Arc 1 Retrospective
Hi! SovWrites here. So, this project has been a long time in the making. And I don’t just mean that in the sense of actually writing it. What do I mean by that?
Well, I’ve been writing a long time. I started out with really bad Halo/Half-life crossover fan fiction in middle school, and kept branching from there. As a kid I wrote for the same reason I read, or binge watched tv dramas, or played video games — as an escape from a difficult home life. I’m sure many folks have a similar story.
As I got older, I realized I enjoyed writing. I was just as entertained by the stories in my head as the ones I consumed on screen or in print. I wanted to be good at it — probably because I wasn’t good at much else. I started getting into the hobby as a craft, trying to figure out how other story tellers pulled off their stunts, how I could do it. I worked hard to find a voice.
I started getting interested in web serials about seven years back, when a friend hooked me onto works like A Practical Guide to Evil and Worm (plus other Wildbow content). I had this epiphany — I could be sharing my work with people online, without the stresses of publishing and editors. I started rewiring my plots into more episodic content, stopped worrying about traditional divisions by book or trilogy. It made things a lot looser, made me enjoy the process more. But that wasn’t the end of the uphill climb — I spent years with false starts, not finding a project I felt truly passionate about or enjoyed for more than a few chapters. I drove my writing workshop crazy, changing my stories or dropping stories every few months.
Why am I reminiscing like this? Well, I’ve got my writing out on the internets now. I’ve got a single arc of this story successfully published online. I’ve proven to myself that I can do this. There were some pitfalls, some things I’m not satisfied with, some hiccups and instances of poor planning on my part, but I’ve done a thing that, a few years ago, seemed like it might never happen. I almost gave up on my writing, convinced myself it sucked and I’d have to accept perpetual writer’s block.
Glad to know I was wrong!
I didn’t expect Oathbreaker to become the project that made the cut to web serialdom. The original version is very different from what I’ve shared here — a very spur of the moment, self indulgent romance based on a pair of DnD characters who didn’t make it into an actual game, but whose narrative I felt endlessly compelled by. That led to another epiphany — trying to make every chapter perfect, every idea full-proof before I put pen to paper, was driving me nuts.
The project I started on a whim and expected not to last more than a few chapters, I’m still writing a year and a half later and feel confident enough to share. It’s almost a cliche to say “write for yourself,” but in my case it holds true. I started writing the stories I wanted to read rather than the ones I thought other people would be impressed by. Since that choice, I’ve been doing something like 15k words a week on average.
So that’s sort of a broad look at how I got here, but what we care about is the story itself, right? It consumes enough real estate in my head, at least. So where do I go from here? Well, Oathbreaker is far from done. These first 31 chapters are, if anything, a proof of concept. I wanted to spend time in Alken’s head, create vibe, foreshadow some future plot beats and build atmosphere. I wanted to dive into the cosmic-scale mess that is his life, his quest, and the questions that drive his story. Did I succeed?
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.