A Sunset Casts a Long Shadow Rewrite + Sequel · 5:58am Jul 11th, 2016
So, a few notes for those who have this story in their bookshelves/tracking. I've had a few back-and-forth comment replies on the story musing about a potential sequel to this (by the way, if you don't want to be spoiled for the possible events in a sequel, don't read the comments).
I believe what I will do will be to actually rewrite the base story from the ground up to start. The biggest weakness of the current format is that the ending can be seen well in advance. Putting the plot twist first has its own issues with pacing, but I think it works better overall. I cannot scrap the flashbacks, as they are integral to driving home the main premise of the story. Trying to resolve all that will be my biggest road block to getting started, but getting a far better pacing is an absolute must to hold the rest of the fic up. Some scenes can probably be siphoned to later on in the story. The other thing is that this was only my second story after a long dry-spell from creative writing, and it shows in some of the purple prose.
At this point, I do not know whether I will be writing it concurrently or after I am finished Phantasmare, my current long fiction. Phantasmare is on pace for 150k-200k words, while the ASCaLS rewrite would be significantly shorter than that, perhaps 40k at a random guess. In any event, even if I write concurrently, it would not be until Phantasmare is close to wrapping up, as that is a beast of its own.
I am getting a cover art commissioned for this story, too. I think it will be rather fitting for Sunset's character progression in the story.
