Touching Base

I'm putting this up just before the chapter will go up, so the chapter will show first. Read the chapter then come back to this if you're seeing this first!

So, PipiPupu commented on yesterdays chapter:

“I don't think this is the direction most readers would want Nicolai/story to progress in, this just isn't why people picked up your story at least that's what I think, of course supporters would support on Patreon, but this could be a major turnoff for a casual reader. I hope someone could analyze and rephrase this better cause I'm going off of vibes”

And I want to thank Pipi for that cuz well I thought everyone was happy with this development. But now I’m a bit worried and want to work out what is wrong. So I want to touch base with all of you. Because for me, well I see one of the big strengths of writing a Webnovel is that the author can literally get feedback on how the story is progressing chapter by chapter. When writing a book normally, if the author does something that turns like 50% of readers off the story, they often won’t even know that until the book is published. But for a webnovel you can know straight away. As a writer I do have my own visions and ideas I want to explore, but I want to strike a balance between doing that, while also writing stuff that appeals to RR and you guys. Ideally doing both at the same time.

So if the development with A3 is something that really doesn’t appeal to you, I want to know!

I would really like people who feel the same way, to go into detail and what they are worried about, what it is about this development you don’t like/don’t want? You can stop reading here and just write down what it is you’re thinking if you’d like. Actually that would be good to do before reading below either way. Are you worried this will lead into Nicolai having the typical, cutesy litrpg companion and the story will become like every other story? That he will be domesticated and lose his complexity? If so, and if you generally want to understand why I’ve chosen to do this, you can read on.

Below here, I’m just going to be very clear with why I’ve added A3, my thoughts/reasoning behind this and some bits for what I have planned for the coming arc and how/why A3 is something I decided to add to that. It’s up to you if you read that ofc, it will be a bit spoilery but it’s generally more rough plans/directions than specific ideas, though I will spoil one or two of those.

To prelude this, I will say: A3 is not intended as a kind of cutesy forever-companion that stays with Nicolai forever and ever, as you see in a lot of stories like this. Ultimately I see it having an… interesting childhood raised by Nicolai, but going off to do its own things and be its own bot, becoming a complex character in its own right with its own drives and goals.

The main reasoning behind adding A3/a “son” is because I can use it to naturally build into a whole lot of things, that I feel will be very interesting to explore and elevate the story as a whole:

It will lead to character building moments between Nicolai and the Mask, as this will create natural conflict between them due to severely differing opinions on how to raise A3.

This can also naturally lead into a further fleshing out of the Modules. It gives them all reason to talk about things and do things, rather than just kinda Nicolai chilling in the cave. Today’s chapter is kind of a demonstration of that. E.g. I have stuff planned between Mask/Nicolai/Psychology, where Psychology acts as a kind of mediator. There could also be instances of the Modules splitting in opinion and taking sides.

One thing I really want to do, is start to properly develop the Modules down their own power paths. I want each of them to have their own kind of thing they do that ties into Cultivaton/spiritual matters, building naturally off the roles they already have as Modules. I like the idea of them developing very focused skillsets/abilities within this realm. Having A3 and teaching it things, and also sparring with A3, will be a good way to encourage all this in a way that’s a bit more organic. It will aid the power progression overall, lead to experimentation, etc.

I also believe that raising a child can be very interesting because the father is Nicolai, who, though he has the dark in control for now, is still not entirely reliable in the being friendly and sane side of things. Maybe this is what people are worried about, that the story will become overly cutesy and he becomes this doting father-figure? Because that goes quite against my intentions. What kind of a father would Nicolai be, in the long run? He is a complex character, and I think his feelings and interactions toward A3 would be equally complex, both good and bad. Personally I think he could end up being quite toxic and even abusive at times. E.g. what if he is teaching A3 to fight, and realises that A3… is afraid of striking with intent to kill? It refuses to fight all out, because it is afraid of hurting him/anyone? I do not think this is an acceptable trait to Nicolai. I think he would see something like that as a weakness that needs to be removed by any means necessary.

So there could be conflict through these sorts of things, exacerbated by the Dark and then challenged by the Mask. I won't go into anymore specific details but I will say I have quite a lot of plans in this vein and I think setups like this could lead to some of the most powerful and emotional moments of the story so far. So A3 isn’t intended as just a way of and adding humorous/cute moments and so on, in fact ultimately I intend some very dark moments.

Also I will add, I don’t intend to A3 to be childlike for too long. It’s development will be quite accelerated. Currently it is in child stage, but I want it to reasonably quickly grow from child > teenager (with the kind of rebelliousness you might expect from a teenager, which again can lead into interesting stuff) > then into adult. So the more happy/fun time scenes like todays are just going to be, well, for today and next few chapters, and then the dynamic naturally begins to shift.

I am also aware that there are readers who are probably less interested in character development, and more just want to see – action, progression, calculating mc. But I do hope to give both groups what they want, because there will also of course be a lot of that in the coming arc.

Next time he goes to the city will be in around 12 chapters, and by the times he leaves it you will be seeing the major conflicts and power struggles that Nicolai will end up getting tangled in, resulting in a whole lot of fun stuff—proper assassin/spy setups, faction wars, more xianxia tropes, a deeper exploration of the People and the Cultivators, more grabbing and thieving of power/funds, difficult fights with competent foes, a lot of (hopefully) very satisfying moments overrall. A3 will just be one part of the upcoming arc, an important part to be sure, but not the primary focus of it. Nicolai will also be quite lone-wolf for most of the arc, as A3 will generally stay at base.

Sorry pacing can be slow atm btw, this whole section is me setting up the main stuff I want to have going on in jungle arc. I’m never sure how to make it so the pacing is good in these parts.

So, those are my intentions, written quite messily but hopefully it makes sense overal. Please let me know how you feel about all this. I’m gonna do a poll, you’ll see it’s very simple. I think I will see about doing another poll soon, where I actually put options for literally everything I plan to write about in the story to see how exactly it breaks down in terms of what people are interested in. Though that may be difficult because there’s just so much lol. Should I put options for stuff like “mystery of the people”, “finding the lizard” “Zero-Twelve moments” and everything else, or just stuff like “progression” “character development” “ruthless mc”…