My dear followers,
First of all, don't panic. This is not a goodbye note: I am too emotionally invested in this storyline and my characters to let it go so soon (I mean so early in the narrative, don't you go making jokes about how I take forever to complete a single story). I fully intend to continue When the Darkness Comes; the next chapter is already halfway through editing and one step away from being sent to my beta. Second of all, with that being said, I have no idea when said chapter will be up, which leads me to the main point of this author's note.
Looking back at the first instalment of this series so many years after I wrote it, I only see how completely unsatisfied I am with it. My writing style was different, the narrative was all over the place, and some moments were so OOC that I kind of want to slap myself while reading it. Most importantly (not that the aforementioned reasons are not important on their own), I have a more solid grasp of the story and the events leading up to it as well as the events that have yet to come –because the timeline of a Doctor Who story will always be wibbly-wobbly– which are now vastly different from what I had originally planned for this series, aka when I started writing Whisper in the Dark.
So, to cut to the chase, I will be rewriting the first instalment of this series.
This doesn't just mean some general clean up of the already posted chapters; it literally means a complete and fundamental rewrite of the whole story. When I started the process, I expected to be able to copy some parts over and polish the rest to bring it more to my writing style today, but I ended up rewriting the first chapter of Whispers in the Dark from scratch. Now the chapter is completely unrecognisable and, I shit you not, only two sentences were lifted in their original form, and that not without some editing.
My finals will be over in two weeks (I'M GRADUATING, EVERYBODY), so that gives me plenty of time to undertake the tedious task of rewriting Whispers in the Dark to bring it more to my current standards of writing and update the canonicity of the story now that I know where I want to go with the series. What will happen is that the story will follow the same events (or almost the same events), but the facts, dialogue, storytelling and sometimes characterization will be completely different to the point where it will feel like a completely different story, though it will have the same conclusion and revelations. The rewrite will more likely than not influence this story as well, or at the very least its first chapters where a whole lot was going on that needs cleaning up.
Now, I have always wanted to start posting on Ao3, and the first chapter of the rewrite is now up on Archive of our Own, so don't be alarmed if you see a story with the same characters, set-up and so forth popping up in the Doctor Who feeds. It is just plain old me trying to clean up the mess that was the first instalment of this series. The story is up under the username VioletK (the same one that I use here) and has the same title as before (HOWEVER, if you find a story that has the same premise, characters or generally has close resemblance to mine on either site not posted under the VioletK username, please notify me on this account, as it might be plagiarism). I haven't decided if I will simply replace the old chapters with the rewritten ones in this site or take down the whole story and repost it altogether, but right now I am leaning towards the latter.
Until I have finished posting all chapters of the rewrite on the Archive and sorted the story out on FanFiction, I will be halting updates on When the Darkness Comes. This is done to avoid confusion with narratives that might class should I simply replace the chapters here. I promise that I will get back to updating this story soon, as I will have all the time in the world to dedicate to the rewrite and will be done with it relatively fast *fingers crossed*
Seeing as the first story of the series will differ greatly from the original, I would highly recommend you follow its progress on the Archive. I will be posting updates of my progress on my Tumblr (fangirling-phoenix) and will notify you of whether I will replace the existing chapters or take down the story and repost it in its new form in a future author's note both here and on Ao3. This author's note (a similar one, at least) will be posted in Whispers in the Dark as well.
Thank you for sticking with me for all this time and for supporting this story! I couldn't have done it without you!
This author's note will be replaced with a chapter.
