OOC - Next volume for Sythyry

[sythyry]

OOC: Sythyry's Vacation isn't new and small any more. I've been writing it for two years now, and, since I've kept myself to a stricter schedule, it's gotten to nearly three hundred thousand words. That would make a thick paperback novel, comparable to one of the books in Wheel of Time or Song of Ice and Fire (for two that I found wordcounts on line).

So maybe it's time to do something else with Sythyry and friends. My goal is to establish a new storyline which new readers could read and enjoy without having to go back and glomp through all of Sythyry's Vacation. Which is what I did when I started Sythyry's Vacation --- two years ago it was easy to get started without having to glomp through the even larger wordglurd of Sythyry's Journal!

(This is not an urgent matter. I've got over a month of Sythyry in the queue: a whole new plot arc in Hanija, and one which barely mentions the word 'tofyof'. But sometime in the next few months I will need to make this change, if I do it at all, and so I'd like to be thinking about it.)

Here are a few ideas:

Code	Explanation
KeepGoing	Continue Sythyry's Vacation. New readers who don't feel like reading backstory can muddle along, or indulge themselves carnally with some elfimel, or whatever, as they please.
Part2	Continue Sythyry's Vacation, but with a break that lets me kind of restart it as a separate storyline. (E.g., a return to Barency and Vheshrame to drop off many of the current chars, and then going somewhere else with, probably, a reduced crew.) This would keep many of the characters and situations on Strayway, but go off to different places, and not rely on previous history much.
NewTown	Sythyry returns to Vheshrame and starts constructing a new town. This would come right after Sythyry's Vacation. It would have some of the same characters, but a fairly different structure and set of plots.
FastForward	Pop another century or so into the future, kill off all the mortal characters, and do a radically different plotline. If Sythyry goes to found a new city-state, this is probably how I'd do it.
BroadFocus	Enough Sythyry. Imortal super-powerful wizard with immortal super-powerful friends is not that interesting a point of view. Tell stories about Sythyrys' crewmembers, but from various points of view, or third-person.
DifferentStory	Really, enough Sythyry. Tell other stories.

[Poll #1707310]

Comments

[kibbe.livejournal.com]

Sythyry's journal, and vacation is not a single book. It is a series. AKA, the wellworld series by Jack Chalker. The honor herrington series. As such word count is not such a big deal. Each arc in a way is its own novel, its own story.
You might want to work on closing arcs a little better, so thay stand alone easyer as seperate storys. ALso, perhaps a page that links to the start of each arc, so its easyer for people to navigate through them. The primer idea mentioned by others is also a good idea. It would alow someone to read the porimer then dive right into things without having to run all the way to the begining to get the back story.
On the whole, I think you should finnish the vacation story before moving on. That does not mean you should stay on the vacation, just that you should finnish it, tie up a lot of the loose ends and well basicly return home and let things finnish. That leaves you readily open to moving ahead and on. Then your more easily able to move on. Doing the leap ahead and founding a new city would be easyer, and you could write up little storys giving people an idea of what happenes with everyone else. Sorta like the little bits you did saying what happened with Seeks, and others from the original story. It provides closure and a few happy storys will make your readers happy.
I do not know how much story you have left for the vacation, so it is harder for me to say weather you should end it or not. But, you should at the lest, finnish the story, give it an ending.
As for braudening the story, it would be easy enough to give the story from anothers viewpoint now and again. Even if it was done as small one post storys. It would give readers a better connection to there faverate characters. Another thought is to alow cameos, or alow people to write related storys. Say Joe smoe wants to do a short story with him interacting with one of the chars from your main story. It would probably be so minor as to not be in the actual story arc, but it might alow amusing looks into the world around the strangway.
The leap ahead could be rather fun actualy. It gives you the chance to start a fresh story with fresh characters. Just make sure to give closure.

Sorry a bit rambling and disjointed, its hard to say.