Candy.
But I also know that I probably needed to have this experience, to write something not as good as it could be over an agonizingly long time, to learn the lesson and improve from it. If I ever get stuck like that again, it means that the outline is wrong and I need to revise it. And next time it'll hopefully take me a lot less than 4 months for me to realize that.
On that note, let's talk about the future of Finding Roles. I'm going to (or, depending on when you're reading this, already have) mark this story as complete. I think it is a complete story as is, albeit one that wants to continue from here. My next project isn't going to be in this world, either. I have something else in mind that I've been wanting to write for the last year and, damn it, I'm going to write it!
That said, I love this world and the characters in it. I don't have any plans to write another big multi-arc plot in Finding Roles, but I do plan on coming back to it with shorter, somewhat more spell contained arcs. Probably with less emotional realizations are more fluff and having fun in the digital fantasy world. Frankly, Finding Roles has done it's time. My other projects can be the emotionally impactful ones going forward, while ROL:E becomes decompressing fluff time.
But that probably won't be for a bit. Actually I've started working on it as a when-I-feel-like-it project over on my Patreon, so if you want to see where this goes, or check out my other current project, then please go check that out =3
Anyway, I sincerely hope you've all enjoyed this project of mine! It was a lot of fun to write and I absolutely loved to read all of the comments from people~
I'mma close of with my usual habit of recommending something from the Transgender category. Today's recommendation: Unforeseen Variables. This is a cyberpunk story written by the lovely Katie the Angel Witch. As is common with her work, it casually introduces a lot of fantastical (or, as the case may be, futuristic) setting elements without ever getting bogged down by them. It has sapient AI and cool cars and a whole lot of queer people living in a cyber dystopia. If that sounds like your jam then I highly recommend it!
Dundercode· Dec 2, 2021
