Klok Blog: Should I rewrite Cryopod Refresh? (The answer may surprise you!)

Hey all, Klok here! I know I just posted the start of my Klok Blogging schedule, but it occurred to me that having this post ready BEFORE I got back to writing Cryopod this week would be a good idea. Then I can link it in those posts.

...Ahem.

(Quick TL:DR - I will NOT rewrite Cryopod Refresh. The post below goes into exhaustive detail why. I will, however, consider a possible alternative. If you don't have time to read, that's the short version.)

So, this post is all about Cryopod's current and past issues. I am going to discuss in detail the reasons why and why not I am considering/have considered rewriting Cryopod Refresh. There is a lot of nuance to this subject, and I want to cover all of the issues in order.

Why rewrite at all? Why not just continue writing? Is there a good reason to consider this drastic option?

What are the pros and cons of rewriting?  

Where would I rewrite from? The very beginning? Chapter 2?

"The Ancient Era is just a loredump, which is why you should remove it": Why this comment is wrong, and why I included the AE in the first place..

Is there an alternative to rewriting Cryopod Refresh?

I will address all of the following points in the next several sections.

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Some readers, I'm sure, won't even know why I'm bringing this topic up. Perhaps you haven't been following Cryopod much, or perhaps you read through the whole thing and loved it without question. In that case, you might not be aware of Refresh's flaws.

Firstly, Refresh is long. We're already a little over a million words. To put that is perspective, by Part 247 of Cryopod Classic, we were only around 300k words, if that. The story is at least 3x denser, with a lot more going on. I don't consider this a flaw; it's a selling feature. I wanted it to be long and dense. That's part of the fun!

However, Cryopod has one big... issue. The Ancient Era.

Note that I've already written a whole-ass post about the problems with the Ancient Era. If you want a full breakdown, you can check it out by clicking this link:  https://www.patreon.com/posts/klok-blogs-era-28683765 

I'm not really going to talk about the problems inherent in the Ancient Era in this post. Instead, I want to discuss the barriers the AE presents to readers, both new and returning alike. The AE basically stops not only Jason's story, but it also focuses intensely on other characters we hadn't seen a lot of up to that point: The Angels, Titans, and Demons. The vast majority of these characters were already dead in the 'Jason Era' or the 'Post Cryo-awakening Era,' if you will.

Therefore, the question becomes, 'Should I rewrite the AE, or Cryopod in its entirety to get rid of this barrier for new readers?'

If I rewrite Cryopod Refresh as a whole, then, first off, that's going to suck for a lot of people who actually LIKE Refresh as it is now. That's not fair to them. Secondly, it's a LOT of work. It won't be a one-week project, it will take at least another year, and ain't nobody got time for that! It's a huge mental burden on me, and it risks alienating the existing fanbase.

However, if I were to rewrite Refresh, I could make some big improvements! As one example, I could streamline the AE, cut out a whole bunch of stuff to trim it down, and make the AE happen alongside character growth and actions of Jason and his comrades. That means Phoebe, Hope, Neil, Belial, and their demon enemies could all be actually doing stuff instead of staying fixed in time for the ~30 minutes Jason apparently entered a trance with Solomon.

I actually tried to do this at first! However, I called it off and restarted after about ten parts because it was a metric fuckton of mental work for my brain to process. I could not write a first draft for Jason/Stormbringer in addition to the Ancient Era simultaneously. Theoretically, in a rewrite, I could actually do that! However, that's only in theory; I won't know unless I try it, and I'm not keen to try it.

I would much rather come up with an alternative to rewriting that allows readers to skim the Ancient Era and not miss out on the crucial details if they find it boring. More on that later in this post. :)

Once I consider a rewrite (which again, I'm almost definitely not going to do, not until I complete Cryopod Refresh in a few years) the question becomes: "What parts of Cryopod should I rewrite? Just Chapter 2? Should I merely erase the Ancient Era? Perhaps I should start over from the beginning??"

Let's assume the following:

1. If I start over from Chapter 1, this means a total rewrite of the entire series. I could fix lots of longstanding minor issues with Cryopod Chapter 1. I could improve its flow in a variety of ways. This also means more work than just rewriting from Chapter 2 onward, so eh.

2. If I assume everything after Chapter 2 didn't happen and just choose to rewrite after the final part of Chapter 1, then I have to still go along with the six-year timeskip. Looking back, I kind of feel the timeskip's biggest purpose was to get Daisy into the story, and I'm not sure it was entirely worth skipping all that time. Showing Jason building up humanity for six years while also viewing the AE would have been a much better choice.

3. If I choose ONLY to rewrite Chapter 2, but leave Chapters 1 and 3 intact, this would be the least amount of work technically, but so much of Chapter 3 relies on what we learned in the AE that I don't see it working. I'd have to rewrite both.

No matter what option I choose, it's a lot of goddang work. I don't think a rewrite is the right choice; at least not for now. Someday when I complete Cryopod, I can definitely revisit the option.

A few readers have taken to calling Chapter 2 a 'Lore Dump.' At first glance, it seems like a credible title, certainly. It features a lot of lore, it explains the past, and doesn't seem to affect the future much.

But that way of thinking is a trap! I would never refer to Chapter 2 as a lore dump. It is, in fact, extremely important to the story. To me, a lore dump would be like if Tolkien took time in the middle of The Two Towers to explain Sauron's origins and Morgoth and the fallen Ainur and all that other stuff. It explains some backstory, sure, but it doesn't really tell us anything useful which will affect the main plot.

That is exactly the opposite of what I did with the Ancient Era. Let's take a look at some of the things I did that refute this claim.

-First off, a bunch of the characters we see in the Ancient Era are still alive in Jason's time and affecting the future. Some of these characters include Belial, Bael, Michael/Gabriel/Raphael (In soul-forms only), Agares (He died, of course, but he affected some of the plot visibly), Satan (He also died, but we saw him battling Jason not long before the AE began), Diablo (Until he went comatose), and probably a few others I forgot. The AE explains these characters' backstories, thus strengthening their role in the plot. We learn not only about them, but also how their actions shaped the future Jason lives in now. There are also other characters we will 100% see later in the story because of spoilers!

-A giant theme of Cryopod revolves around the concept of the past affecting the present. Just because something happened before you were born, that doesn't mean you can ignore it. The AE strengthens this theme by showing Jason how deep the demons' hatred of the angels, Titans, and humans runs. It shows him what a difficult path it will be for him to undertake if he wishes to reform their society.

-Lore dumps and info dumps typically have no mysteries as they are simply blocks of text blandly describing people, places, and things. There are not only several mysteries within the AE, but mysteries that extend past the AE into the future of the Cryoverse, even into TLP!

-The AE also is a story. It's not a series of narrated events. It's a book within a book, so to speak. A lore-dump would feature characters being described in very clinical terms, but I put out my best effort to tell a human story focused around Uzziel at first, and then Satan later. There were main characters in the AE, and that alone signifies a shift away from lore dumps.

...

But okay, so what if the AE isn't a lore dump? If readers roll their eyes and think it's a lore dump, and then drop the story, the AE is still a problem. That alone means I have to consider solving the problem. Because of Chapter 2, Cryopod Refresh went from close to 100 upvotes per part on HFY into an abrupt freefall, stopping around 40-50 upvotes per part. No matter how I defend the AE, the fact remains that somewhere around half the reader base didn't like it.

So. What to do about this dilemma?

Here it is: The solution you've all been waiting for. If I'm not going to rewrite Cryopod (because it's a lot of time and energy required and it will annoy and tick off existing readers who like the story as-is) then what can I do to improve the story for those who disliked the AE?

Answer: A big, long post that details the events of the AE, with 1-2 paragraphs and a link to each part!

Yes, I think a summary post will really hit the spot. I'm going to be honest here; I feel like if you don't like Chapters 1-3 as-is, you'll probably have a difficult time loving the rest of Cryopod. The AE is absolutely essential for Cryopod's future. Mark my words, two years from now many of you will marvel at the deep, intricate plot-work I put into Cryopod and how it all (mostly) seamlessly fits together. I cannot remove the AE from the story without fundamentally altering Cryopod itself. That's how important it is.

A summary post for the AE will allow people to skim the AE while picking up mostly the important stuff. Naturally, it will also cost people all the nuanced character building, all the subtle foreshadowing, all the important hints I sprinkled throughout, and other such things. But, it could also allow people to jump around the AE and figure out which parts they're most interested in reading before continuing with the rest of the story.

That being said, once I complete Cryopod, reworking the AE is definitely doable. I see a lot of room for fixing it.

What do you guys think? Do you think this is a good compromise? I plan to write this summary post after Stormbringer's conclusion, so it will be a few months down the road.

Like I said in my previous Patreon post, I will be putting out blog posts like this about 3x a month. I would like to have one of them be patron exclusive every month, and those will likely always be spoilery posts related to Cryopod's future or Cryopod Classic. 

I hope you guys enjoyed this post and found it informative. Thanks for reading!