Alright, now that I’ve taken some time off, I’ve been able to look at things from a broader perspective. That, along with a few reviews Boneclock got recently, gave me plenty to think about. So, as is tradition, I’m doing a bit of introspection. I liked the topic-centric style of last time, so I’m doing that. Last time, I chose five things to talk about, so I’ll do that again this time. Hopefully this makes some things about my story clear or is at least entertaining.

Stakes:

So, first on the chopping block. Stakes. No, I’m not making a pun about that. Anyway, this one needs a bit of explanation. Now, I still consider myself an amatuer writer, at best, so my study of  wordsmithing is similarly casual. The only thing I really do is subscribe to literature channels on youtube and watch whatever they put out.

It was through these channels that I first really thought about stakes. There was an assertion, or at least a hypothesis, made that concluded by saying that narrative stakes are like a game of poker. If you set them too low, then why should you care? If you set them too high, then the author can’t afford to ruin everything they’ve built just to ruin the audience's fun. The golden zone is different for every story, but that same creator added that ruining a world is something that few authors have the narrative chops to accurately threaten the audience with. For lack of a better term.

So, what does this have to do with Boneclock? Well, I think that Boneclock suffers a bit from the stakes being too high. I’ve touched on it before, but there’s only really one way for this to go and that’s with Prime’s death and Mori’s induction into the ranks of the gods. Now, I don’t think that anything’s wrong with this type of stakes. It makes the story breezy if the tone matches, but as I’ve said in the last introspection, the tone’s all over the place, so the stakes hurts the story.

Bloat:

‘What do you mean by bloat?’ I think at least one of you is asking. Well, let’s take a quick look at the powers or equipment Mori acquires over the course of the story. Making deals with mana, raising the dead, spellcasting, runecasting, an arm-mounted gatling gun, a grappling gun, psychic powers, making special undead, precise soul manipulation, weird soul-like body, and I’m not even sure if this is an exhaustive list. That in and of itself is a problem. If I can’t remember what my main character is doing, then she’s a bit bloated on powers. These days, I have a list of things Mori can and can’t do, but how I got here is a bit of a black box for me.

The most recent review of Boneclock I received, from King Frito, really solidified this in my mind. That same review also revealed the bloat in the overall world design as well. I don’t think that, at the highest levels of the world that I haven’t even explored, the world is bloated. But in the story, the system is so, so misused and just as underutilized. The whole system, which I think was why a few people stuck around after the first ten or so chapters, was never really what I wanted to write, really. For that, I regret leading people on and cluttering up the earlier parts of my story.

It’s not just those two either, it’s also plot line bloat. The Green Oasis siblings that just kind of hung around for an arc springs to mind. As well as the Earthlings. And Ursula and her merry band of divine servants. It all bloats everything up.

This one is a lesson I’ve already been implementing into Blueshift. The mc in that one, Arthur, can do four things. First, he can use psychic powers. Secondly, he can shift his body to resemble other creatures. Thirdly, he’s a good fighter with a gun. And fourthly, he’s knowledgeable about investigation and magnetic engineering. That’s it. I won’t spoil anything else (Since the first chapter’s free on patreon for anyone to see) but I have had a much easier time of using his abilities in not only the combat of that story, but also the investigative parts, not to mention the benefit that streamlining the extraneous plot threads has on ease of comprehension. 

So, all told, Mori’s a bit of a hodge podge of powers, but I’ve been able to condense it down since the beginning.

Filler:

I suspect that at least one of you are asking what I mean by filler. Well… I touched on it last time I did one of these, and I feel like it’s gotten a bit worse since then. Chapter after chapter goes by and nothing of consequence in the story happens all that happens is that characters are shown… living… their lives… Alright, that wasn’t planned, but as I was writing the last sentence, I realized something. Something really, really important to this story. It’s going in the last section, since the very thing I wanted to talk about is contributing to my mind being blown this very moment.

So, other than… that, what kind of filler is there. Well, tangential plot lines for one. The bit about the tank wasn’t needed. Nor was the few chapter interlude with the furies having their own fun, but that touches on the thing I was just thinking about, so it’s going into the last section too.

You know what, this just goes to show that I don’t really plan these things out. I write about what I think is wrong with my story and talk about how they could have been changed, but by doing that, I lose some of the analytical benefit from looking at it rigorously. But, as with everything else in this section, let’s save that for later. 

Work-Life Balance:

So…. a bit of a touchy subject, I’ll admit. I don’t want to be rude, but there’s a lot of things in my personal life that I never want to share online. I will share the fact that I don’t use social media, so no luck finding me there. Anyway, what I mean by work-life balance, in this context, is the relationship between my writing and my life. In all honesty, I consider this to be a sort of miniature job that I need to do. I remember someone writing a bit of an emphatic (and heartwarming) comment at the beginning of my sorta sabbatical. It went something along the lines of ‘You should take your time and take care of yourself because you’re providing us with entertainment for free and you don’t owe us anything.’

Now, as you can see, these two kinda clash. I think of this as a mini job, so I push myself when, really, I shouldn’t. I forge ahead through writers’ blocks and poor moods and I think that hurts my story just as much as anything else. I have been pondering this for a long time, and I narrowed the reason that it hurts the story so much to one of two things. Either, A, the personally-enforced responsibility of uploading a chapter every day I said I would, or B, the bite-sized chapters I upload every one of those days.

I have… varying moods that affect my writing. I doubt that’s too surprising. Normally, these moods last a few days at a time, which is fine for a chapter written over the course of a week, but very bad for daily chapters. You’ll have a good feeling running through your story, then it’ll all just fall out from under it because of a bad mood. 

Now, don’t misunderstand me here. I know that some of my chapters aren’t up to snuff and it’s not just because I'm not up to it that day. Whatever the case, I’ve been doing something to remedy this for Blueshift, which is having 10,000 word long chapters per week for about three out of four weeks. It’s more writing per chapter, and I have a bit of a stronger urge to fill it with ‘filler’ (I’m getting to it, don’t worry) but it’ll do wonders for the consistency of the story in terms of quality.

Finally, Why do you people like this story?:

Remember the revelation I had back in the filler section? Well, here’s where I talk about it. In that moment, I was thinking of filler as things that don’t progress the plot. But, really, I thought that the most interesting parts of the story were where people at the periphery were given the spotlight. Now, if I were me before writing Blueshift, I would have thought that I don’t like writing the main characters of stories. But that’s not true. I prefer writing characters with purpose. And let’s be honest, Mori doesn’t have as strong of a drive as Fanrik. Or Ursula. Or the Earthborn. Or even her undead. I may be ragging on her too much, despite the fact that I wrote her into being, but she doesn’t really strive for anything.

Yet another review pointed this out and brought it to my mind, the one by Count-I. He (I’m assuming it’s a he since he’s a count, not countess) claims that Mori’s a Mary Sue. I can’t really argue with that. She doesn’t strive like most other characters do in the story.

But, with all of that said, let me get back to the main point of this section. I have a few areas where I think I do well. The fight scenes, side characters (for the most part), the multiple perspectives, the worldbuilding (about half of the time, personally. I should have fleshed Granulous out more), and the moment to moment stuff. But there are plenty of problems. Hopefully, I learn where I went wrong and learn from it.

Now, I do these introspectives because of two reasons: one, self improvement and a platform for you, the readers, to make suggestions, and two, because it deflates any amount of ego I might be getting for having over six hundred people reading my story. But these don’t really mean anything concrete without you guys. Without anyone reading this, I’m shouting into the void. So, please, give some feedback. I would love to hear it.

Anyway, thanks for reading this one. I don’t like ending my break with an introspection that maybe a fourth of my readerbase reads, but this is helping me come to terms with my mistakes and helps me teach myself. Well, anyway (Again), hope you enjoyed.