Writing Newverse sidestories is hard

Normally, I don’t like to complain about having writer’s block because I could instead be using that time to overcome my writer’s block, but this blog post is about a fundamental problem. After I finished chapter 3 of A New Body, A New Voice, I decided to have a small break so I could finish chapter 3 of Digital Access Network: Dimensions and Darkness... and now I can’t get back into writing the former.

This is because I feel constrained for two reasons:

1. I have to keep ANBANV small in scope so I don’t contradict any canon stories. There’s a lot of canon Pokémon characters I’d love to include, but since I don’t want my characters to leave the small area of the Peaks of Peril, it’s hard to include them without making the plot feel too convoluted. The very premise of the Newverse - characters are teleported en masse to semi-random locations and have to reunite with each other - encourages writers to cram in as many characters as possible and stagger their introductions, and I’m guilty as charged.
2. PADDING. On the third (originally second) day, Arceus delivers a message to every living being in the world explaining what Pokémon are. Because of that, instead of the characters working towards solving a mystery, I end up writing them faffing around for two days before the answers are handed to them.

Just to be clear: A New Body, A New Voice isn’t cancelled. I’m just not enjoying writing it as much as Dimensions and Darkness. I came up with the premise of that fanfic, all of the canon Pokémon characters are in their “comfort zones”, all of the Digimon are OCs, and said Digimon don’t all appear at once, so I can build it up as a mystery.