3,000 Word Chapters Aren't Faster To Write Than Two 2,000 Chapters and Other Revelations

TL:DR- Keeping the current chapter length and schedule, Vol. 4 of Slumrat comes out 5/20/25, and a literal "fuck around and find out" approach to story development.

We are now five weeks into the new Weaboo format, and at least on my end, the results are decididly mixed. I don't hate it, but it's not exactly a time saver either. Which is irritating, but life goes on. I'm going to stick with this for the rest of Weeaboo Vol. 2, but it's TBD if I keep the format going forward.

Speaking of going forward! Vol. 3 of Slumrat is out, and for those who left a review, thank you very much! Your support is a huge, huge help. Especially as later volumes in a series get significantly fewer reviews than the first volume. Vol. 4 will be released May 20, 2025, while Vol. 5 goes to Podium in the next week or so.

It's funny. I'm pretty sure I can feel Brian, my editor, twitch at the size of volume 5 from here. Ah well. Unlike Vol. 3, this cannot be neatly split in half...

cue evil author laughter

Ah well. Such is life. On to the next thing- doing something then trying to figure out what I did.

I have wanted to tell a zombie city story for a while now. Full on 'Screw Logic, we do it for the memes!' OP system, loot drops, the whole bit.

So I got an idea for something and wrote five chapters of it. It currently has no zombies, no cities, no system, and no loot.

I... I am not very good at this planning thing. It's even somewhat logically coherent. Really dropped the ball there.

Now... here is the thing. This might actually have legs. It could grow into the next big series. BUT! I need to go back and figure out what it is I actually created. Which sounds insane, but hear me out.

What I have done is, in essence, written the introductory arc- the first few chapters that introduce the charicters, the mechanics, and the setting. Now I need to go back and really figure out what all that actually is and means. Let me give you a small, spoiler free, example.

I needed an agressively dull name for my MC. Not actually dull, no Hunter Smith type thing, I needed agressive boredom. So I tried out a lot of different names in my head, felt the first name click, then tried a variety of last names until one of them clicked. With the whole name locked in, I realized that it sounded vaguely familar, so I googled it.

It was the name of a now highly obscure fictional charicter. I can't really say more than that without giving away the game, but somehow, I had remembered this name that hasn't been culturally relevant since, at the very latest, the 1970's. And realilstically, more like the 1950's. Worse, the charicter is not someone you want to be compared to, let alone named after.

So... what is life like for someone named after a very obscure reference to something highly embarrasing? How does that shape his personality? How does that contribute to his development, and how the story develops?

I don't know either. I need to figure that out. See what I mean?

More on this to come. Oh, and I'm dropping the next chapter of Salinas/Solitary later today. I didn't forget it!

Thank you again,

Warby