offJACK

[FINAL PART OF A LONG AHH THREAD]
          	
          	For the reasons listed below, I will be unpublishing this book. It will be public until I post the 1,000 reads art as an extra chapter, but a month after that, it'll be gone. This doesn't mean I'm giving up on writing though! I am working on an original story right now that will borrow some elements from this one. I can't provide a release date at the moment, since I haven't even written a chapter yet, but it is on its way. In the meantime, I may also write and post short stories to a separate book. Once again, thank you all so much for being with me on this journey. Have a good one.

offJACK

[FINAL PART OF A LONG AHH THREAD]
          
          For the reasons listed below, I will be unpublishing this book. It will be public until I post the 1,000 reads art as an extra chapter, but a month after that, it'll be gone. This doesn't mean I'm giving up on writing though! I am working on an original story right now that will borrow some elements from this one. I can't provide a release date at the moment, since I haven't even written a chapter yet, but it is on its way. In the meantime, I may also write and post short stories to a separate book. Once again, thank you all so much for being with me on this journey. Have a good one.

offJACK

Even though I'm hating on my own book, one thing I can say that I did well was developing lore for my story. From the launch of the game, I was able to reverse engineer the game elements in order to create a believable setting and backstory for the entities in the Hotel (this was before the new updates adding details to expand on the game lore, and before a single Game Theory). Now whether I expressed it clear enough is up to your interpretation, but I realize working backwards is a central aspect of planning and writing fanfiction. In this instance, the lore isn't readily available, at least not to an average player. But more so than the lore, you also have to take existing characters and make realistics replicas of them for the story. I feel like I fell short in this department. I tried too hard trying to make every character unique and exciting, and in the end, I felt that it didn't translate well in writing this book. I want to ask you a question. Who is the protagonist? Is it Seek because his name is in the title? If so, why is he far removed from all the conflict in the story, as if nothing really affects him? The answer is difficult to find, mainly because I don't know myself.

offJACK

(part 3) Yet, my biggest regret, something that I alluded to earlier, was my horrendous release schedule. I don't know in what universe I thought monthly updates would be fine. For crying out loud, I grew up with the internet, I know we need to keep things moving at a fast pace. I thought I would need a lot of time in between chapters to write a cohesive, well-thought-out story. I thought that this schedule would allow me to balance personal commitments with this hobby. What actually happened is that the months where I was actually busy, I would be late with the scheduled chapter, push the release date back, and release 2 chapters in the same month. And in the months where I wasn't preoccupied, I would write chapters in advance for the following months and have them sit there, knowing I was going to revise them at most three times (if I revised them at all), instead of just releasing them when they were ready. Once I started writing Seek's Hotel, getting caught between these two scenarios made it very hard for me to break free from the cycle.
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offJACK

(part 2)  In addition, I could've done a better job with the plot. I didn't do anything innovative compared to other SFW Doors fanfics, aside from my humanized entities. There was still a portion of this story dedicated to recreating a successful DOORS run. I think the reason I failed in these departments was my overplanning. Originally, I had a vision for a much lengthier series that included two more parts beyond this one. I fully intended to write everything I had planned, even at the snail's pace I was moving. I wouldn't say I got burnt out, but after releasing a few chapters, my enthusiasm for all things DOORS was dying down. I was playing the game less, I wasn't reading other fanfics, and participating in the community less. I couldn't envision myself continuing to write Seek's Hotel any longer than a year. Change is natural, and I don't have any problem with it. It's just that I was overzealous and shot myself in the foot trying to write a slice-of-life that would transition into a battle shonen. TV directors and professional writers can get away with that, but a newbie like myself certaintly cannot at this moment.
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offJACK

It's been about a year and a half since a started this journey. I had always wanted to try my hand at writing fanfiction, but I usually never got around to it, or if I did start, I never had the motivation to continue. This is the first work that I've seen through to completion, and for that, I feel pretty relieved. I'm sure all of us know the kind of stigma surrounding fanfiction, which is part of the reason I hadn't discovered this site until 2021/2022. This time was really special for me, because after playing through DOORS when it initially released and seeing what works people created in such a short time, I was inspired to create my own DOORS rendition. If these people could create a non-sexualized/romance centered fanfic, so could I, right? I would like to say that it was easy, but I would be lying. I wanted to abandon this project so many times because I was unhappy with what I wrote. I kept comparing this to the more popular books and was constantly reminded of the gap between my ability and a seasoned author's. But when I began this journey, I already accepted that this book probably wouldn't be something I could be proud of. All I wanted was to try it out, and I'm glad that I did. This wouldn't have been possible without the readers. Thank you to everyone who gave Seek's Hotel a chance and those who kept returning for the new updates. I wanna give a shoutout the PlaceHolderName for voting on all my chapters! Thank you so much, it means the world to me that you thought my lackluster chapters were worthy of praise.