18/06/2022 Patreon Devlog

04/06/2022

This Week's Summary:

• Finished Quill's rough draft
• Edited up to Ch 4
• Outfit research/planning
• Sprite planning

The Ramble:

As before, I focused on writing this week (or, specifically, drafting). I managed to finish the rough draft a bit early and was able to start editing this week as well.

Editing usually happens in several phases. I do an initial revision of the entire draft where I mostly look at continuity issues, overly wordy exposition, areas that need to be fleshed out, etc. This stage can drastically increase or decrease the word count as there's a lot of deleting, rearranging, and adding.

Next, I do a stage of smaller edits focused on style, readability, grammar, etc. This is done with the help of an editing software and involves a ton of really small changes on more of a line by line basis.

I only start coding the text after this stage of editing.

So far, I have been keeping the word count more or less the same as I go through the chapters - the early chapters have actually already been through one round of editing as I needed to clean them up and and pull them into continuity before I really started focusing on the writing for this route (since I'd written them over the course of a couple of months while I was doing other things).

But I did make a few changes to the plot or character motivations much later in the route and now I need to bring early chapters into alignment with some of that. In addition, there are a couple of really long passages of Quill or Locke talking about Nysa and its history - and while I think those are needed, I also have to break up the exposition with other conversation and also just trim out whatever can be trimmed.

I did briefly play with Quill's sprite, working on some of his alt outfits and an alt hairstyle with his bangs clipped out of the way. Still needs some work (LoL!) but I wanted to experiment a bit.

I think he's going to need at least one additional outfit. Maybe two. And I think I want to re-work his "default" outfit too since I've never really liked it.

I've also been taking notes for other characters in terms of what they'll need for outfits and saving a ton of outfit references for everyone.

Sneak Peeks:

Not really a sneak peek but now that Quill's route is done I thought I'd at least share a plot overview for those who want it. For those who want to go in completely blind, just skip this part.

For those who are curious, this was my initial blurb I wrote to help me flesh out my outline:

Morgan finds herself in a hidden city, a so-called 'shadow dome' of Arelie, a small nation known for its laid-back culture and casual approach to Esper regulation. Nysa is a thriving city of Biosynths hiding away from the rest of the world and living in peace. Morgan finds that there is a small but growing population of Espers who have begun to learn about this little sanctuary secreted away on the Day Side.

She is taken in by Quill Laurence, a writer, editor, and member of the city's central committee. Quill allows her to stay with him until she is back on her feet.

Though feeling lost and distraught over what happened, she's intrigued by the city when she learns that the economy largely centres around research of Ereian technology and history - and that many of its citizens have come from elsewhere to start new lives.

Taking up a temporary job as a sort of administrative assistant for Quill, Morgan learns that the city - like all places - has its own problems. Through Quill, she is exposed to some of the city politics and growing dissent among the committee members about Nysa's future. And a possible conspiracy to sell some of its more controversial research to the highest bidder outside.

When a committee vote doesn't go well for a faction wanting to go public with the dome's existence, a violent coup ensues, putting Morgan, Quill, their allies, and the rest of the city in danger.

In order to protect what she's only just begun to build in this new place, she may have to risk reaching out for help to the very people who may force her to give it up.

--

A lot of people have wondered how I'm going to handle Morgan's physical state in these routes where she doesn't end up with Endgame or where Celeste can heal her up.

I was realising that it's actually quite difficult to explain why her condition isn't as bad in Quill's route (and won't be in Reuben's route either. Because there's no way to say "Wow, this is so much better than it would have been if XYZ had happened!" LoL

I have a feeling I'll be answering a lot of asks about it.

Upcoming Week:

This week will be primarily focused on editing. It's always difficult to know how fast the first revision will go because it largely depends on how much editing needs to be done and if I need to pause to do any major rewrites.

Quill's route is currently 111,889 words (uncoded) which puts his route right in the same ballpark as Ari's in terms of length. I actually do expect him to end up closer to Jack or Magnus (who have the longest routes) though.

As of right now, the total uncoded word count is 877,000 words. I don't know for sure how long it'll end up being coded but my current estimate is 810,000 words. We will see!

With writing complete and revisions about 15% complete, it puts Quill's route at about 50% complete as a whole.

That is all for this week! I will see you next time!

~Esh