Mage? Spell Engineer!

It took more than a year and nearly 1.5 million words to write this, this is the story of Rorschach.

The opportunity to start writing was in the first semester of my senior year in undergraduate studies, when I suddenly had some free time after confirming my qualification for postgraduate study. At that time, most of the other students were still preparing for the exam, but I didn't have much pressure, and I didn't want to spend all day playing games. It just so happened that I had the idea of ​​writing a novel a long time ago, and I had posted some works on other platforms in the past. They were not long, and they were all fan fictions of about 10,000 words. So I made up my mind to write a long novel that could be serialized on Qidian. Oh no, a medium-length online novel.

At the beginning, it was completely based on my hobbies and enthusiasm. I personally think that novels, especially online novels, should highlight the dimension of fantasy, and I can put a lot of ideas in and make a pot. Some of these ideas are very interesting, and some are ridiculous, but they are all mine and must be written into the book.

When I clicked to publish with a nervous mood, everything changed. A difficult contract, the first round of PK during the new book period, a defeat in the second round, skipping a round to the fourth round, and ranking second in the fantasy section of the new book list from the pupa

With the feedback from book friends, I began to reflect on myself, began to pay attention to the rhythm, began to avoid the poison points, began to learn some skills and think about how to arrange the plot better (but the extra chapters are still the link to let go of myself)

In short, there are many obstacles, and there are also many happy moments of going uphill. I have typed millions of words without realizing it, which is incredible for me. There is an estimated number of words for the whole book when filling out the contract. At the beginning, I was worried that I would fill in 800,000 words.

The most important factor for me to persist until now and finish the story of Rorschach is the support of all book friends.

In the past, when I had plenty of time, I would write down the book friend ID in the author's words to thank them, so some book friend IDs were collected into the word library by the input method, and some were default digital IDs. Sorry, sometimes I can't remember or type them wrong.

For example, "There is a bear in the world", "Xia Jie is not a hero", "TAKEAPILL", "Book friend 090501051745967", "Saka Saka Banban Jiayu", "Sun and Moon Yuanche", "luk27thmun", "Don't pass on the roll", "Easy to identify_1", "Oo floating fragrant blood oO", "Yi Shui cold shines on people's hearts", "Dr. Chen who has mastered multiple studies", "Long-lasting flame", "Little Fat Bee", "Blue Shirt and Purple Robe", "Gigi Monster", "Bookworm 603Eng1LT", "All and more", "Hot baked buns", "Laughing and sighing tired", "9102 survival confirmed", "Archier", "Gio Tuanzi", "Dim vacuum", "Thousands of gold scattered red sleeves", "Pass on the fire", "There is always a future waiting", "Tiffany No. 3".

These are just some of the many book friends, all of which are impressive IDs for Huanggua. There are definitely some book friends who have been missed, but it is impossible for Cucumber to write all of them here. Allow me to be partial for the last time. The above book friends have continuously expressed their support for Cucumber in various ways and frequently interacted with Cucumber. In particular, there were several people who encouraged Cucumber when it was the most difficult to serialize and doubted the future of this book. I am really grateful.

Of course, whether you vote for a monthly ticket, a recommendation ticket, or read the book silently, whether you are willing to leave a message or not, no matter which platform you are on, as long as you are willing to read it, it is the greatest support for me. There are also book friends who may give up halfway through and may not see this text, but I still want to thank you and say sorry. It may be that the plot is no longer to my taste, or that the later updates are irregular and slow. It is always because the author did not do it well. Sorry.

The biggest regret of the book may be the rhythm problem. The big framework and the ending were set by me at the beginning, and new settings were added, supplemented and adjusted in the middle. In general, except for a certain saint and duck in the early stage, the other settings are consistent and form a complete structure.

However, how to arrange the plot, how to express, choose, adjust the proportion of content and control the rhythm are the most difficult to do well. Updating online articles is like playing chess - there is no regret for making a move. I often find that perhaps adjusting the previous article can make the whole story more harmonious and smooth, but it is not so easy to change after it is published, especially for the arrangement of time.

In the early stage, I was most satisfied and most dissatisfied with the "Shadow City" chapter. The setting of this article was inspired by Neil Gaiman's "Utopia", and I added many of my own ideas. Originally, the weight of Istani should be equal to Valois. But at that time, I dug holes every day, made mystifications, and made a lot of new settings, which led to a very poor reading experience for the book friends who followed the update. As a result, the subscription volume and interaction at that time fell into a serious trough, and I had to speed up the plot and cut the Gordian knot to let the protagonist end the island country journey as soon as possible.

This time also taught me a lesson. The experience of continuous reading and daily follow-up is very different. You must consider both. You must be able to lay a macro framework and do a good job of the small dojo of 4,000 words per day.

As for the later content, I hope to extend the time span of Rorschach's experience, from the age of seventeen to thirty, to show more detailed social changes and depict the richer and more peculiar magic world I imagined, rather than fast-forwarding at 3x or even 10x speed like in the end. The fantasy world I expect will not be a stagnant pool, the system will not change, the productivity will always be medieval, and the supernatural elements will become stronger with age. At first, Rorschach first entered the other world, and he moved with the changes of the times, and later the times moved because of him. This is what I want. Did I achieve it? I can only say that it is not satisfactory.

The ending is the same. Cucumber tried to recover all the foreshadowing, but Rorschach's counterattack against the Lord of Order was too brief, as if he had done everything, and the last moment was just a review of the ancient sage. If I write more content, I should give more foreshadowing, and repeatedly outline the foreshadowing to make them more obvious and more complete. Unfortunately, October was very busy, and the production capacity was really not enough. If I could maintain the rhythm of two updates a day, I am confident that the ending can be done better.

If this assumption is carried out to the end, considering the whole book, it should be the sixth volume to overthrow the empire and end the war; the seventh volume enters the astral world to deal with the crisis. There are many things to write in the meantime, and even looking at the number of chapters, I can finish the eighth volume.

However, after entering the rhythm of graduate school, my personal time was greatly compressed, and my mentality and views on many things were different from when I first started writing, and I encountered some things during the summer vacation. All these things combined made me feel deeply tired, and I was not confident that I could dig out new ideas and burst out inspiration. If I force the pace of the first half of this book to continue, I will definitely produce a lot of dry and boring text in the second half.

At least the sixth volume of this volume should be split into two volumes. What is the name of the non-existent seventh volume? Borrowing the translation name of the first volume of the "Galaxy Empire" series, it is called "Stars Like Dust".

In short, when I finished writing the last chapter, I felt "relieved" and "reluctant to leave" at the same time. This is not contradictory at all. The "burden" does not only come from the coding itself, but there are also many "reluctant" things. I am very clear that as my first complete novel, many things in it will not be written again. Whether good or bad, they are unique.

Finally, let's talk about the new book.

Due to academic pressure, Huanggua currently has no energy and ability to write original works. "Fa Gong" has almost emptied the accumulation of the past few years. Therefore, the next book will be a light-hearted and joyful fan work. As for the subject matter, it is a representative work of British fantasy children's literature that has been complained about more than once in this book.

But I want to write something different. The new book has passed the editor's internal vote (as early as August, when the book was originally planned to be completed.), which means that the release will be signed soon, and book friends can "invest" to get some coins before the new book changes to the contract status. Maybe the book friends of this book are not very interested in the subject matter of the new book, but I still ask you to support me and add it to your collection, which will be a great help to Cucumber.

Therefore, this book will not change the serialization/completion status at present. After the new book is released, I will post the last extra chapter and the title of the new book in this book, which may be next week.

Now, please allow me to put down my pen again. Goodbye!

Gu Liu Cucumber

Written by the Qianhu Lake before dawn on November 2, 2024