Final Notes

Holy smokini macarini! We made it! We actually made it to the end!

I started this fic a few days after TLJ came out and now here we are at the start of summer how crazy is that? Over 100,000 words, so many hours, I can't even believe I wrote this much.

This was by a decent margin my longest story I've ever written. Under Skies You Could Drown in made it to around 80k before I pulled it (more about that in a moment). I'm really happy with how it came out in the end, so forgive me for being very self indulgent and rambling on and on about this experience (IE feel free to skip the rest of this until where it's indicated in the last 2 paragraphs when I finally get around to actually having something to say!)

Let's recap the whole process:

things that went right:

I managed to maintain relatively regular updates. For a while I did 1 a week, though a few times I was late or missed a week for various reasons. I feel like this was probably the deciding factor in this fic's popularity because you, the readers, knew that you could count on me not to have unnecessary delays and that I would actually finish this fic. You did trust me to finish this, right? For my future stories: keep it up. Regular updates of at east once a week, twice is better I think.

The storyline was solid. Okay, it was a wacky storyline with psychedelic jungle cats and lost Jedi getting stuck in crystals and chemical storms and glowing rocks oh my!, but I feel like it all came together and hit the points that I wanted it to. This was definitely my most heavily outlined work and that extra time and effort really paid off.

For my future stories: Plotting. Plotting plotting plotting. Some people are plotters, some are pantsers (ie. you fly on the seat of your pants and write as your mind comes up with greatness), but I am absolutely 100% a plotter.

This was fun. I really enjoyed writing this most of the time, and that's 90% of the whole reason to write at all, right? The other 10% being practice and to become a better writer in general.

For my future stories: Lots of variety. I'm going to try a whole bunch of different genres and ideas and see how they go.

Slight side tangent: a number of people over my 2 years of writing have asked me for tips. I am very happy to offer my advice and anecdoates though I'm by no means a professional writer (yet! Working on that!). Please, if anyone wants to chat about this or whatever, feel free to message me on tumblr at ava-dalo or my email's in my profile here. Don't be shy, I'm pleasant, I promise :)

Also, if you want to become a writer or already are and are looking to improve your craft, I will always always sing praises to Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell. Bell has a ton of writing books, actually, and they're all fantastic but Plot and Structure really is my bible for learning all the basics you need to know about wordcraft. Get yeeself a copy now, don't wait. It's under $10 and seriously, it's that good.

Now, for the not so good stuff:

Too long. My original goal was to have this story 15 chapters and (12 to 15) and absolutely no more than 60k words. I had a whole schedule and stuff worked out and plenty of reasons why.

Weeeeeelllll… yeah, that didn't happen. I ended up almost doubling this just… because the story needed it. Apparently I write really long. As long as this after party post-note is, haha.

For my future stories: Lessons have been learned. I'm sticking more or less to my 50k, 10 chapter goal for On Ben's Knee and I'm learning much more clearly how to plot in a more concise manner. There was just too damned much going on in this fic, which for me as a writer became tiring. I didn't want to mention this before, but starting around ch16 I got pretty burnt out for a while right up until these last 2 chapters. Lessons learned here, definitely.

Plot hole. Not a major one, but I never mentioned exactly why that old Rebellion ship (the one Rey found the body from like in ch3) was even on this planet. I was originally going to tack it onto Varn's storyline but he was here much longer ago that that ship and then this plot point just kind of got forgotten about.

For my future stories: Oops. I'll tackle explaining it in the sequel.

The Tiger King. It's kind of really bad form to not mention at least vaguely a major villain until the start of Act 3. He should have been foreshadowed from the start, ideally made an appearance before they entered the caves. I had built this whole story on the diea of a giant critter eating one of their lightsaber's and then them killing it by igniting the saber inside it. Literally this was the whole base for this fic. But I hadn't actually figured out how the ending was going to go until they had escaped from the caves after freeing Varn.

For my future stories: Yeah, do it better. Yup. That's what to do.

Other rambles:

If you're interested, here are my signposts:

Doorway1 from act 1 to act 2: Rey and Kylo are reunited in chapter 4. Doorways should be a point of no return, and once Kylo got his Scavenger back he wasn't letting go. You could also argue that the real door 1 was the start of ch1 when they crashed into this planet because they literally couldn't go back (if you count The Space In Between as part of the outline for this story).

Middle moment: Rey can't face her growing feelings and runs away in the caves. The middle moment needs to be a point of great personal growth for the main character.

Doorway 2 from act 2 to act 3: This one is easy: Kylo and Rey escape the underground. Now all the rest of act 3 should be building up to the final battle.

And there you go. Seriously, Plot and Structure, best book ever. Also Super Structure (also by James Scott Bell). This story would have wickedly suffered without both of them.

So… what's the takeaway from all that I've just gibbered at you? I don't think I want to write another work this long anytime soon. 100K words are fine and great, but next time I'm going to break them up into two stories and turn them into a series that I write in bursts and take a decent break between. So that would mean 6 weeks of 2 chapters a week book1, break for at lest 4-6 weeks, then book 2 same burst. I'm hoping this will be the best way to keep my productivity up and boredom down since I don't have the longest attention span. This will be both for my fanfiction and other fiction writing.

Speaking of, my 'have your cake and eat it too' method of writing is that soon I will have hopefully a bunch of temporary 'pop-up' stories. These are fanfics that I will write, complete, leave up for a specified amount of time, and then take down to re-purpose. This won't be forever and it won't be for all my upcoming works, but I'll give everyone a heads up on which stories and when they'll be taken down and then you'll have to contact me via email or tumblr and I'll be happy to send you a copy of the finished fanfic :) On Ben's Knee is a pop-up story, and I'll take it down one month after whenever I complete it.

SKIP TO THIS PART!

Right, wow, got way off track, it's ANNOUNCE TIME. For those of you who have been with me for a long time might remember that I had a long, rambling, bizarre but cute modern AU called Under Skies You Could Drown In. I took it down from AO3 last August for reasons I don't want to get into, but (up until now) it had been my longest and most popular story. So… guess what? DO OVER TIME! I promised you a reboot, and now let's get to it: Stranger to Blue Waters is going to be heavily inspired by Under Skies You Could Drown in. Think of it like Skies 2.0 but with a big upgrade to the system patch. The first story suffered from a rambling storyline, this time I'm pulling that sucker right in and keeping firm hands on the reigns. I'm going to keep the same basic plot, the setting, some of my favorite scenes from the original (ghost town, the lookout tower, random moments of camping domesticity and adventure) but this time I'm going to give it a proper, well thought out plot. And this plot is probably going to take me a long, long number of chapters and I'm not even going to guess how many thousands of words. A lot. So this is where writing it in a series of manageable bursts is going to come in. Stranger to Blue Waters is going to be "book 1" and it will have it's own full mini-arch that supports the overall plot arch, if that makes sense? Chapter 1 has just been posted now because I'm shamelessly hoping to grab some readers from this story and tempt ya'll into checking it out also. This first chapter very closely follows ch1 from Skies, and then we'll start to deviate further as the story progresses.

FINAL NOTE

Have I rambled on enough for you?

Okay, back to No Rest For The Wicked. Well obviously we have to have a sequel for it, now don't we? Someday. I promise. I just really need to take a breather for a while and recharge my batteries with other projects for a while. When the sequel is ready, I'll post an update chapter here so anyone who is subscribed will be notified :) I'm about to leave for 2 weeks of camping off the grid, just me and my family and my kindle loaded with ebooks, so please forgive me if I'm late in responding to your messages. I'll be back on June 6th so wait for me then :)

And a final OH MY GODS THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR STICKING WITH THIS STORY! Yes, THANK YOU READERS! I literally couldn't have done this without you guy's support. All of your comments or feedback or just saying hi to me on tumblr at ava-dalo really mean the world to me and I have all of them saved in a big directory on my computer that I look at whenever I'm feeling down (no, seriously, I do and the fact that the folder is so huge with support or helpful critiques really is just the best damn feeling in life. So again AAAAAAAAAHHH! THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH! SO MUCH LOVE TO YOU ALL!

comment replies:

Jriggs -

Oh yes, Kylo was dead set on Empress Rey. Didn't exactly work out like that for him, did it? But they got to kill the kitties who have been TORMENTING them, so there's that victory, right?

Thanks so much for commenting and I hope you enjoyed how this story ended! :)

kfulmer7 – glad you liked the reylo baby development! It was kind of inevitable the way those two have been going at it these last few chapter. Now it's really going to throw a monkey wrench into their future together because they're stuck with each other now! And yes, Rey absolutely couldn't resist him, but that doesn't mean she's turrning her back on the Resistance though!

THANK YOU for sticking with this story to the very end and commenting on every chapter! I'm so glad you felt like taking this ride along with me and I hope you continue to check out my new stories as they come out! THANK YOU AND MUCH LOVE TO YOU!

ann999 – I'm glad you've liked this story! In Kylo's mind he had to do what he did to Rey for her own safety, pity Rey didnt see eye to eye with him on that one. Empress Rey will have to wait, though, she still has her duty to the Resistance and there's no way that she's going to turn her back on her friends, Kylo or no Kylo.

Thanks for commenting and reading this final chapter! 3

sydkiwi – Haha, I'm glad you liked this chapter! Bringing a mega pack of condoms sure would have helped, but I don't think Kylo ever imagined a future where he and Rey would go at it like they did.

THANK YOU for commenting and sticking with this story to the end!

Guest – Yeah, I think Kylo totally love doing the bridal carry with Rey, it's kind of his special thing ;) Thanks so much for commenting and I hope you enjoyed the ending!

Aranthera – Well I hope you liked this finale too! Thanks for commenting!

Shestoolazytologin – I've been waiting to write this moment ever since they started going at it like bunnies in ch 15 and I hope it did not disappoint! Kylo really wants to do right by Rey, but they have very different ideas of what right means. Definitely going to make for some interesting drama in the sequel fic when it comes to parenting!

And, of course, THANK YOU for commenting! I hope you enjoyed reading this story as much as I enjoyed writing it for the reylo community! :D

Missing A Muse – Kylo means the best, he absolutely loves Rey and deep down he wants her to be happy… and be with him. it's finding the balance between both of their opposing goals that's going to be the biggest challenge in the sequel fic.

THANK YOU FOR COMMENTING! You've stuck with this story to the end and I hope you enjoyed taking this crazy ride with me!

To everyone: I'm leaving for a 2 week camping trip, no phones, no internet, no computer, but when I get back I'll post an update chapter to reply to everyone here! I've said it a million times but I'll say it again just for good measure: thank you ALL for commenting, your kind words of support have made this story possible! I hope you all will check out the sequel story when I post it some day (I'll include another chapter with tis announcement here so the subscribers will hear about it)

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