Hey all!

  Long rambling retrospective incoming, skip down to the ‘WHAT’S NEXT’ section for the important bits.

  RETROSPECTIVE

  So, we’ve finally finished.

  I know many of you are disappointed it’s over, and I share that disappointment in many ways. I’ve really grown to love the characters, and the world, and it’s hard to let go - I genuinely really tried to kill both Jorge and Vera, and even Jacyntha, but honestly, I just couldn’t! I had death flags all over the shop for Vera and Jorge, but in the end, this story was meant to be one about hope and joy in a harsh world, not misery or realism. A happy ending felt most honest, to me at least.

  It’s fun writing about the gang, the adventures they could have, their plans moving forwards etc…and in some ways it would be quite easy to just keep going. It’s insanely tempting to keep writing this story for another 1500 pages – fuck it, why not try to hit 1 million words? I could build up a big backlog on patreon, reduce my output from 5 per week to 3 per week, keep the growth coming, even take out some ads and make a nice 100-200 bucks a month of patreon probably. Maybe hit 2-2.5k followers by the end of the year…

  However, the flaws are just too glaring for me right now. Any future growth will be hampered by more than half the people I attract turning away, and as I have made it onto trending and got over the 1k followers mark, I'm starting to get more of the 'mainstream' readers giving it a chance, and as such I'm getting mostly mid ratings now. This story benefitted a lot from some very generous readers giving it a try early on, and the people who check out recently updated and hang around the small stories tend to be much less critical - which I massively appreciate by the way! - but it means that future growth for this story is difficult.

  I made choices at the start of this story that I’m not super keen on, and honestly, I made many of them for the wrong reasons. This is the first story I’ve ever tried writing as an adult, and I think it shows.

  Brief tangent; I wrote, believe it or not, the first isekai ever when I was like 10. Its official – it was called ‘Rayman adventures’ and the plot was that I, the author, got sucked into the playstation 2 and turned into Rayman (great game btw), and then the final thrilling cliffhanger was that my brother picked up the controller not knowing what had happened…but he sucks at Rayman. Gasp! What a twist! It was probably like 200 words long, and my sister helped me write it.

  Yeah, not the greatest story ever but it was groundbreaking – give me a break! ??

  I know, I know, that wasn’t the origin of isekai or anything, but it made me laugh to think about. There was a pretty substantial 20 year gap between that and coming to royalroad as an adult, but I like the circularity to it all; even as a child I was enjoying the dumb story ideas we read and write about on here.

  In The Shadow Of Mountains (ITSOM from here on out) was my first attempt at writing as an adult. When I started it about two years ago, I just wanted a hobby that wasn’t so weather dependent, and I’d read some really awful stories on royalroad and thought for a long time ‘what the hell, I can do better than that!’

  Turns out, writing is way harder than I thought. My respect for royalroad writers has shot up ever since. I had fun for a year just doing bits and bobs for a few hours a week, but then decided in 2024 to actually get serious and try and write a story.

  I chose a litRPG isekai because I was reading a lot of them at the time and it seemed the easiest. That was it. I used the isekai theme, and the litRPG progression, to direct me and bracket my story, but I didn’t know how to handle the backstory of the main character, or the yearning for their old life.

  The initial premise of ITSOM was 'what if you isekai someone who is reasonably well-adjusted? Not a nervous gamer, not a badass veteran...just a dude who can think and plan and do some stuff well, but is not particularly special'.

  The problem with that is that this hypothetical character would clearly not want to leave their well-adjusted life, and when I started I didn't know how to deal with that.

  So I just went with amnesia. Simple, cheap, and not very creative or interesting, unfortunately.

  Honestly, that was the main reason I went with isekai in general – because I didn’t know how to write from the perspective of a native in a new world, and all the information that would have to be given to the audience right at the start seemed too overwhelming. It’s a lot to think about at first for somebody who has never done it before, despite spending nearly 30 years reading pretty voraciously.

  I didn’t know how to write dialogue with more than two people talking, I didn’t know how to structure and pace chapters, had absolutely no idea how to write subtext (still struggle with it!), and I struggled formulating character arcs as well. I got so overwhelmed trying to plot out an actual story and characters, that I just decided to wing it and wrote chapter by chapter without a plot.

  It wasn’t until I got the story to the Colchet arc that I actually decided to work in the plot properly, and so I did a bunch of re-writing and re-ordering to get things in place so that a larger, logical plot could emerge. I also tried to add in some extra characters because by that point it was 100k+ words with only 4 real characters. This has had mixed success, but it’s much better than it was originally, trust me.

  I've put a lot of work into ITSOM...but if you get a random guy off the street and stick him on a construction site for a year that doesn't mean you'll end up with a nice shiny house at the end of it. I was working hard, but didn't have the necessary skills to tell the story I really wanted to.

  The point is; after writing nearly half a million words in a year, I am a much better writer than I was when I started this story, and I would make very different choices about it if I wrote it again.

  For one thing, the litRPG element kinda sucks. I’ve not been clear about how exactly the attributes scale – that became obvious to me in the Riverlands when Vera holds up the roof of a house for Lamb to rescue the old man. She is peak 3rd tier, attributes must be in the 300+ range when it comes to strength at least, and she struggles to lift a house? It was a big house I suppose, but I’d not done any calculations about roughly how much she can lift.

  I had a magic system that I had never properly explored. I didn’t know the upper or middle limits, didn’t know what combat looked like between mid-tier fighters, and I was just freeballing it as it goes, with rough ideas in my head the whole time. It led to clunky plot contrivances and meant I missed out on some really awesome moments because I was using it as a crutch rather than thinking it through ahead of time.

  And the biggest sin of all – I’m not too happy with the actual ending. Didn’t know what to do once they won, and I think it felt a little flat and rushed, as well as dragged out, however contradictory that sounds.

  But there we are – I’ve been writing 40-60k words a month for like 4 months, and I’m running on empty, I think. So yeah, there are some heavy flaws with this story that make me not want to continue without fixing them. Any growth it has will be hampered by more than half the people who try it turning away after the first few chapters, and any future writing within this world will be hampered by my poor planning of the magic system.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Despite all of that though, I’ve got over 1100 followers on RoyalRoad, and had a pretty steady 20 paid members a month on patreon, despite telling people not to sign up in jan and feb because it was ending. I’ve earned nearly $400 in total from it (patreon takes a 20% cut) and I can’t believe that real actual people have paid me for my writing. It’s surreal, and awesome, and awe-inspiring, and I’m so unbelievably grateful to you all for taking a chance and enjoying my work. Big thanks.

  Which brings me nicely to below:

  WHAT’S NEXT?

  Regarding ITSOM?

  Well, I have submitted this story to a few of the indie publishers that work in this space (progression, litRPG, royalroad type stories). If any of them are interested, I am going to do some heavy work re-writing and editing the whole thing so that it can be sent over to kindle unlimited and possibly even audible (an absolute dream), as well as work on a sequel.

  Now, I don’t think this is particularly likely. 1k followers is pretty cool, but you need 2k plus to start really hooking the publishers’ interest unless it’s just a really good quality story, and I’m not sure that mine is yet…but I’ve submitted the queries anyway, and will hold out hope.

  Ideally, I would split this story into three books of about 150k words each;

  Book 1 would start at the beginning (duh!) and end with the whole Francis D’sware/Subakir bit, with a heavier emphasis on building up the Sunsets and the characters of the antagonists.

  Book 2 would be the Titan’s Crown and progression bits, and maybe crossing into the Riverlands, and I’d probably expand the role of The Blending into a true tournament arc while introducing Sadrianna and Jacyntha better and setting up their arcs.

  Book 3 would be the Marchlands and the final battle, which ended up being way longer than I had originally envisioned, and I think it could be even longer still if done properly – the Ashkanian Ruin/Vault could feature properly, and it could help to have Lamb actually gain power from the seed of the world tree while in the vault itself, fighting against Estan, Varice, and possibly some other henchmen/fodder in a Guerrilla Warfare style as he’d always planned. I don’t know, just spit-balling really, but I feel it could be done better.

  I would obviously re-write a fuck ton of it, add in new characters and side-plots, iron out the details of the system and generally make it much tighter and more interesting. I’d also work on having real character arcs that start and end alongside the plot progression, and make sure there is a consistent theme(s) underwriting it all.

  It might be that it’s best as two books instead – who knows? I’d have to hear what the publisher suggests as I am a pretty big amateur when it comes to writing, but I do know that 450k words is far too long for a single book, even an ebook on kindle.

  If this ever does happen though (and fingers crossed!), I plan to write at least one sequel as well, to drum up interest on royalroad before getting the story onto kindle/audio.

  The sequel would be…..Lamb and Nathlan bro it up in the Leviathan Coast!

  A little bit of kingdom building, as they spread their influence slowly in the face of the apocalyptic reorganisation of the coast, saving town after town and then moving to take the big cities, freeing them from Wavebreaker control, and training a cadre of ward-crafters that can safeguard the cities and allow them nominal independence. Meanwhile, Jacyntha would no doubt turn up after wrapping up her stint as a travelling knight/ronin waging a one-woman war against the bandits of the Riverlands.

  New characters, a whole new part of the world, and plenty of larger looming threats to build towards and tackle, as well as a few check-ins with Vera, Jorge and Sadrianna, too.

  I dearly hope there is interest for me to dedicate the time to doing this potential sequel justice, but that will only happen if I can get the original ITSOM picked up by a publisher (so if you want that, too – please follow/fave/rate/review as the stats do help to get their attention).

  Long-term dreams done, what I plan to do over the next 4-6 months while waiting to hear back from publishers is this:

  NEW STORY!

  I plan to write a cultivation progression fantasy themed around ancient Egypt. I’ve been listening to some fairly dry non-fiction audiobooks to learn a bit more about the history and culture of ancient and middle Egypt, but if anyone has any recommendations for fun fiction works set loosely there, I’d be very appreciative if you could drop them in the comments. The more research the better, and building a vibe is important.

  That said, it’s not going to be historically accurate or anything. It’s fantasy, made from my own mind; think undead horrors and ancient Tombs, an interconnected world full of magic and progression, and lots of different biomes and cities and cultures. Not going to be just sand and pyramids, obviously.

  I have already started writing this story, but I’m doing it the opposite way that I wrote ITSOM. Instead of flying by the seat of my pants, I’m plotting very heavily first. I want to know exactly how the cultivation system works (already done this bit and it's been so fun!), and how the abilities the protagonist and key cast gain will intersect.

  I want to know who the main characters are and what their arcs will be (mostly done). I want to know who the villains are, what the larger looming threat is and how that is wrapped up into the plot, and also how each little mini-arc works from chapter to chapter. I want a gripping plot that hooks people in and stays strong throughout, so I’m not just freewheeling in a cool new world (despite how fun that can be to write sometimes).

  I want a list of every single scene I will be writing, in order, before I begin. And I want to know exactly which character arcs and progression points map to which scene within the larger story. Who knows if that will work, but that is my intent.

  I’ll be dropping that story sometime in summer/autumn 2025, and I’ll be aiming to hit and climb rising stars. I will know by the end of the year if it’s successful, but privately I’m hoping it will be. I reckon I can get 2k followers before end of 2025, and if so, I plan to stick with that story for the long haul (at least 3 books and probably the whole of 2026).

  I’m sort of hoping to become a full-time writer one day, and the research I’ve done suggests that you can earn enough to have this as a pretty solid gig if you are in the realm of 5k+ followers, depending on the story. And if you can hit that, you can probably do better, repeatedly. That’s obviously a long way off, and call me crazy, but hey, I think I can get there by the end of 2027. Luckily, my current job gives me a fair bit of free time/flexibility compared to many, so I can write about 30k words a month pretty sustainably, and can ramp things up for a season if needed.

  I really hope I can keep improving and progressing, and writing new things seems to be the best way to do that from what I can gather. Honestly, seeing the royalroad numbers going up is the closest I will probably come to being in a litRPG myself – it’s pretty fucking cool! I would recommend you all try it if you have any interest.

  In fact, offer on the table – if any of you are interested in writing, I’d be happy to take a look at your work/bounce ideas/introduce you to some writer’s discords etc. Shoot me a message on here if you’re interested. Not that I have much pull or anything, but it would be cool to hear about your projects and dreams and I’ll be happy to help if I can.

  Now, i’ve been told no author post is complete without a:

  CALL TO ACTION!!

  Basically, please don’t unfollow and please rate. This will be the final chapter for anything I post on this story, unless I get a publishing deal, in which case I will update you all about the plan and then probably start spamming new chapters of the sequel like hot cakes. Once I launch the new story in summer, I will put a new chapter on here to alert you all, and link to the new story. It’s one push notification for the next 6 months, so it seems like fair trade for consuming literally hundreds of hours of my hard work for free, right? ;)

  Also, if you haven’t already followed, favourited and rated, that would be cool if you could now, and I’d really appreciate it! Seriously, positive ratings and reviews really help to push the story up the rankings and make it discoverable for new readers, which in turn means this might get better stats and therefore a publisher is more likely to be interested. I'm on page 5 of 'best rated complete' so far, and 20 new 5 star ratings would push me to page 4 (I think). That would probably help with growth significantly!

  So to my hardcore readers who have read all 140 or so chapters…make sure you’ve followed, favourited and rated the story – it’s your best chance of getting a sequel.

  So, you’re still following this story, right? Cool, you can go! Goodbye, God bless, and thank you for your help and support! Feels mean to say, but I don't want to ask any more from you than I already have. There are hundreds of amazing stories on RR that would be lucky to have you as readers too, so go share the love with some other needy authors :)

  If you want to give me any feedback at all, positive or negative, I’m more than willing to hear it, and would LOVE to chat/engage in the comments of this chapter. I would love to know what I did well, what I struggled with, and what choices you are happy/not happy with – it helps me improve, after all. But that being said, it’s not your job, so don’t feel bad if you don’t want to – you are all holders of my eternal gratitude just for making it this far!

  If you have any theories or want to know more about any specific characters or events, or any worldbuilding questions, then please drop them in the comments too!

  Thanks again everyone, big love to you all!