The Shadow Society (WIP) Writing Update on #1545

@Takashi_Shin To be fair, it’s not Michael/a’s fault you end up in the position you do; the only difference if M wasn’t there would be that you would end up with the group alone. They were just investigating a little. Or… maybe there’s more to it? :wink: Who knows.

@Nazroth Haha, a very good point! We’ll see if it’ll all be worth it, in the end :blush:

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still what beat the crap out of his

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The danger just makes it better though.

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@Takashi_Shin I’m honestly so happy that one of my characters manages to draw out such strong feels from you, even if those feelings aren’t positive :laughing: And don’t worry; you will get plenty of chances to hate on M, if that’s the route you want to go~

@Nazroth Glad to hear it :blush:

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@Carawen it’s really good to see that you are actually taking your time out to reply personally to the readers. This is a virtue that actually attracts the readers more than anything, the feeling that their suggestions are not lost to deaf ears. This also dictates how the pre-release and post-release buzz are going to be. So, a big thanks on behalf of all the participants in this thread for replying to almost everyone.

That said, I am going a bit off-road by asking, is Seraphinite a big inspiration for you? Don’t want to offend, just askin’ 'cause the supernatural romance thing, a team of four, are all something very prominently featured in TWC. But again, your story definitely has its own novel ideas and I, for one, really enjoyed it, as I stated earlier.
By the way, I was surprised to know that English is not your first language given that I took you to be a British given the time zone you live in, and your near flawless style of writing (except the pronoun mishap, probably a coding error). But there are many authors who actually wield English like adept fencers , and I’m happy to learn you are one of them.
Best wishes, A.D.

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@CalcuttaCalling I think it’s important to show each and everyone who takes the time to comment how much I appreciate it, so it’s no trouble answering everyone at all; I really enjoy hearing everyone’s opinions, and thanks to that I’ve even been able to improve many aspects of the interactive novel! It’s really I who should be thankful to all of you for helping me :blush: thank you so much for the sweet comment!

Haha, I can really see how you could draw that conclusion! I love Seraphinite’s writing, and I love TWC along with her earlier work. It was truly TWC that made me realize what you could do with interactive fiction; that it could practically be a book where you could steer the story. The CoG I had played before had seemed more focused on stats, not story and characters, so discovering that I could create an interactive story like a real book was like a dream come true haha. And don’t worry, that’s not an offensive question at all!

That being said, the supernatural romance along with the whole TSS story, is something I originally wanted to use for a Visual Novel for a couple of years now. But then I discovered the format of interactive novels, and realized it suited me better, since I need pictures, music etc. for Visual Novels and I’m not very strong in those departments. The reason that it’s a group of four (or five, with M), is because I wanted to have many different personality types that could appeal to different types or readers; four or five just seemed like a good number. Not too many, not too few :blush:

Thank you so much, it’s super flattering to know that you think my English is that good! My time zone is close to England, only differing with about an hour or two. Best wishes to you too :blush:

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I was also surprised that you aren’t British. I always thought you were by the punctuation with quotations (because in American English, commas go inside the quotations, and in British English, it’s acceptable for it to go outside or in. Maybe Australian English, too).

Well, the more you know (of the author).

hqdefault

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@chocolatemix Huh, so that’s why :open_mouth: I wasn’t even aware of that… The more you know indeed!

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Hello everyone!

Just thought I’d stop by to let you know how the book is coming along. I’m currently at about 50,000 words, and I’m aiming for about 100,000 for the extended demo! So I’ve got about halfway to go :blush:
The start of Chapter Three along with the first potential relationship scenes (romance/rivalry/friendship) have been written. While I can’t say with 100% certainty how long it’s going to take to get the extended demo out, I’m expecting two weeks tops. However, I will make sure to give more updates during this time and let you know if anything has changed!

Have a nice day! :smile:

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Be sure not to overwork yourself ! ><

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So, the idea is to provide a big demo for all of us, if I get it right. I personally think that this is a good idea, because that way we have more to fill our plates with and a better understanding of the characters in depth. It’s more suitable for such an ambitious project because smaller updates break the continuity of thought, both of the author and the readers. So, just take your time, gather your most brilliant(and craziest) ideas, take a deep breath, nurse a mug of coffee, pick up your favourite pen, let your imagination flow on its own, tear up pages, throw them in the waste paper box, and write again. It always works for me.
No need to be in a hurry. Remember, this is your brainchild, so give it your best. I know that people in the forum are no stranger to playing the waiting game…Malin had Fallen Hero lurking in the forum for at least 3 years.
Just one thing to be cautious about, don’t let the steam of excitement die down. It’s hard to revive the popularity once the thread becomes inactive for a long time.
That being said, best of luck for the future updates. I am going to hibernation in the coming months, some real life priorities need to be taken care of, so you don’t have to bear with my incessant soliloquies time and again.

Hope you enjoy writing. Best wishes.

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@Hamps Thank you for your concern, I will make sure to take care of my health :blush:

@CalcuttaCalling I appreciate your comments a ton, actually, so it makes me sad that you’re going to be inactive for a while, but I totally understand! And I’m updating the demo because I didn’t feel like the player really got enough time with the world and characters, and I don’t want people to have to wait for the full release when they’ve barely touched the surface of the world :slight_smile:
Thank you so much for the support. As for the popularity, I’m not sure how I could possibly steer that; it’s up to people if they’re interested enough in my project to continue to follow it or not, yes? I’m updating pretty often on my tumblr, answering questions and such, and other than that and making sure to update regularly here I think that part is a bit out of my control. But I’m really thankful for all your advice! :blush:

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Ah, I see. The truth is, there are people who are interested in your story, invested perhaps. There always are. It’s more about being a catalyst on your part, creating the ripples in the water, the rest will be taken care of by the ever-so-enthusiastic readers, and fortunately there are plenty of them. You have to appear a bit regularly in this thread(which you do), perhaps encourage the conversation by posting some FAQs, some short teasers, character backgrounds, fanarts … being the god of these small things help to attract the readers…a lot.

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Hmm, I see. That’s a good idea :slight_smile: I’m pretty careful with giving stuff away, even things so small as character background and such in this thread, since I know that some people prefer a blind read without knowing what the characters are all about etc. I answer scenario and character asks on my tumblr, but that’s the main reason why I haven’t been very adamant about posting info stuff on here.

But I could easily make a sort of compromise by doing a FAQ, character sheets etc. and post links to them for those who are interested to learn more about the world and characters! That would actually be a lot of fun :smile: And those who don’t want to have anything at all spoiled to them could just ignore the links.

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Hi,

Please don’t be pressured too much in terms to keeping the excitment up for the fans. If the fans are invested in your stories, they will follow you no matter what and help in their own way to keep this thread going.

For example, Sera usually post once a week updates on CoG and answer asks in her tumblr when TWC got started but she do take a week off once in a while and weekends off throughout the process including answering asks on tumblr. Her fans,on the other hand, create discussion base from the answers Sera gave on her tumblr page.

Fans should be proactive as well to initiate prompts and fun discussion and not leave it solely to the author. In the end, this all depends on your work style.

This is just my two cent.

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@resuri08, given that you are up early, I’m guessing that you are from the land of Nippon, sorry if I am wrong. So, before I go on ranting once more, a very good morning to you.
Gomenesai if my earlier post offended you. I’m just trying to clear the air here.
I totally agree with you, the readers should be proactive too. But that is ideal scenario, and ideal scenarios never play their part well when needed the most, especially in the real world. It’s often the participation of the author that dictates the activity of the topic, especially in early stages.
Yes, Sera replies once a week in the forum now, but she’s an established brand by now. As a frequent poster in the original thread of TWC, you must have noticed that the brand was not established overnight. For the first few months, Sera visited the forum almost everyday, replying to almost every single query. And she knows very well how to keep up the buzz, given that all those aesthetic boards, FAQs were essentially her idea, and that’s exactly the reason I hold her in high esteem.
Look at the other threads which are successful… Kingdom by Sophia, Ultimata by brachydiosX. In both the cases the threads lean heavily on the author.
I don’t state this to antagonize you. It’s just the opposite, I actually agree with your point. But, the reality is, this thread is already leaning heavily on Carawen. The last time they posted was 4 days ago and this thread saw almost zero activity since. I will be happy to see the readers actually engage in some insightful conversation.

And @Carawen, I am sorry if my earlier proposal was a bit too… demanding. I obviously don’t want to pester you or put pressure on you. I apologise if my naivety got the better of me and asked too much of you. As I said earlier, take all the time you need. What matters ultimately is the story, and that’s the priority.

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Are you referring to the FAQ found in the TWC (released) thread? It was an group effort by the fans to combine the FAQ since they were asked multiple times throughout the thread and to relieve Sera (bless her patient heart)'s burden of answering repeated questions. XD

It is not an ideal concept that you have to pace yourself especially if you are just starting out. My view is that since the author has her own tumblr for asks and sneak peeks, this thread will more on updates, feedback and discussion. Handling both is quite hard to handle and might give information overload. I am not stopping the author if she plan to do what you requested though. Different authors have their own work style.

In Sera’s case though, I joined the thread when the WIP was six months old. Unfortunately, I could not remember much in between but one thing I noticed that she has consistency but she don’t overwhelm people with too much information.

Don’t worry though, I was not antagonize by your post. You could voice out your advice since this is a public forum afterall. The author has their style so we just leave the topic at that. =)

@Carawen I apologize for the off topic posts. I have enjoyed the premise of your story and looking forward to try the demo soon. XD

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A very nice and interesting story …i like it very much :slight_smile:

May i ask… the Blue Hammer is a football team right ? Is it American Football or the Football that is known as “Soccer” in USA? I understand there are women football/soccer teams around the world, but was just curious whether any women American football team in your universe ?

anyway, i think Michaela Rios is a really interesting character, not only she is totally human …but if i chose to be her team’s rival , our interaction was really funny :smile: , so i am assuming if i am choosing Michaela as love interest , will i have to shift loyalty to her team ? It will be fun when during match day , whether i should cheer for my girl friend or her rival team …lol

i am assuming the love interest is four super naturals Vs one human right? although i am looking forward to romance a super natural among the four, Michaela had present herself as a very memorable character :slight_smile:

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1- In USA football with the feet is soccer and the “american football” is just football.
2- Cheer for your team, and cheer for her to defeat your team. I think that would be very you

3- Another “crush” man? Seriously?

:fox_face:

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IiRC, it is said that she isa WR, a Wide Reciever, which is one of the “ballcatching” Positions in American Football. I think you get that info, if you root for her team and see her as a celebrity

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