The Shadow's Secret│TMNT

IMPORTANT NOTE

idk if anyone still has this book chilling in their library but...if y'all do !!

hello!!!

I actually have a very important question to ask all of you so please keep reading!!

real quick tho i want to take a second to thank everyone for reading this story, it means so much more to me than I can put into words! TSS has over 140k reads and it's all thanks to you guys!! it's constantly getting new readers and votes every day and it makes me so so happy to see people enjoying it 💕

Ok so it's been a little over two years since I finished this story which makes it three years since I started writing!

unfortunately, I've been an unmotivated piece of garbage since then, and now that I'm spending over 40 hours a week doing schoolwork and working a part-time job on top of that, I never have any time to write 😭

Which means it's been two whole ass years and the sequel only has 14 chapters.

yikes i know. but that's another issue.

here's the current one:

three years later I'm rereading this story's chapters and noticing a bunch of issues. let's name a few. feel free to add more.

Raiya is way too young. I made her my age when I was writing it because it was easier but every time i realize she's 16 i physically cringe lmao i feel like she needs to be older to be in these situations idk

a lot of the dialogue and situations make me cringe as well, especially the earlier chapters, which also suffer from some rough writing on account of me being young and...really weird.

Casey is seven years older than Raiya which is #notcool for them to buddy up so quickly with that age difference

I keep forgetting i actually gave Raiya powers?? lmfaooo like the whole ancestral memories thing? i wanted her to be kicking ass by the second book so i used it to speed up her ninjutsu training but its so unnecessary and random does anyone even like it?? (highkey got roasted for this so im questioning it lol)

and the whole plot takes place in only two weeks, not including the last chapter which is a whole issue in itself. young me thought i was some sort of genius thinking up this romantic date-thing with the stargazing but now it makes me curl up and die for a minute.

basically, i have changed exponentially in the three years since i started TSS and so has my writing. which brings me to my very important question.

should I finally edit this book? and to what extent?

should i just fix up the grammar and cringey dialogue? maybe fix a few tiny things here and there, swiffer all that dust off the shelves lmao

or should i get my hands dirty and do some real, hard editing? get rid of the ancestral memory thing, fix Raiya's age, extend the timeline of the story, all that jazz? and if i make these big changes, should i publish a separate, updated version so this older one is still available?

there are so many questions that need answering so please help a girl out lol

i've been considering this for a long time but this story is 60 chapters long and anyone who's been around long enough knows I am the worst at updating. if i just do light editing, it'll be nice and quick. but if i go into some hard edits, it will take a lot longer, which is why I'm asking you guys for your opinions.

what do you want?

please be honest and specific, it will actually make all this a lot easier! list any scenes or parts you want me to keep, change, or get rid of! as long as you're not being an ass about it, be as critical as you want! list whatever stupid things (big or small) that made you angry or confused, i honestly do not care and won't get upset, I need all the advice I can get!!

the only issue is when the hell I'm going to find the time to get this all done. I'm thinking after April when school is out and i have time to breathe again, but by then all my focus will be on updating my narnia fanfic (shameless self-promo idgaf) so if I decide to do hard editing, that might not happen for a long time.

here are the options:

1. leave TSS as it is

2. do some light editing to fix grammar & cringey dialogue/scenes, might take a few weeks

3. do some hard editing to fix the major issues, probably take a long time (months), and directly edit this book

4. do the hard editing in a separately published book and keep this one available (preserve all the lovely, hilarious threads you guys created), also take a few months

5. do the hard editing and directly edit this book BUT keep this version available to read on another platform (ex. quotev), take a few months

please comment and help me out!!! love you guys!!

-day xx