Determination (Charisk) [OUTDATED]

After-(And technically Pre-)Afterword

9/9/2023,
Almost 10 months after "completing" book 1.

So I'm going to skip the formalities on this one. I'm not happy with the way this book has come out. I mean, 8k reads, 1k stars, and #1 in Charisk is certainly nothing to sneeze at, and I'm very grateful for you all sticking with me to this point.

     But I can do better.

     I say time and time again that "I want to respect this story and it's characters, and the people reading it as well," but I turn around and tell instead of show, if that makes sense.

     I want to be clear that I am NOT editing this book any further. And if you want to read this book and move on, then you will absorb all of the information that is cannon to the larger story I am trying to tell just fine. But I owe it to you and the characters to tell this story better. Better than this, at least.

     Either shortly after or at the time you are reading this, I will have made another story on my page. One that I consider to be the Definitive version of Chara and Frisk's journey through the Underground. Major events will not change. Backstories and story beats will not change. Only the presentation of them will.

     Kane (book 2) isn't getting as much traction as this book was, which was to be expected. And I'm okay with that. But I'm also struggling to continue on with that story while this is looming over my head.

     I hold this story dear to my heart, and I hope you do as well. But every author knows that you don't publish the first draft.

     So if you read this already and don't want to go through it all again, there's about 20 chapters of Kane currently published at the time of writing. If you read this and don't really like Kane, go ahead and read version 2. If you don't like either of them and want to wait for book 3, then you'll be waiting for a while but I appreciate your patience more than you can imagine.

I'll copy over chapters that I already am in love with, mostly closer to the end, and do touch ups to ones that are close. So version two won't take almost 2 years to write. It'll be quite a bit shorter.

I am also posting a copy of this chapter at the beginning and end of the book, just so new readers (Hi all!) know there's a better one, and so current readers know that there's more of the content they love on the way. Those who had already finished this book for a while... I hope you get this notification.

Anyways, I've got quite a task ahead of me, so I'll see you all then.

Much love,
- A Whole Person