(CANCELLED) PLANTS VS ZOMBIES: ROOTS OF DESTINY

Roots Of Destiny: A Conceptual Disaster (Essay + New Story Announcement)

Looking back on what you've done is always important. We may get a certain level of satisfaction out of what we create, but it is better for the longevity of the craft to set that standard higher. The only answer to meeting that standard is introspection, editing, and acknowledging mistakes. As the writer of the fanfiction titled "Plants Vs. Zombies: Roots of Destiny", this is something I've had to do a lot. I care deeply about what I write and addressing people's issues or concerns, so much so that I've been more interested in how I'm criticized for my work than praised. I have worked on this story for nearly a year, and after addressing so many flaws and issues with it, I only recently came to realize that all of these ideas I've had to improve Roots of Destiny or make it structurally sound have mostly been in a vacuum, oblivious to the problems that were introduced in the very first chapter, which then plagued the story for the rest of it's run.

Issue 1: Unrecognizably Recognizable

Plants Vs. Zombies: Roots of Destiny only wants to be a Plants Vs. Zombies story on occasion. Sometimes, it wants to be overly indulgent in its inspiration, so much so that it at times, hardly feels like the universe it resides in. There is bits and pieces of elements to it that are familiar to the video game series it's based on, such as the use of the character "Major Sweetie", the locations from the game "Plants Vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborvillie", and obviously, characters that are based on designs from the games. However, Roots of Destiny desires to inject new ideas into a Plants Vs. Zombies story. This is a great idea on paper, as it allows the story to have it's own sense of identity, but the problem is that Roots of Destiny introduces too many ideas, and that ends up making it feel foreign to a problematic degree. The main protagonist of the book, Rookie, is a peashooter, and is an obvious example for the issue at hand. If you have played a Plants Vs. Zombies game, you would be aware of the abilities that  peashooter already has, such as his ability to shoot peas, and other moves as seen in the console games in the franchise. Rookie, however, barely or mostly never uses any of these abilities that the series pre-established. Instead, in most action sequences, he tends to use melee weapons and attacks. All that this baffling decision served to do was confuse and off-put the fans of the actual games. While it is okay to make a character like a peashooter work differently than how they would in their game counterpart, if you don't keep to the core aspects of the character as established in the official media, then you end up making the reader wonder why the peashooter doesn't shoot peas. It simply ends up making the book feel like it has no idea what it wants to be when you have these recognizable faces and places in a scenario or plot that feels so disconnected from what we understand about Plants Vs. Zombies initially.

What makes this issue worse is that it doesn't allow these attacks of alien ideas to breathe.

Issue 2: Poor Pacing

Roots of Destiny wants to let you know everything about itself way too quickly instead of slowly introducing its conflicts and concepts over-time. While a lot of these ideas that Roots of Destiny presents to its audience would be fine if they were given more time to breathe before the conflict continues on, it only really seems to care about forwarding the plot. For instance, after the characters pass the L.E.A.F Exams and start going on missions, the first mission that they do immediately follows the main conflict of focus for the rest of the book, coming in the form of the princesses of the sun. This doesn't really make sense to do, because while having that high-stakes conflict is important, it leaves the characters feeling like they had very little time to settle into their roles as L.E.A.F agent and develop from that. Additionally, rushing into a major conflict ended up causing the rest of the world that the story takes place in to feel largely unexplored. This is a problem, because without that, we hardly understand why exactly the characters care about Neighborvillie as a place, and what it even means to them. While there are glimpses of this in the actual story in the form of minor interactions with background characters, it doesn't take away from how Neighborvillie ends up feeling like this place that could have been further developed and explored with lesser conflicts that would not only ground the characters, but give them a stronger sense of reason to care about protecting it.

Issue 3: Creatively Out of Control

Roots of Destiny didn't just feature characters of my own, but a majority of characters that me and my friends had created over the years. While the idea did seem fun on paper, it was the decision that I think doomed the title from the start. The main issue with using characters that were pre-established by other people is that you aren't allowed to just do whatever you want with them. These characters all have defined personalities, goals, and other things that you can't exactly just change, because it's already been decided for you. You can change some things, but if you change too much, it's not even the character anymore. When I realized that, Roots of Destiny became extremely boring to write. It's not like I could make characters and do whatever I wanted with them, because by using already established characters, I had to do whatever fit the character and not what I thought would be fun or exciting.

So, What Does This All Mean?

I say all of this to explain why Roots of Destiny is canceled. Put simply, I put myself in a situation where I wrote something that I would regret later down the line and become borderline sick of writing. I was trying to hold onto it, but if I'm not even having fun writing my stuff, then what's really even the point? This book was made out of passion, and if I don't feel passionate anymore, then clearly it's time to stop and think about what I'm doing. While I do cherish the characters me and my friends have made together, I'm frankly just ready to move on from it and start fresh.

However, that does not mean that I'm done writing stories in the Plants Vs. Zombies universe. In time, I plan to make a new story that takes place in the same world to address all of my personal issues with Roots of Destiny, as well as allowing me to do more with the setting and characters that I was restricted from before. I hope you can look forward to that.

To all of my friends, thanks a lot for letting me use your characters. They'll always have a place in my heart, but I think it's time for me to try something more new and original.

That all being said, I'm still glad I wrote this story. I would have never known I would grow to have these issues with my own writing if I didn't make it in the first place, meaning that it served its purpose as a learning experience.

For preservation of history purposes, this book will remain up.

My next PVZ project should begin between the end of the summer to the start of the fall. You'll get exact dates at a later time.

Thanks for sticking with me, and until then,

Excelsior!