kdrobertson

An Abandoned Neural Wraith Idea

Added 2023-04-21 00:13:27 +0000 UTC

So I'm (mostly) taking that break I promised, although I'm also still thinking about writing while also preparing to overhaul my Heretic Spellblade notes before I jump back into a long writing session for it.

But in the aftermath of Book 3 I had a crazy idea for Book 4 that I more or less knew I couldn't write, particularly as the series risks becoming more of a passion project. So I might as well talk a bit about that idea.

The Conceit

Nick starts the book in Babylon, but not the one you're used to. He's working a perfectly normal job as a boring cipher-analyst (probably under Tiferet). No Archangels, no tight security that badgers him for biometric authentication, no Sword of Damocles from the military (as a sidenote, for those who still haven't picked up on the Dresden Files inspiration - yeah). This is basically the dream corpo life he wanted, but it doesn't take him long to realize he's basically in some sort of simulation and that something is off.

Once he remembers enough to break the simulation, the novel starts for real. Nick is pulled back into reality and is being held in some sort of facility by an unknown organization who are interrogating him about [redacted stuff related to dolls and Nick].

The idea is that his captors will put him in various simulations to test both his reaction to them and the reactions by dolls and mainframes. The Archangels begin interfering using their cipher abilities and EW capabilities. Nick's goal isn't just to escape the facility, but to work with the Archangels to see if he can't find out what who his captors are and why they are specifically after him. Some old pals might show up in the simulation as well.

The ending would have been action-packed, with a huge raid on the facility to rescue Nick.

Why I Wanted to Write It

For one, I like writing different stuff, even in a genre that's very much about the same book with a different coat of paint. This book would test my writing skills to an extent that they haven't been since I wrote the first Neural Wraith and Spellblade 4, both of which were books that required me to write things I always wanted to but had tended to fumble in past writing attempts (an immersive mystery in an interesting world that incorporated topical elements without being preachy; and a climactic war after a buildup that acts as a series midpoint).

It's also a great chance to do some fun stuff that isn't easily possible in the canon novels.

From a series perspective, this would also achieve a lot of useful things. Nick would take physical damage, allowing an easy excuse for cybernetics, but would also be forced to take a more forward role in the book and confront a lot of his feelings toward both Babylon and the Archangels.

It would also work well as a way to escalate the corporate conflicts of the series while shifting away from the foreign angle a little. This is also a negative, though. It risks escalating things too rapidly - I'll admit that this idea (or something similar) might sit in my head as a card I play to close out the series as an alternative to a huge revolution through riots. Particularly as the raid at the end isn't necessarily conducted by the Archangels/Babylon.

Why It Shouldn't be Written

A lot of you can probably guess why.

This book would be far darker than the rest of the series. I gave a brief explanation to a couple of people. One said that just hearing the idea made him feel tense, and another said it sounded better as a movie.

The big problem, besides the many genre conventions it would break (and result in immense bitching), is that even for an episodic novel it's a huge break in style. To bring up the Dresden Files again, this would be closer to Ghost Story and risks being as base-breaking. A story like this could be very good if it closed out (or close to) the series or acted as a side-story, but as a midpoint it risks pissing off tons of people. For something as big as the Dresden Files, that risk can pay off. For me, even if the book is good, it risks pissing off a ton of people and basically killing the series (and harming all of my books).

Episodic works need some baseline to work from, and I've only just started to establish that. I have no clue if Neural Wraith will stabilize enough to justify continuing long-term, although my suspicion that cyberpunk harem is about to be beaten into the ground by a rash of short "thriller" series with AI covers makes my decision to sit on the series for a bit a wise one imo.

Genre-wise, there are big issues with the entire setup. It's far more Nick-focused than usual. The two most oft-repeated complaints about the series are that Nick thinks too much (it's a mystery novel - while I'm still learning, I do refer to them while writing Neural Wraith, and the Dresden Files collectively outsells the entire harem genre, so I'll take my writing advice from it) and that the women are meaningless. The latter has some merit, although part of that complaint is just people who don't like actual robot girls due to overexposure to the type that are just regular women who you're told are robots.

Even in a simulation that could display some interesting stuff about the Archangels, or with interference from Rie, Zeke, or Kushiel, the fact that the dolls there aren't the real ones will deaden much of what they do. They "won't matter" more so than usual, because what they do won't matter. Sure, I could justify it by having the Archangels download the database at the end and merge with the memories, but that won't help the reader experience at the time.

Whenever I see reader complaints about "why do authors do X, it's such bad writing!" I usually have some past experience to justify why I ignore the complaint. In this case, Heretic Spellblade 2 comes to mind. I'm always wary of readers always assuming the worst interpretation of a scene because they assume I'm lazy, incompetent etc. I get away with more now, but if somebody is frustrated with the book they won't give me that leeway.

Toward the end of Spellblade 2, Nathan defeats another Bastion. Seraph approaches the enemy Bastion with her tonfas raised above his head, but Nathan looks away before she deals the finishing blow. Later, Sunstorm shows up with the Bastion's decapitated head. I forget, but I believe it's stated that the head is battered but still whole. This is supposed to retroactively inform the reader that whatever Seraph did, it didn't involve obliterating the Bastion's head.

Instead, people assumed I just forget something that happened like 4 paragraphs earlier and got mad. I got some negative reviews which, combined with the NTR scare, heavily impacted sales of the book. Similar problems are why I tend to repeat important information when relevant - I've seen readers forget major plot points from like a chapter or two ago. If readers will assume the worst of me, then I need to assume the worst of them and hold their hand.

In the case of this idea, it has huge implications as I know a lot of people will assume the book is basically a VRMMO where nothing matters.

Finally, this idea sounds great on paper but risks just being flat out terrible in execution. It might require a level of writing skill I simply lack. I struggled to pull of the Altnet stuff, for instance. While people who finished the book have responded positively, Neural Wraith 3 has horrendous KU figures. It's possible this is a result of the push by many authors to get readers to buy books (the KU payout just fell drastically; harem authors are spamming out short books that pay poorly in KU, so proper purchases are far better, which is why pre-orders are being pushed hard) but it might also be a sign that something in the book is causing DNFs. Confirmation bias makes me think it's the Altnet.

So writing a hugely ambitious book after struggling with both Neural Wraiths and failing to get Spellblade 6 off the ground initially seems like a fool's errand. I might need to wait a while before I touch another major project.

Alternatives

So, Book 4 is most likely going to be a low stakes book whenever I get around to it and Book 5 will be the dark, escalatory one. At the moment I'm committed to at least two more books in the series but I'm giving Neural Wraith some time to breath while waiting to see what the impact of the trend-chasing in harem has.

I might turn this idea into a short story. It actually started as a short story idea initially. But I suck at short stories and they tend to get long enough to nearly be novels.

Finally, I can pocket the idea and potentially use it as a way to help end the series. As I alter the direction of the series I'm also adjusting how I might end it. Lilith, Hel, and Smythe are big additions that allow me to do some more exciting things to close out the series without just repeating tropes.

Anyway, let me know your thoughts on the idea. I just figured to put this out there to give you something to chew on before I get stuck into Spellblade in earnest. You probably won't hear about anything but Spellblade for a while after this.