BFBF: Echoes of the Scarlet Star

by JohnCon2015

Stoke the flame, feed the Forge, and all you desire can be yours. The resources are in your grasp but realize that you will be hunted for such. Nevertheless, you have been chosen to bear a blessing, and you must choose what path you'll pave. For remember, the lines between Man and God become blurred, and the Forge consumes all. The Faithful rewrite of By Forge or By Fire.

1. ExplanationPlan Going Forward

This note is more for Previous Readers rather than new ones. Feel free to skip it if you don't care about current plans or my excuses.

Hey, it's John. Sorry I know it's been a while. I got really busy with interviews for my grad job. I didn't realize how much work they were and how tiring they could be to do along with class. Either way, I'm calming down with them, and it's my break. I wanted to get some writing done while I finally had the time, and I plan to do it in bulk again.

I haven't completely forgotten about this story, as I came up with some ideas and fleshed out the outline while I was gone. As an apology, I'll tell you guys my current plan for this 'series,' so to speak. Due to the increased interest I've gotten for ESS, that'll be my main focus until it reaches a certain point. I can't guarantee what point that will be, but it will be focused over SSS for now. As long as I'm able to, I plan to put out a mixture of what readers want along with what I want, as it's the best for the longevity of this reader-writer relationship.

As for this story, the outline for the first book is mainly figured out, and three new chapters are currently written. The antagonists for the following books have been chosen from my little pocket of evil/twisted things. For those who said they wanted more darkness, it'll be granted in the future. In advance, the story is planned to stretch to around 5 "books," though I can't tell you how far into those we'll get nor how long each one will be. Even though I call them books, they're more like arcs. Throughout them, new beings of power and entities with dark origins will emerge (OCs along with lore).

Furthermore, I might have thought myself to be smarter/more experienced in fanfiction than I originally understood. I realize that this weird thing I'm doing with flashbacks has complicated things for some readers, so I'm going to rewrite the chapters and shove them into this fanfiction. I've gotten a lot of questions on whether or not the old version is needed to understand this one. Hopefully, this should take care of that. This also goes hand in hand with the quality update I had wanted to do with the original anyways.

The POV shifts I had an issue with will be elaborated on and turned into their own chapters. The chapters you've already read for this rewrite will also be rewritten and placed appropriately (so towards chapter 10+).

This is to cut back on the mystery aspect and instead push for a clear understanding of content (which is more important). I also feel like having a flashback every chapter is a bit of a trope I don't want to get into. Flashbacks are a helpful tool, but probably best to use them sparingly.

Thanks for dealing with all my weird tendencies so far. Still pretty new to pushing out constant updates and this whole fanfiction thing. I hope to get 5 chapters out this week, maybe more if I can manage it.

All 3 preludes should be uploaded shortly after this.