Mystical Awakening Online: SotPM [Part 2] (CPN)

Afterword

- Hello everyone, thank you finishing the first volume of Mystical Awakening Online. First thing I would like to say is, thank you for all of your amazing support and comments, it means a lot to me, especially since I wasn't sure how well received this book would be. Though honestly it was a lot of fun to write.

- Second thing I would like to say is, wow this took so much longer than i thought it would. I honestly thought I would have been finished much earlier than this I think I started the concept for MAO back in 2013 or 2014, it's been about 4-5 years.

I feel like that's really slow in comparison to other writers however in comparison to my last book Immortal Presage, its definitely an improvement time wise. I'm hoping to getting down to finishing a book in two years. We'll see how well that goes.

- There is something I want to address, again thank you all for the support, throughout this adventure or writing MAO many of you were not satisfied with the short chapter format. This was my first attempt at writing a story in Cellphone Novel (CPN) format.

This format has a maximum of 200 words per chapter. This style is meant to use to the limited words to Express your thoughts more poetically. Though as you've probably read I am not very poetic, so they just end up as short chapters. I still want to stick with this format throughout the entirety of MAO. Overall this style is much easier for me to write on the go, when I free time, and easier to break up into small chunks rather than make one large chapter.

Please bare with this and if you can't I understand thank you for coming this far. In the future I want to try and improve my poetic prose, or rather non-poetic prose. I want to experiment with this format and make it my own.

- Well next I want to say a little bit about the story itself. The entirety of MAO was intended to be in the same vein of Sword Art Online, even the title Mystical Awakening Online was written with this concept in mind.

The title MAO has two meanings, Mystical Awakening Online and Mystic Archives Online. The first being the name of the story, this was made with the idea that in the base game (if MAO was an actual MMO) the player character would have their eyes awakened to the spiritual, hidden, and dark worlds around them, thus a Mystical Awakening, the second meaning being a wordpress page I run as way of collecting information I have written for anyone to view.

The overall story is written in the vein of sword art online with the core thought of improving on the lackluster  storytelling of sword art online (I do this from the place of someone that love SAO, but doesn't likeits written), I am also writing the in game lore of MAO in the same vein as Dark Souls, where items descriptions, environmental details, NPC dialogue tell most of the story. I hope that gets some gears a turning. I have made HUGE attempt to inter connect everything about this story together in many ways. Other stories that have had an effect on this story, is the Taiwanese story 1/2 Prince, Accel World, .Hack, and fairy lore and myths.

My favorite character probably to write was Xuelian, the martial artist girl is a common trope, but I think it's a classic. I've always preferred characters that fight hand to hand in media, my favorite fist fighters has to be Vahn from Legend of Legaia, and Senel Coolidge from tales of Legendia, so having Xuelian fight hand to hand was must, though she still will use a spear from time to time.

My other favorite character to write was Arthorias, his name taken from Arthur and Artorias, which Artorias may or may not actually derive from Athur. The idea of this legendary player who sacrifices himself to help protect every other player seems so grand to me. I think that kind of character is why Artorias in Dark Souls is such a popular character despite his failings.

My least favorite character to write had to be Tsubasa, well that's not entirely true, though it was more like his character frustrates me, it was sort of easy to write him. Throughout the entire time I ended up over thinking everything about him like, 'how can I represent this character's mental state and make his character relatable, and his actions understandable, yet utterly annoying to watch stumble and fumble'.

- Lastly before I go I want to say, though I'm done with posting vol 1 of MAO here on wattpad, I'll be working on getting this story ready for publishing, which will include lots of editing. It maybe a while till I'm ready to get this book ready for publishing, editing is gonna be a pain; this is going to be utterly annoying, this whole thing is almost gonna be like (and to be honest it really has been) developing and balancing, an entire video game from the ground up. I've got my work cut out for me.

I want to note out that I have a patreon account where I will be posting information that will be exclusive to the version publishing, and other sorts of bonus content. On my Patreon I have a poll with a list of characters (that I'll have to update) the top three characters will get a series of exclusive of bonus chapters for the published version of MAO which will be exclusive to patreon subscribers, this poll will be ending at the end of the month.

On a separate but related note, I am looking for artist, who can help me create a game map for MAO, so for those good at with Photoshop please send me an email if your interested.

Also let me say this here, I am officially starting a contest, five winners will receive a copy of my novel 'Immortal Presage'. To enter, on my Wattpad, Wordpress, Email, or Patreon. Post [Immortal Presage contest entry] and leave a comment about any of my stories on Wattpad, and/or any suggestions you may have.

The next book I'll be working on after this is 'Black thread'.

Thank you all very much please stay tuned for incoming information.