STORY UPDATE

Change is life's ever omnipresent companion.

Some changes are thrust upon us by outside circumstances, some are little things that we do without really realizing it and some are active, conscious ones that we do in order to fix problems.

This is one of the latter.

'Knightfall' is my baby, my own big goal to do for myself in recent years since I failed to complete anything concrete during my college years.

It was originally planned a trilogy of three thirty-chapter stories apiece, but as I planned and talked shop with my trusty, handsome erstwhile companion Scarlet Weather, he somehow got roped into helping me write the darn thing and ideas sprang forth and were restacked and recombined and this was done so often it wass essentially playing Jenga with myself and then knocking the tower down halfway through as a 'surprise'.

Lemme tell you, it kind of boring and annoying to rebuild that over and over again and find that no matter how times I did, I still had the same number of blocks and the same problems.

So along came this wonderful person known as my girlfriend/editor, Mei1105. And she took away my Jenga blocks and gave me a whole bunch of Legos. And fun times were had by all.

Between the three of us, we rebuilt Knightfall from the ground up after finding and addressing many of the various problems it has despite it being only seven chapters long.

These issues are as follows-

-Weird pacing.

-At seven chapters I have no real plot and moves by any of my villains, but everyone is running around doing things that should serve a purpose, but don't. The only thing concrete that happened was in Chapter 1 when Skeleton Knight attacks and then in Chapter 7 when he drives away Trueman and then raises the dead. I could have easily done this in the first three Chapters and kept the focus on one villain (The primary one) and let Trueman work behind the scenes while having Solex show up could have been more plot important. (Like he defeats a revived Shadowchaser and uses Kastle to kill another, prompting the team to consider him an unlikely ally and perhaps her real life beings after Trueman or Skeleton Knight kidnap her for whatever reason)

-The villains

-I'm not sure how or why I have three. Skeleton Knight was original villain because he somewhat familiar for fans of the manga and had a cool thing going. Trueman appeared because he was available and he has a tendency to be underutilized in a lot of stories and his powers were neat. Solex came about due to joint work on Encounters and was a net positive thanks to Kastleneid...but then we couldn't do anything about him because I gave him diplomatic immunity.

Skeleton Knight is too vague an undefined beyond "Raawwrrgh, fight for my gods."

Trueman is too vague and undefined beyeond "I like darkness. Do you like darkness? No? Well, I'm going to mess with your head until you do. :)"

Solex is hardly vague and is a bastard with no goal other than being a bastard.

Now, villains have undefined goals isn't a huge problem- many a good story has the heroes simply combating the villain and only discovering the real goals until near the end. But with Knightfall, where the heroes are defending a Backwater in the open (as opposed to standard stories where the Shadowchasers work in the shadows) and since it is their home, they have more opportunities to be aggressive and proactive in responding to all three villains. I was aiming for 'Heroes Act, Villains React' as opposed to the standard 'Villains Act, Heroes React' and really didn't do that all that well.

The cast

-I love my Shadowchasers to death. I worked hard inventing them and creating the most the unique things for them. But I have eight. And that is a lot of heroes. Not mention my three villains, their hordes of minions and the Backwater residents themselves. Loads and Loads of characters and one of the story's biggest problems is that I have all of these characters and utilize them clumsily. It stems mainly back to my issue with having three villains and trying to establish the town of Backwater at the same time. Everything tries to happen at once and so nothing gets done.

There was also small host of minor issues that got crammed in and gummed up the story's already complicated mechanisms- Kenshin's past, Tsuki trying to a cleric for a goddess of love that most don't believe exists (Seriously, creating a new religion and its tenants is why harder than it sounds), Kastleneid subplot, Tsubasa and Hebi-Na's relationship, Lysander and his relationship to Kastle and Solex and so on and so forth.

…yeah, that's a lot of stuff to deal with.

Upon narrowing all of this down and figuring out how it screws it up, the three of us began working on fixing them. Like I said, we had to rebuild both Knightfall and Encounters from the ground up to do so and then in order to keep the same problems from cropping up again.

Hence, a rewrite

So what can you, the reader, expect in the future?

-A tightened cast

-Rather than having all eight Shadowchasers running around town at once, the story starts out with three in Backwater and the rest scattered across the state and the world performing various other things that are both plot-relevant and character-driven. So everyone can get equal screen time without overshadowing each other. This means I can have conflict without the team overpowering the bad guys initially as well as explore the world of Shadowchasers more. As the story progresses, the team all make their way back to Backwater and lets the story's climax set up properly.

-A shorter, tighter story.

-For the moment, I've dropped the trilogy aspect. An underlying issue with the current iteration of Knightfall is that a lot of what I'm doing is trying to both keep the current plot going and lay groundwork for the other two stores in the trilogy at the same time. Obviously, not doing so well. So by removing a lot of those elements and attempts, the story will be rather short and self-contained.

-More exploration with Backwater.

-I wrote Twice-Told Tales so that I wouldn't have to introduce my main cast in the story proper, but I didn't really use that well. Meaning that I wrote Knightfall in the way I wanted to avoid in the first place and that attributed a lot to its bad pacing- everyone got a focus chapter. So in the reboot, the exploration of the city will be a bigger priority. The Shadowchasers, after all, live in a place where magic is out in the open and things should reflect that. You know who the team already is- so what are they protecting and why is it so important to them?

-MORE AWESOME CARD GAMES.

-MORE EPIC FIGHT SCENES.

-MORE AMAZING STORYTELLING.

-A LEMON OR TWO.

-SHOUT-OUTS AND REFERNCES ALL OVER THE PLACE.

-CONCISTENCY.

...and possibly a title change. Since Knightfall was a placeholder name while I was writing and it just kind stuck. But I prefer my titles to mean something in relation to the story and want to avoid the simple 'Shadowchasers: Backwater' story.

And of course, I'm open to suggestions from you guys. Anyone you'd like to see more of? Or ideas for Backwater itself? A new title pop into your head? Maybe even cameos you'd like see from other Shadowchaser stories? Leave them in a review or a PM. It's an open door policy, guys, nothing will be dismissed out of hand or ignored. So let me have it!

For those of who are reading my other fic, Rise of the Shadow King that is still ongoing and I have no plans to stop writing for it ever. For those of you who aren't reading, please do so. I promise you will enjoy it.

For those of who are waiting on my update for Tournament of Shadows, I am in the process of finishing up major edits for my chapter that my beta and I decided needed to happen so I wouldn't jump the shark. It's coming soon.

As for Knightfall at the present, the following things are going to happen in the near future

-I will be cleaning out the Tvtropes pages for the story and the characters section. (I actually like the site's new look and working process-very clean.) This means most things will be deleted entirely and perhaps a few new things added. Like artwork for several of the team that I have lounging around my computer. Since I"m trying to avoid the trope overdosed thing, in the future, anyone who adds tropes should add ones that are used consistently within the story by a character or if the trope isn't used consistently, but is meaningful.

For example, putting 'Signature Card' in doesn't work for 99% of the cast because none of them have decks that just focus on one monster, using it seems kind of silly as that trope is for something that the character in question uses exclusively (Even when there could be better options available.) and people think of that character when they see it. So, Rayearth's Dark Magician is her 'Signature Card' because that is what she built her deck around. The same would go for Danse Macabre's Voltaire and King of the Skull Servants.

As for an example of a trope that isn't used consistently but is meaningful would Immortality for about half of the cast. (Rayearth, Tsuki, Fayte, Maria, Kenshin). It's never really brought up or addressed in any fashion, but its known that they are all so, so it applies and then if it is referenced or used in the future, its not a surprise.

-The original story will be taken down near the end of the month and on Feb 1st, the reboot will be posted with updates coming a weekly after that, as both Scarlet and I have taken up to pre-writing the stories as much as possible under the watchful eye of my beta.

-I've taken to drawing bits and pieces of things like the floorplan of the team's home, the symbol of Erestrial, a map of Backwater and so on and so forth. I also have DeviantArt account, so when relevant things are created and put up there, I'll put a note in a chapter for those who are interested.

-One of my resolutions for the year was to start and maintain a blog. Per my beta's suggestion, I aim to use that blog to sort off a behind-the-scenes look at the story, bits and trivia and occasionally discuss why I do what I do and how when it comes to writing. When that is up and running, I will also let you know.

-Commissions for the core cast are in place and being done, so before the end of the year, I should have pictures for all eight of the Shadowchasers. If anyone knows anyone who would want to draw or would like to draw villains or some such things, let me know.

-A reminder in that Encounters is a parallel to this story. The two are interconnected in that they share the space of the universe, but do not directly relate to one another. (except when they do-author's prerogative for both Scarlet and I. :P ). So my updates and deadlines are not necessarily his. However, I encourage you all to support him and read and review both stories. We write not only so we have fun, but for our audiences as well.

And now...

And now, my dear readers, I will leave with a tagline.

"We are the stuff dreams are made of. So dream big, go wild and chase your biggest and best dreams. Just remember...you have to wake up at some point...and what you wished for may be exactly what you got..."