REND - Author's Retrospective (Arc 6) and Rewrite Announcement

And thus, we (abruptly) end REND and prepare for its universe to restart.

I can’t believe it’s been almost five years since I started writing REND on Royal Road on May 20, 2020. Even more surprising that I’m still around writing it, or that I kept going in the first place. I’ve talked about in past Retrospectives how REND struggled to find an audience. It only had around fifty followers for its first month and a half. Look at it now, with 4.8k+ followers. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to take care of and cultivate our niche community. A lot of real-life issues pulled me from writing, with some months having only one or even zero chapters. I don’t want this Retrospective to be a downer so I won’t discuss more of that.

What’s important is I’m still here. And you’re here too. I couldn’t have kept going without your support, and I thank you very much for it. Money is seldom talked about by authors, but I’m going to say outright that your financial support has helped eased some worries such that I can write REND.

Now is the time to try again for REND and me as a writer.

Rewriting REND

Why do I want to rewrite REND? Two reasons: I want to finish it, and I want to spread REND to a mainstream audience, especially Erind’s character.

Finishing REND

Most web novel writers are pantsers—we don’t have an outline. We write on the seats of our pants. This isn’t usually a problem because most web novels are linear and progression-based. Get stronger, meet the next challenge, overcome it, get stronger again, and so on. But if there are several plot lines and lots of mysteries, this writing style won’t work in the long term.

I have general plans for REND, of course, but I only partly followed them because I winged things. Since I don’t have much free time to brainstorm/plan for REND, I just write and write until an idea pops up. The result is a mess of plot threads that make it harder and harder for me to continue the story.

There is an aspect of “realness” in REND because I didn’t plan for certain plot points until it was about to happen. For example, Erind meeting Vanessa was a spontaneous idea. Arc 2 was supposed to end with the BID nuking Eve’s underground arena, but the continuation turned out great in the end. It wasn’t like that often. Many times, I’ve started plotlines that led to nowhere, like the police investigation part. There are also good ideas that come to me quite late into the story and I haven’t set it up enough to use it.

Think of stacking blocks. I didn’t stack them properly, so the higher I go, the more precarious the tower becomes. Eventually, it’ll reach a tipping point and come crashing down. As applied to REND, we’re on a very shaky foundation story-wise and I feel it’s so much better to start over and stack the blocks properly.

Another reason is I have a lot of changes I want to implement. Better ideas, like making Erind shorter. Erm, I mean, like reworking Pino and Domino. We can develop the faces and benefit from the interesting scenes that could happen compared to Erind spamming Blanchette. I also want to remove scenes that didn’t work out, like how the first meeting with Myra went, or ideas that poke holes in the plot, like the Suppressor.

I also want to improve the writing itself. It might not matter to some readers, and they’ll say we can focus on the present chapters. That works too, as many long-running web novels start with shaky writing and eventually improve but don’t rewrite. However, there’s a personal aspect to this. I want to read REND someday. (Probably counts as rereading.) I know that I’ve learned and improved on many things as a writer. I also know that I wasn’t able to put in the time planning REND and polishing its prose. I know I can do better, and so I will.

With a better foundation, we’ll restart REND, stack the blocks properly, and finish what we’re building.

Spreading REND to a mainstream audience

REND is a niche story on Royal Road and even Scribblehub. It doesn’t fit with other psychopath stories or superhero stories. It’s also not really a villainous story either, but that’s probably the closest classification. It’s very hard to describe REND in terms of other stories. Maybe REND is a category unto itself? That makes it hard to find an audience, as shown by its difficult start. Even a couple of years later, it still had very slow growth. But the fact that it reached 4.8k followers at present despite my abysmal upload schedule means that there’s something here.

Perhaps Erind is starting the ‘endearing psychopath’ trope, similar to the lovable asshole. I’m just making stuff up. But seriously though, I haven’t seen any other story where the main character’s random ramblings is one of the highlights. And Erind really is endearing despite the repulsive things she has done.

Wouldn’t it be fun if more people found Erind endearing too? That’s an aspect of a psychopath, isn’t it? People find them charming. It’s like a whole meta thing if Erind, a psychopath character, has lots of fans. Given that REND worked (to some extent) in the web novel sphere, despite not being meta, means that it’ll probably work outside of Royal Road and Scribblehub.

Also, there are many readers who’ve said they wished to own a physical copy of REND. If we do get a REND book someday, I want it to be a good one so you can recommend it to your friends with no misgivings. And why stop at just print to order a book? Let’s get REND on a bookstore shelf.

Okay, I’m getting ahead of myself. Hey, it’s free to dream. Back on the topic, I truly believe that Erind can become an iconic character.

What to expect in the rewrite?

The rewrite is not only for cosmetic purposes, improving the writing here and there, and fixing some minor scenes. More than that, it’s going to have huge changes while keeping the core story beats present. Think of it like the different Spiderman or Batman origin movies. They kept the general gist of the story while having their own takes on it. For example, the whole Eve and underground arena thing will happen but in a different way. How Erind gained her powers would also be different with some familiar scenes mixed in.

We will also have faster pacing because I’ll cut out a lot of unnecessary things, especially the fights of random fodder that take too long. I’ll probably squish Arc 1 and 2 together, with many scenes removed and added. We’ll keep Erind’s ramblings, of course.

I also aim to improve our release rate, targeting to write three chapters per week. That’s a vast improvement from the few chapters a month I used to do.

Of course, it’ll be very hard for me to accomplish. I ask for patience and understanding while I adjust and train myself to write a lot. I do hope to someday become a full-time writer and write a few thousand words a day like those big web novel authors. With your support, I’ll reach this goal.

Consistent updates, better pacing, and reduced bloat will quickly progress REND. I expect to gradually increase our release rate too. If we’re financially successful in the rewrite, not only will I have more time to write, but I can hire an editor as well. I aim to finish REND within three years at the most. By finish, I mean it will have a satisfying ending with the story threads neatly tied up.

Rewrite launch

I’ll soon start writing new REND, or simply REND since the current version will be labeled on RR and SH as REND (old version). By this weekend, the higher-tier patrons will be able to read the first chapter of the new REND.

As for RR/SH, I will publish the REND rewrite on May 20, 2025, exactly five years after the first chapter of this original REND was published. On that day, I’ll upload around 20k words to RR/SH, which is about 8 chapters. I will upload the same number of chapters on Patreon to maintain the advanced chapters. Then I’ll (hopefully) upload a chapter every other day as we aim to get on Rising Stars on Royal Road and Trending on Scribblehub. Accomplishing these goals will get lots of eyes on the rewrite.

I’m already preparing shoutout swaps on RoyalRoad, trying to contact any author who’ll help me. Free readers on RR/SH are informed about the rewrite. I hope they’ll be there when it launches on those sites to get the ball rolling. By May, I’ll also come up with ads to run on RR.

Lastly, I have my new story, Sealed in Steel, with a couple thousand followers on RR to help out. Among the reasons I started writing SIS was to push the REND rewrite up when the time came and to have another story to work on so I wouldn’t burn out on REND.

In short, I’m taking the rewrite very seriously. Not just the writing part but also its marketing. We’ll do this right and continue until the finish line.

The main concern is combatting negative ratings/reviews from new readers trying REND for the first time. It’s the same old issue of readers thinking psychopath = murderhobo. Disclaimers won’t work because readers don’t know how to read those (just kidding). I’ll appreciate it if you’ll come over to RR/SH and show support for the launch too.

Patreon

This Patreon will solely be for REND (and ExD). I’ll be shelving ADGIT for now to try again someday after REND is completed. As for GH, I’ll be ending it soon too, and transferring my focus to SIS for my LitRPG writing.

The goal this April is to have one week’s worth of advanced chapters for the lower tier, while the higher tier will have two weeks. May will be busy as I’ll prepare the 20k word launch day dump. By June, the goal is to double the advanced chapters for both tiers. July onwards, we’ll increase the advanced chapter further for the higher tier. If we’re successful and I can write full-time, I’m sure I could do it quickly.

As for ExD, I’ll write a few chapters in my free time to keep it going. I know that many want it to continue. ExD will mirror the old REND in its timeline.

I also aim to fix up Discord next week. I’ve mentioned that I hope to hire an editor someday to raise the writing quality. Those are the plans for now. I promise to give value to your financial support. Thank you once again. See you in the next dimension that SpookyErind visits.