[Roadmap] The End of Cryopod: What Comes After?

I think It's time I make a long, detailed post about what my long-term plans are. This will serve as not just goals for me to reach, but a nice solid plan to form expectations around for the readers.

It might seem like I'm haphazardly winging things to some, but I take future prospects pretty seriously, along with trying to think of ways to give back to my patrons, and improve my skills as a writer.

However, there's another aspect to think of, as well, which is how to draw in new fans. I have to strike a balance. Like it or not, Patreon is my sole source of income, so I have no ads or anything else. I've been hovering around $800 for about 6 months now, and while this was okay before, and I am slowly building up a savings fund, taxes are going to absolutely murder me. It doesn't help that the Patreon fee fiasco cost me over $70 a month, which is very crippling for morale.

But, if you think I've given up, you're wrong!

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As of right now, Route C is nearly complete. There is only one chapter left in Cryopod, which is the finale route that ties everything up. Whether it will be 50k or 300k words is yet to be seen, but I can't see it being much longer than Route B or C.

However, before I do the finale route, I am going to take a few months to refresh many of the old parts. As an example:

Part 8 (Pre-refresh)

Part 8 (Post-refresh)

Part 14 (Pre-Refresh)

Part 14 (Post-Refresh)

Do you see the difference? While they may not be dramatically longer, the tone is more solid, the part is more polished, and I plan to make things just a lot more consistent.

I don't know how long the refresh will take, but after it comes the finale route.

But then what? What do I do once Cryopod is finished?

First, I plan to advertise on HFY. With a polished, cohesive, finished story, that will draw in readers. More readers means hopefully more people that will become patrons, which means I won't have to get a job. As of right now, I am strongly debating getting a job, and if I do that, you can bet your sweet ass it will cut deeply into the time I have available for writing. I managed working weekends when I first started writing Cryopod because my enthusiasm was high, I had lots of energy, and it wasn't as difficult to write as it is now, thanks to backlog. I can't manage that anymore, so a job would really tire me out like never before.

Essentially, the more I write in Cryopod, the higher the chance of plotholes and such based on past events I may have forgotten, and the more tiring it is to write. A million words is a lot of history to pack in one little mind :P

So after I advertise on HFY, I have a few other ideas for non-writing related things I can start doing.

1. An AMA! I'm thinking of doing a big AMA where people can ask any questions they have about Cryopod. Perhaps there are unresolved plot points I missed? Maybe some aspects of the worldbuilding aren't well understood? Anything like that.

2. Streaming! I'd like to eventually stream on twitch, specifically as a once a week thing. I'm planning to call it something like "Wednesday Writing Workshop With Klok" (WWWK for short?). Essentially, you guys submit your writing to me, I read it out on stream, then I offer feedback, criticism, and will probably attempt to rewrite some of it in my own style to explain how to fix any issues I notice. This would be something anyone, patron or not, can submit to. The only goal is to help others improve their writing. I don't think anything similar exists on Twitch, so it would be fairly unique!

This is an image of a recent critique I sent to Kratsas, one of our regular Cryopod readers. Since I saw his post on WP, and he follows my story, I figured I'd help him out. I want to do more stuff like this, but for all of my readers.

3. A new project! I have four major ideas for my next project. They are:

-Cryopod Full Rewrite (Patrons only!)

-New story: "The MMO Story" (Details below)

-New Story: "All Conspiracies are Real" (Details also below)

-New story: "The Last Crusader" (You guessed it, details below)

There is zero chance I do multiple of these at once. I lack the attention span to work on two projects at once, so I have to pick one and stick with it. Let's go over them, in detail.

The Official Cryopod Rewrite:

I have a WIP document regarding this, but the current set of ideas I have are pretty simple. Imagine an alternate universe where Jason isn't a total frigging idiot, and he's actually pretty competent, much like the Jason we see in Route B. Imagine Wordsmithing, but without a lot of the (let's be honest here) arbitrary restrictions. A hyper competent Jason, facing off against ruthless enemies.

Additionally, I have other ideas too. Little things, like the Labyrinth no longer just being some cube floating in another dimension. Maybe instead of bland hallways, it's a cave system? Maybe it's actually built under Earth's crust? Who knows! I have literally dozens of ideas. I plan to take on several beta readers for the Rewrite.

As far as how the rewrite will be structured, I'm thinking that I will release parts every set day of the week, for example, I could do Mondays and Fridays. That gives me Wednesday for streaming, then two days a week to release parts.

As far as how I'll release to tiers of patrons, I'm debating mostly releasing at the $5 tier, then once a month releasing a huge update to the $1 tier. Nothing in the rewrite will be available to non-patrons, and the final story will go on Amazon once I'm done.

This sounds good, in theory. However, I have some personal problems with it, and other issues could crop up.

1. What if people who are new think that the subreddit is dead or something, and they think I'm just a greedy asshole who's only posting parts on Patreon to scoop up money? That might seem unreasonable, but based on what I've seen with other authors, it's a possibility.

2. I don't know if I want to start the rewrite immediately after finishing Cryopod. It's a much better idea to take a year off, and take a long step back so the old material isn't as fresh in my mind. This is something basically every writing publication recommends.

3. At the same time, if I don't start work on it immediately, that also feels scummy. I said that the rewrite stuff would be mailed out to patrons, and it's in the goals list on the right of my Patreon page, plus some of you guys have donated several hundred dollars! It wouldn't be right for me to just ignore that fact. I'll have to let the patrons vocalize what they prefer here.

However, the rewrite is not the only option for patrons.

The MMO Story (Title very, very WIP)

This story is one I first got when I saw a really cool writing prompt. Now, I actually responded to the prompt, as you can see in the linked post. However, my idea as it stands now is totally different from what I wrote on the WP.

Summary: A middle-aged woman, working in a relatively dead-end job, is walking to work, smoking a cigarette one day, when a car runs a red light and kills her. She wakes up in the afterlife, which is basically a gigantic MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game, in case you don't know the acronym.). A series of events unfolds, which I won't spoil here, and those events will dive into a mystery surrounding the world she's a part of.

For the protagonist, if you've ever said to yourself "I love Marie from Cryopod" then you'll probably enjoy the protagonist I'm envisioning. Another option is someone similar to Revy from Black Lagoon.

This probably sounds a little generic. I assure you, it is not. Cryopod, if you try to describe it to someone, isn't really all that special sounding either. In fact, it sounds cringy when you say it out loud. (A teenage guy finds out he's literally a god, bangs a hot angel and demon girl at the same time, and he can travel the multiverse and become a badass and he kills demons... you get the picture.)

The cool thing about 'MMO Story,' is that I have plans to make it VERY interesting. First is the Poll System. Occasionally, our protagonist will face a decision. That decision could be minor or major, but the audience reading the story gets to vote on what happens! For example, should she kill a monster, or spare it? You decide!

Next will be... well, honestly it's pretty spoilery, so I shouldn't say. Let's just assume I have some big ideas on how to make it unique from what other writers have done, and it will be a much more interactive experience for the audience.

For the Poll System, I'm thinking minor choices can be voted on by anyone, and major choices will be voted on only by patrons (of $1 or more). This gives special privileges to patrons, and will be a neat way to make the story stand out.

As for how I'll conduct the polls, they will be anonymous. When you vote, you won't be able to see how other people voted. This means if 90% of the people vote "Kill the monster" and 10% vote "Spare the monster" nobody will know. Once I write the part, it'll play out according to how people voted, and I'll reveal the results at the end. This way, the story's choice won't be spoiled to new readers, nor will it be spoiled to those who vote!

As you may have guessed, I'm really, really big on mystery, and I despise spoilers :P

"All Conspiracies are real"

This one isn't very fleshed out. I will say that the basic premise already exists as a short story I posted. 

Simply put, the title is the summary. Imagine a world where all conspiracy theories are completely, literally true. All the presidents are lizardmen. The moon landing was faked. Aliens exist and they are our overlords. The moon is made of cheese. Adolf Hitler survived and he chilled on a beach in Guatemala for 40 years. Etc.

Now imagine that a man time travels back in time to stop some plot (This is where my fleshing out ends) and he enlists the younger version of himself for help. After all, his younger self the only person he can convince that he isn't crazy. (Also he has to keep his younger self protected in case the lizardmen try to eliminate him) The story would be pretty comedic in tone, since I don't know if I could maintain anything dark with the level of stupidity some conspiracy theories reach. I still think it could be pretty awesome and unique though!

The Last Crusader.

You guys have already read the first two chapters of this. I have several awesome ideas regarding this story, but the world needs a lot more fleshing out, and it feels much more generic than the ideas above. It doesn't interest me all that much right now.

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The real problem I'm facing is what to do for my next project. The Twitch streaming will probably happen. The new schedule (Mondays/Fridays for posting parts, Wednesdays for streaming) should become a thing for my next project, but I don't know what that project should be! Should I do the rewrite? Should I do the MMO story? Something else?

I'm not worried about getting published. I don't care about that right now. My goal is to improve my writing, and grow my readerbase, first and foremost. I feel like, to that end, I should do MMO Story after Cryopod is finished. At some point, that will wrap up, and taking the writing experience from that will only make the Cryopod Rewrite that much better.

But hey, maybe I'm wrong. I invite patrons and non-patrons alike to voice their opinions here. What would you like to see next? Are you interested in Twitch writing workshop streams with Klokky-kun? Does the AMA sound cool? Looking forward to getting those nagging questions answered once Cryopod is over?

I wait for comments below expectantly. Note that if you want to comment, you'll have to make an account on Patreon, however you can also comment on the linked Reddit post.

Thanks for reading guys. Here's to the future!