Shapeshifter

Dropped?

We need to have a talk...

For those who don't know, the first 10,000 words of this fiction were written over Christmas. Then, these words sat gathering dust in my Google Docs for months. Two months ago, I found myself with more time than usual and decided to revisit this fiction. Uploading it without any backlog, I simply wrote chapters when I felt like it.

The fiction eventually made it to rank 1 on RS, but I was hit with illness and lack of time due to moving countries, so I ended up leaving weeks between chapters.

This fic has made me no money (actually -$300 so far) and was purely something I was writing on the side for fun from my main fiction, Reborn as a Demonic Tree.

So why the sudden stop in chapters? Well, to put it simply, it stopped being fun. I messed up. Through writing this fiction, I discovered that what is fun for me with non-human leads is the limitations of the monstrous form, not the possibilities. Writing Tree was fun because I got around problems the tree form posed. Such as speaking without a mouth or interacting with the world when you can't move.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

I thought I enjoyed the non-human body aspect, so logically, Shapeshifter would be super fun to write because he could be anything and do anything. While fun to read, it turns out to be rather dull to write.

So the reason this fic is sort of dropped is a mixture of it making no money (because it was a for fun fiction with no patreon chapters and hasn't been signed to any publishers), the long breaks between chapters making it hard to get back into the swing of things, and finally, the fact it's just boring to write.

This fiction also taught me that I despise writing hard magic systems with hard stats and numbers. They are a chore to keep track of and constantly update, and I hate maths. Loose magic-like cultivation in Xianxia is more my vibe.

I may revisit this fiction with a rewrite to include more restrictions, such as removing the free skill slots so the MC has to think more about which form to fight in due to each form's limits. But for now, it's on the back burner.

Apologise for those hyped for new chapters and messaging me asking if I'm okay.

Thank you for reading!

- Xk