Posted March 31, 2025 by Ri
#progress update
TLDR: I have only two scenes left, and the first draft will be finished.
The last month, I finished Az's branch and the hobby part. Az's branch took a good half of the month since it's as long as the other branches. The hobby looks like this behind the scenes:
So writing all these variations took a while, but I'm glad to be done with it!
The next scene shouldn't read as long, I think, but I do need to write a lot. The cast is playing a card game, but that's not the point. The point is that they will be able to ask the Oracle a question, just as the Oracle can ask them a question in return.
While the cast has set questions, the Oracle has a list of them, so I have to write each character's answer to each of these questions. Most of the questions are available for everyone, but each character has 2-3 questions that are exclusive to them. I'm also adding route (romance/friendship) flavor here and there where it's appropriate. I think this might take me a week or two, and then the last scene shouldn't be very long.
Which means, if everything goes well, I'll finish the first draft this month and begin editing.
Now, the chapter is already 100+K words, so editing won't happen in a week. I want to add more flavor text, too, so I'll take my time to carefully read the scenes and add details as needed. Many things slip my mind when I'm in the trenches of writing, and looking at the list of everything I might need to add would just distract me, so I often leave fine-tuning details to the editing stage. Still, an update is definitely close now!
I'm 100% making the next chapter smaller. This feels like a marathon, and I'm sure some people might be tired of waiting. I am definitely sick of waiting, lol. I think I should've cut the chapter in half, but I underestimated how big it'll turn out with five routes that take, like, 60% of it. But I'm smarter now and won't make the same mistake twice (fingers crossed) 😅
I hope your spring is going well 💛