Oathbreaker: A Dark Fantasy Web Serial-Another Retrospective, Some Updates

Took me a hot minute, but I've finally finished the Garihelm storyline.

Honestly, I didn't expect it to take me so long. The "city arc" was originally intended to be just that; a single arc, more along the lines of a full book but still part of the relatively episodic approach I'd initially planned for this series. While I do plan out my storylines and use outlines, I also tend to keep my method pretty loose and let the story evolve naturally. It turned out that there was simply too much going on in the city to resolve in one arc, with narratives built for Alken, Rosanna, Catrin, Karog, and other members of our cast that all needed attention. The situation with the Priory and Al's "going public" bit also functioned as a huge dynamic change in the tale, something that I felt needed focus and time to breathe. Ultimately all of this kept growing into the beast that it is currently. I'm fairly happy with it, and I believe that much of the best work I've ever done is wrapped up across this particular leg of the journey.

But we are far from done. Alken's tale will continue, and I've already got fairly solid plans for the next volume. However, I also need some time to reflect on what I've already done and get an action plan for arc 7. In addition, I need to get revisions done for arcs 2 and 3 to turn into the publisher. For this reason we're going to have a bit of a break from posting, which I don't expect to last more than a month or so. I'm hoping to release some content during that time, but can't make any promises since my priority will be keeping the main storyline as good as it can be.

For publishing news, not much to say there. I turned in the manuscript for "book 1," which is just a revised and expanded version of arc 1 (the Caelfall storyline) in back in December. Copyediting has not started and I don't expect we'll see much news until late this year or early next year, which is fine with me -- it feels too early in my web fiction career to stub, and I'm more focused on keeping the ongoing story rolling. I'm hoping to get the manuscripts for books 2 and 3 (arcs 2 and 3, respectively) done and submitted ASAP so they're no longer a distraction from the continuing story.

In other news, we recently hit our one year anniversary, exceeded a thousand followers, and the series as a whole is at 659,539 words. Pretty damn good for one year as a web fiction writer, and much better than I expected not even considering the publishing deal that fell into my lap. I'm insanely grateful for all the positive feedback, the comments, the reviews, and general attention this work has gotten. It's a passion project for me, a story that's developed and cemented itself in my head to become a fixture of my daily life. I love this world and these characters, and every day I'm excited to jump back in with them.

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

That's most of my thoughts for now. Not much about the story itself, I know, but right now my mind is pretty fixed forward and I can't talk about that without spoilers.

Many of you may have noticed that we now have a Patreon button. As of right now this is just a tip jar. I'm pretty stubborn about keeping as much of my work available for free as possible as long as possible. That will be harder when I do eventually stub, and at that point original drafts will be locked behind the Patreon, but for now it's fully optional. It IS the best way to support my work, however. I work 40-50 hours a week in addition to my writing which does cut into my time pretty significantly, so as of right now I can only do this web fiction thing part time. If you want to help me dedicate more time to it, being a patron is the best way to do that. I'm planning to put some of that money back into the story as art commissions, from my current cover artist and others whose styles catch my fancy. I will also eventually share early drafts of new projects on the patreon, so if you want to see what I might be working on in the future before it hits places like Royal Road or wherever, then that'll be the best way. Can't promise that'll happen any time soon, but even becoming a free member can help you stay appraised.

Also, I've linked it a few times before but I think the link expires pretty fast. If you want a place to discuss the story, ask me questions, and get more regular updates, consider joining the discord linked below. This is a public discord for RR authors with a ton of channels, but if you choose my roles you can get into Oathbreaker's library. This automatically updates you when new chapters drop and I'm in there fairly regularly, so feel welcome!

That's all for now. Hoping to get regular posting started up again in a few weeks or so, but I'm still a bit shell shocked from getting volume 2 finished and need a bit of space to get the next part ready. Thanks for reading, and see you all soon! In the meantime, enjoy some art I had commissioned by Hayaokisagi, whose work you can find at hayaokisagi.carrd.co

Sov

https://discord.gg/WHV6jHaq

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