Announcing Hiatus

tyhuko Announcement, Loiterous

I’ve tried guys. A lot of thinking went into this decision before I made it, as I didn’t want a rewrite, yet it was bound to happen. But even that wasn’t enough. Not with the setup I currently had. This includes both the setting, number of characters and the already existing chapters.

Too little planning went into writing Loiterous, and although discovery writing is fun, it isn’t used in online publishing for a reason. Discovery writers rewrite their novels after they’re done. Before they do, everything is out of place. Authors like me don’t have that luxury.

Originally, I had this long post written explaining my reasoning, but I don’t think that’s adequate. An experienced writer would probably come up with one sentence that describes it all. I thought a little and I did come up with one.

I just wasn’t good enough.

That’s why I decided to announce an indefinite hiatus until I have a proper outline. A story about characters who are both alive and memorable.

From what I can say from the initial planning, there will be at least 3 main characters, including Jason (Icicle). This is all for now, as there is still much for me to learn. I hope to return to you guys with a story that will be both entertaining and original in a few months.

See you then.

25 thoughts on “Announcing Hiatus”

  3. Hehe. I had a feeling this novel was getting a bit too underpolished for you. I could see it in your haste of writing and lack of structural direction for the minor and supporting characters. But i do applaud you for accepting your literary weakness and moving towards the steps to improving upon it. That’s what seperates the mediocre writers from the hard-working and talented. If you take anything from what i have said, take this: Never give up. It sounds like a textbook cliche notion but it’s very simple in its premise. If you don’t give up, then that means you are on the progress to success. I truly enjoyed the novel you have created thus far, it was clunky and full of plotholes but it has passion and a writer’s spirit in it. So take this constructive critism as love and know that we will all be waiting for your comeback! 🙂

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    • I am glad I wasn’t the only one to see this. Even if I rewrote right now, I would be heading towards the same bog, dragging the entire novel down.

      Thanks for the kind words, I’ll work hard to make it great.

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  4. I feel ya. ATM, both version of the story lacks meat and/or sweetness.

    What I mean by lacking meat is, it’s entertaining till you remember that Jason is playing a videogame, and death has no meaning in it, and he’s just too OP to where he’s never in danger. There’s nothing really at stake. It ‘might’ have gotten there after a couple hundred chapters, but that’s a lot to go through to get there. Kinda wished for a time skip to relevance. In both versions of the story, his lvl, power, skills, and even his gaming adventure as a whole really doesn’t matter. His RL stuff mattered, but barely, cause he’s the boss.

    It’s lacking sweetness is cause by his alpha male syndrome weakness. Forces a lack of emotion except for rage, greed, and lust(though that lust sure looks fake). “Ain’t got time for cute, I’ma man!” In fact he’s SO “I’m a man!” alpha male that he gives off a closet gay, secretly wished he was a woman, is actually a hermaphrodite/lesbian woman/transgender, or has a small dick vibe. And none of the subcast says jack about it, Probably because Jason would ruin them, by how his(?) character acts like a child when it comes to his manliness. Like I’m reading about a childish antagonist, instead of a protagonist. It’s weird that he has deep government insight, but missed the bus on the far simpler gender type cast societal trap.

    Many Korean and Chinese VRMMO type novels creating meat by have the MCs entirely dependent on income from the game to survive, thus creating motive to ‘get good’ and win. Making game related things matter. Then theres types like Sword Art Online, which was nearly all main plot so it kinda created very polarizing opinions. The first arc seriously was ‘oh shit’ beginning, time skip, death of newb guild, time skip, marriage, time skip, ending. Two years went by, but it sure doesn’t feel it. Felt like the author submitted his outline with detailed important events, but skipped the character development.

    It’s also fine to have no meat, and just have junkfood, as I read some JP VRMMO novels that are all fluff, fun and most of all cute, but you read it for those reasons. They tend to be written in a way where combat isn’t the focus like the other types, but instead character development, interactions and exploration. Jason’s alpha male just kinda kills anything like character development though.

    A good outline is the way to go imo. Hell, Frank Herbert’s outline is the only reason there was an ending to the Dune series after he died. Might Is suggest a rough overall outline, then more detailed arc outline, write the arc, then repeat from arc outline for the next arc. This way you save time having to rewrite future arc outlines when you write an arc and it changes a bit from the outline(because writing i organic). Atleast with an outline you can attempt to prevent repetitiveness. ATM Jason is doing exactly this: Con/tease, suffer, train, con/tease, horde fight, boss fight, repeat.

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    • Someone has been paying attention. I’m glad I’m not the only one.

      The problem was no careful planning and just trying to meet the “deadline”.

      This time I’m taking my time exploring the characters, their quirks, traits and weaknesses so we don’t have cardboard anymore. I’m also readng a lot more and noticing what other writers do. (mainly because I read a book about writing and it teaches you the rules).

      What’s more is that Jason’s “alpha male” vibe killed the story because he was the only character to get the screen time. This will change, alongside other things.

      Thank you for the input, I really do appreciate it.

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  5. Just want to say that, i don’t know what, why or how to writing a novel…..
    but i do think yours is in the level of middle to good writer,, already read the alternate dimension of loiterous (the past story before the rewrite) and this dimension is better (except the last chapters where suddenly everything get escalated quickly)….

    so.. good luck with everything, thank’s for all the chapters, and i hope i could know how jason would stand in the top of loiterous

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  6. Well that sucks (θ~θ) that you found yourself going into a bog, but at least you recognized it and didnt trap yourself by not stopping yourself in time. Though i must know, does this mean another rewrite? It is almost saddening to have that thought since you already went through a rewrite and i was enjoying the current version as well. Though that does make me wonder if you are going to make Jason a woman, though i think i would be (kinda) alright with our MC being a hermaphodite though it would take some getting used to. Though we dont see that many novels were the MC is a hermaphodite (as in an unclear gender) so that maybe a little bit “original” XD
    Why not make our MC part of a race of beings that resemble “Players” like an incorperal race of psychic beings that dont truely die in the same way as VR Players that almost exist in another dimension or state of being? While also having genders like humans but our MC just happens to be a Hermaphodite.
    That might be an “Original” thought since i prefer this story to keep its “Virtual Reality” feel to it. While still keeping the same general characters of course. But please no hermaphodite x male relationship, it would just be wrong (though i would be alright with hermaphodite x female if you get what I mean)
    Sorry if my idea is a little weird or crazy but just a suggestion taken in consideration the whole Alpha Male dialouge earlier with Daitengu and all. 😋

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    • Seriously though (θ~θ), I wasn’t joking about my “suggestion” for something “Original” in my earlier monolouge commentary

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  7. Next time you do stuff. Try to release the story in little bulks. That encompass an entire block of happenings. Not one chapter at a time.
    Makes it easier for you to keep all the things where they belong to and if you’re unhappy with something you can keep polishing it.
    Just please don’t drop this thing, the idea and setting are great.

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  9. I feel like the characters had more… Well…. Character the first go around. On the second go the story felt less convoluted, more grind heavy with less twists. I honestly prefer the first even with the faults. Good luck merging all this together to make something you can read yourself and think it’s good. That is truly hard to do as our own selves tend to be the most critical. I still think first write characters with the better pacing in the second is the way to go or at least something like that. I really liked icicle and some of the girls interactions and missed a few when they were basically tossed from the story. I always viewed this particular web novel as being heavily character based and not the number crunching grinder fest most other VRs end up being.

    Back when I still wrote stories I would try to think of what ending I wanted and work backwards from there to get a basic outline (with timeline.). I would then start at the beginning with a more complex outline while maintaining key points of my previous outline so as not to stray. This has the advantage of knowing where your going, but that can also be a disadvantage as u are on a railroad in case you have that momen t of insight and are then stuck and committed. If u can blend both stories together I believe it would be something great. Doing it in parts could work. (One long broad outline and a few smaller ones like summaries) if you fill the story gaps with humor, character relations, grinding, etc the book should be easier to pull of. Just remember that you’ll write more books so don’t feel that you need to pack every new and fantastic idea into this one book. Save some for later. I feel your on the write track with making the outline anew. It’s the guide for your whole story. If the outline is well done the book will be as well.

    But I’m just an anon, what do I know. Haha. In any case the best of luck to you.

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    • You’re right in this approach, the problem most people don’t see lies in the VR genre itself. It’s next to impossible to pull it off well if you want to merge the two worlds into one story. That’s why you see stories like Sword Art Online, Overlord, Play to Live by D.Rus and others. People who play the game there are strictly limited to the virtual world, thus giving us an illusion of a classical fantasy.

      When I first started writing it was just for therapy, I was depressed, bored, anxious, without a goal. I poured whatever ideas came into my head into the paper, because they seemed exciting. Unfortunately, that’s not how the stories should be written. The ideas are good, but you need to implement them within the boundaries of characters and the world you created.

      The entire time I was rewriting this version I felt something was escaping me. I tried planning the arcs ahead, and as much as it worked for the virtual reality stuff, the real life plot was a total piece of crap.

      So… I tried to remedy that. But then I realized, after a long time, that it is going for the easy way, much like I feel when reading xianxias – “Oh you know there’s a rumor about this peerless artifact no one has seen for the last 12313132131313131 years” and then it is perfectly described…

      I didn’t want that. This time around I’m creating the whole world first, then getting the characters I’ll want to write about, selecting a few and weaving their fates together. I don’t want to drop this project because it’s my “precious” and achilles heel combined.

      It will take some time to create something that I will satisfied about, a reason for the story that’s not an “ass-pull” to weave the two worlds together. As for what it will be, I have no idea yet.

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    • I wish I could say definitely. Sometimes I just want to dive into it and bring it back, but then I’m facing a mountain of problems yet again.

      I recently realized that the problem was a hypertheme. At first it was supposed to be just a VR, then it turned into some real life stuff, then some other things happened, and it all mixed up together creating a mess.

      I think I’ll get back into it with one theme in mind, whichever it is, and just disregard the rest, making a decent story out of it.

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      • Well if your working with the VR theme still I’d say to look at Fantasia on RRL it does an amazing job of keeping the RL relevent to a small degree and making it not detract from the story while still having the VR play the major part of the story. I guess what I’m trying to say is the RL story doesn’t have to be a major driving force for the story and could easily just be used as a way to calm down from the hype that is the VR part.

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      • Well if your working with the VR theme still I’d say to look at Fantasia on RRL it does an amazing job of keeping the RL relevent to a small degree and making it not detract from the story while still having the VR play the major part of the story. I guess what I’m trying to say is the RL story doesn’t have to be a major driving force for the story and could easily just be used as a way to calm down from the hype that is the VR part.

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