Great is Our Sin

Introduction

"If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin." - Charles Darwin, Voyage of the Beagle

If you're here to just read the story, don't worry you can skip this part. This little introduction is more so for me to gush about the literal years I spent working on this story. Initially this story actually was simply referred to as Atlas so coming up with the actual name for it was exceptionally difficult because for 6 years I just knew this as Atlas. This project started all the way back in 2018 when all Atlas was to me was a burst of ADHD thinking "you know what would be cool? A virus that makes people evolve super quickly" and I simply just threw words onto a page and called it a day. It was only after I began to share the idea with people did I get the common reactions of "Oh hey that's cool, you should write something about that" and from there garbled incoherent ideas became somewhat cohesive at the time at least. From there Atlas was born initially as this ugly older brother to this book with typos, terrible plot points and generally border lining what could easily considered to be the kind of book your friend gives you and as you hand it back grimacing you lie through your teeth saying "yeah it was... good." Although I had all the ideas there it just felt ugly and incomplete and several years of English literature later I started to properly understand the structures of stories and creating complex characters with their motivations and ideals. Because of this not only did I realise that I can start a sentence with because (unlike what Mrs May used to say) but also I could actually write something that I found to at least be tolerable and from there I gained my passion for short story writing realising that I wasn't really built to make novels simply because they were too much planning and too much effort to which my ADHD would not co-operate. So, rather than taking it hostage with Adderall I had an idea. Short stories inside of one universe all culminating into an overarching plot and story. Here I could retain the concept and idea of Atlas but not burn myself out having to constantly plan for the next important moment for main character #3 and could instead George R.R. Martin it and introduce a random loveable character and immediately kill him off. And from there not only could I start sentences with and (still angry at Mrs May) Great is Our Sin was born, this hot pot of random characters culminating into one arching story is what I've been working on for nearly 6 years. It's not done yet unfortunately but each new "series" that is released is essentially a new story as in place of sections the story is divided up into parts and in place of chapters, series being the stories. This means that even if I needed to take a break, you the reader wouldn't be left with a half finished story or a frustrating cliff hanger but rather a complete short story hopefully waiting for the next one. Anyways my gushing has taken up enough of your time so all I can say is thank you for reading my little moment of obsessing and I hope you enjoy the story.