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

[chipuni.livejournal.com]

First and foremost, as you well know, I will gladly read anything that you write.

In my opinion, conflict is the most important part of any story. In the best stories, the protagonist looks like she[*] can't win, but has something special that just barely gives her victory.

With all due respect, as a character, Sythyry is almost too powerful. Inside cities, challenges that would be 'too strong' for hir are getting rarer... especially because sie has Vae on hir side. (Vae just took on all of Hanija... and won.)

The World Tree has plenty of interesting kinds of stories. ("She's a river-bum Orren whose singing voice can carry for miles. He's a Khtsoyis from the wrong side of the tracks with limited precognition. They fight crime!" Errr... maybe not.)

To make the conflict more interesting, I recommend, at the least, letting go of Vae. (She can decide that she wants to visit another part of the World Tree.) Let Sythyry use the talents of the rest of hir crew.

Even better would be to follow the adventures of other characters.

[*]Nongendered 'she', please.