OathBlade (Wattys2015)

Foreword

Hello! I don't want to take long, I just have a couple of quick things to say. First, thank you so much for checking out this book. I appreciate every person who takes the time to give this story a try, and I'm glad it's been so successful in entertaining more people than I ever thought I'd connect with. I can't begin to say just how grateful I am for all the love I've gotten for this, and I'm always going to be working to make this (and everything else I write) the best it can possibly be.

As of right now OathBlade is a completed second draft with some fairly large revisions made. Even so, you happen to find any errors that could use some correcting, feel free to point them out in the comments. I've started to update many chapters with their edited versions, but I'm doing it in order of largest changes that are most important to the WIP sequel RuneCurse. I'm hoping I can avoid replacing every chapter (to keep it appealing to publishers later down the road) so I'm not replacing chapters in order. If you happen to see strange differences between characters/events, it's because of the content updates. You'll be able to tell which chapters are updated by the asterisk (*) in the chapter title. Sorry if this gets confusing. I'm working as fast as I can to replace things but now that I'm working I don't have as much time anymore.

I've never deleted constructive criticism, as I'm very proud for people to see how far the story has come when it comes to improvement. I welcome constructive feedback, so don't feel that you can't let me know about mistakes you find. Even if I've already fixed the mistake in the revision, I appreciate that people take the time to help me.

Please note that some formatting issues are popping up because of the edits. Italics sometimes get lost. I'll be cleaning that up as I find the issues.

Also, I know there are some people that feel the need to defend the author by telling others who correct them to stop. I've had this happen before. I ask that, if you see people pointing out my mistakes, please don't discourage them or attack them. I appreciate the sentiment, but there's no need to defend me from people that are trying to help. Without the help of the people that generously took the time to give me feedback and corrections, this story would still be an utter mess. I can't possibly thank those that helped me enough.

If you see people being malicious, I ask that you don't engage with them, either. I prefer not to delete comments, even ones that are legitimately mean, but if wars start to break out I will have to. I encourage everyone to talk with each other in the comments section, but just keep it civil and have fun.

I hope you enjoy the story, and if you do I hope you'll consider leaving votes and comments. They may not seem important, but engagement with the story likes that helps more people find me and my work.

Thank you for your time!