Hello, and welcome to my afterword regarding Frontrunners. I mostly wrote this for myself to help me reflect on what went wrong and what I learned while writing Frontrunners. I decided to share it because I’ve found similar posts from other authors interesting to read.

To start with, Frontrunners was my first try at writing something original. I’ve written a handful of forgettable fanfics and posted them elsewhere a long time ago. Coming to Frontrunners, I wanted to try writing a story where I planned out the events in detail before I wrote it, as I had been writing fanfics off the cuff without any sort of plans or notes. So I spent around a week of on and off effort planning out some background details and the first arc. At that point I had big plans for Frontrunners, but most of it was in my head still and I got over eager and started writing the story.

That's when the problems really exposed themselves. I think if I had waited and continued to plan out the story it would have gone farther as a project. However, I ended up going with the first ideas that came to mind for how arcs 2 and 3 would play out because I felt pressured to write and post more. The issues that I ran into made me feel like the story needed serious revising and more thought put into both the background of the world and the characters. Which had been half formed ideas in the back of my head. Ideas I originally intended to properly lay out before writing but which got mixed up or lost as I jumped head first into writing.

That above all else is why Frontrunners is ending here. It’s been 4 years since I started writing it. All those half formed thoughts are long since gone from my head, most of them never noted down as reference. During the hiatus I would come back to the story and do some revisions or write a chapter or two every 4-6 months. New ideas were what brought me back. This left me with half the story written using old ideas, and then the other half written using scattered ideas and plans over 4 years. It’s a mess on my end. This is basically a huge debt built up that’s holding me back from continuing. I want to start fresh and make the effort with a new cast of characters instead of the cookie cutter cutouts that pretend to be actual characters in Frontrunners. Ava is the only character I enjoyed writing because I had more of a personality for her in mind then anyone else. She seems to be pretty despised, which I take to mean I did a decent job with her. Though she generated more hate then I expected.

I could go more into detail about how much of a mess Frontrunners is on my end, but I think it’s pretty evident in the writing. The story lacks in a lot of areas and I intend to do better next time.

Talking about what I learned from this project. The thing I most want to take from Frontrunners is to create proper characters. And then, to try and get in their mindset when writing them. I believe this will have the greatest impact on my writing.

After that is the atmosphere of the story. I’ve found that I tend to skip descriptions when writing. Actually, when I was editing older chapters during the hiatus I found that Edwin didn’t even have a description in the story. I don’t imagine things in my head very well, like some people say when they read it’s like they are watching a movie play out in their head. When I imagine things I mostly get an impression or an outline, if I really focus on something I can imagine an image that feels weak. So yeah, I also intend to purposefully take some time to describe characters and scenery when things are taking place in my next project.

The last point that I'm taking away from Frontrunners is my pacing. I think it’s alright in Frontrunners but it’s kind of messy as well. I think with better formed characters in mind I will be able to fill in gaps in my future writing by thinking, how would X react here, and then have them react. Instead of my outline saying X goes here and X does that. Then X leaves. Which leaves a kind of frantic pacing. If the characters are reacting and taking extra moments to consider or do things they would in character I think it should address the issue. Though I believe I will be able to make my outline better in the future as well. Less planning every encounter and more directing characters to places and having them be themselves and act how they would there.

I don’t think there are any profound glimpses to be found in this afterword. Some pretty obvious problems that I’ve now run my head into the ground against. I intend to learn from this project and hope to apply these lessons going forward. I will say that I am ultimately satisfied with finishing Frontrunners. It was something I made a promise to myself about, that I would finish the story before moving on to write something else. It’s kind of a cop out ending, but it’s effectively what would be the end of book one of Frontrunners if it was a published novel. It’s roughly 106k words, and while the final product isn’t what I originally set out to write, it’s enough for me to move forward without feeling like I’ve abandoned the story.

On that thought though, while there may be some tentative notes and ideas regarding where Frontrunners could go from here, there is nothing substantial. What I can say is that you should not expect to see this story updated ever again. I feel 99% certain I will never write Frontrunners book two.

So yeah, that’s me rambling. There are things about Frontrunners that I’m unsatisfied with, and other parts of it I am glad to have written. Going forward I intend to continue writing, it’s something I enjoy as a hobby and I want to get better at.

For my next project, I am working on a sci-fi magical girl setting where things are grimdark and horrific. The setting is magical girls from different dimensions defend against invasions from the void by eldritch monsters. I’m not sure how grimdark and horror filled I want the setting to be though.

A lot of details are still tentative so I won’t really share any more, unless you are really curious feel free to ask me more about it, through pms or in the comments.

Time frame for me posting this is unknown. As a personal goal I wouldn’t mind having it ready by the end of the year but I'm trying to get a new job and move right now so my future’s rather uncertain.

Here are some rough sketches of possible designs for one of the common monsters in the story.

Feel free to remark on my thoughts here or if you have anything you want to share regarding the story or maybe tell me what you think of these design ideas.

Thanks for reading Frontrunners.