Ninjago: Green and Gold

A/N

Yep. This story is over too. I yet again fail to actually complete a story...Kinda.

This was a book I wrote when just getting back into Ninjago after dropping out of it after Season 6. I had finished the first 10 seasons as that was all my Netflix had at the time and loved the Oni trilogy I originally missed out on. So, just getting into writing at the time as well, I quickly wrote and published the first chapter of this book without really knowing where the story was going to go. All I knew was I wanted Lloyd to have a forgotten brother as the main antagonist (I'll say why in a sec), Harumi to survive the building collapse and for Harumi to turn good. The surprising amount of support from the first chapter alone motivated me to craft this into an actual story and the continuous support was what ultimately led to me completing it. Until I decided to make a sequel.

A crack started to form when writing the 8th chapter as I was just telling the last episode of Hunted with minor tweaks in plot and dialogue which was REALLY not fun for me and drained a lot of motivation out of me. Though motivation sprung back when I had finished the chapter and was given the freedom to craft a story outside of the plot of Hunted.

That was my first regret. Setting the story in the middle of a Season. This led to times where writing became boring and continuity errors in the story. Something I noticed when going back to the earlier chapters.

When making a sequel instead of making my own story I constricted myself yet again to the plot of another Season, though not as bad. Leading to me making a story I didn't want to tell. That was what ultimately killed my motivation for this book.

Where at the start I was just having fun writing I was now seeing it as more as a chore which led to chapters releasing every couple of days to every couple of months. Eventually I realised I hadn't put out a new chapter for almost a YEAR!

Looking back at the earlier chapters I didn't like how I wrote certain plot points and characters. The primary example of this being Lee. The whole idea of his character stemmed from someone I made up as a kid when watching the show as the next generation of Wu and Garmadon. With Lloyd representing Wu and Lee representing Garmadon. When making him a character for the story I didn't take into account how difficult it would be to introduce a brother for Lloyd not once even hinted at in the show which led to me not liking where I took his character, motivations and backstory. This made me not want to continue writing as he was one of the main characters of the story and I didn't know what to do with him anymore.

I also didn't exactly like how I wrote Lloyd and Harumi. I dunno I felt as if I didn't write their relationship in the best way I could have.

I also made the stupid decision to kill off Misako with no idea how to write the consequences of it as I didn't plan it at all. I just killed her off as I don't like her character and didn't want her in the story. A stupid reason I know.

Anyway, this story's end can be perhaps...A new beginning ;)

I want to publish a rewrite of this story to give myself a second chance having learned what not to do from this story. I don't want to write myself into corners and make the writing feel boring. Once I do that I can publish chapters way more frequently.

To do this I have deleted "Ninjago: Aftermath" as I had no fun writing it, didn't have a plan as to where it was going and so I can focus solely on this rewrite.

To give myself freedom this story from the start will have some key differences. One of them being it will be set after Crystalized. The end of that Season makes it so much easier for me to write my own story.

I still have some plot points to work out but I hope to publish the prologue soon.

Despite the odd idea to make the main antagonist Lloyd's never before mentioned brother I don't want to go back on it. I made the decision and want to stick with it so this isn't the end of Lee. I hope I can make his character a bit better in this rewrite.

I also want to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you for the incredible support you gave for this story. Waking up and seeing comments about people showing interest in a silly little project like this always made my day and was, near the end, the only motivation I had for continuing. It was so heart warming to see people express theories about where the story was going to go and giving ideas for where it should go inspired me and helped me archive a better understanding of story-telling, something I hope to display fully in the rewrite.

Aside from the One-Shot book, which I occasionally post chapters, this rewrite will be the only thing I'll be writing and thanks to school ending I have more free time to do so. The rewrite's story is coming together and will hopefully spark my passion for writing again as I will have the freedom to write whatever I want and fix the mistakes I made on this book.

So until the prologue of that rewrite comes out, Goodbye! :)

Edit:

The first 2 chapters of the rewrite have been published. If you want you can give them a try. It would be much appreciated.

The first chapter is more like a short prologue. Just to mention it this story focuses of Lloyd, Harumi and Lee. Although the rest of the ninja are involved and make often appearances the spotlight won't always be on them. Although I do want to write stories in the future that focus on other ninja as the main characters.