Smash: Emissary

by ShadVizsla

Millenia ago, a being called Tabuu was imprisoned within Subspace. But his containment has been breached, and his armies have invaded multiple dimensions. It won't be long until Tabuu himself breaks free, so a group of heroes are collected and brought together to protect reality as they know it, and ensure Tabuu's renewed conquest is stopped for good. (Part 3 of The Defenderverse)

3. Pace Note

To those expecting another chapter, I'm sorry to disappoint, this is just an author's note to address the recent lack of consistent updating to my stories. Those who have read my work for the past two years know I update fairly regularly, with a chapter taking usually no longer than two weeks. Or at least, that was the trend with my first two stories, The Defenders of Remnant and RvBvRWBY: Incursion. The reason for this slowdown is simply less free time to work on the stories. Work and other IRL things have impacted the work time on writing significantly. And whenever I do have time, I'm not necessarily working on chapters themselves.

The way I'm approaching doing the current stories is different than those prior. For Defenders and Incursion, I gave myself general outlines to follow, allowing wiggle room for ideas I have in the moment to make their way into the story, and also new additions to the fandoms at hand to be used in the story. For example, I began writing The Defenders of Remnant in March 2022, running all the way to July 2023. When I had begun writing, it was a full year prior to RWBY: Volume 9 airing, and yet in the final chapters, the Blacksmith character made an appearance, which is obviously something I couldn't have had in mind when I began. To put it simply, I was having a very carefree and moldable approach to the writing.

In contrast, the stories I am writing now are being planned scene-by-scene in detail. I'm aiming for a complete picture of the story before I publish, and in doing this I begin with the aforementioned "general outline", getting the main points of the story on paper, then filling in the gaps to create a detailed beat-by-beat outline, meaning I'm essentially writing the entire story in detail about three times over before you would see the final product of a chapter.

To paint a difference, the general outline contains as follows: characters, overarching plot, character arcs/motivations, settings, major events, etc. The detailed outline contains as follows: dialogue, planning for action scenes, specific interactions, scene-by-scene play, character progression etc., As well as dividing that general outline into the segmented chapters.

This meticulous approach I'm taking takes much more time than my previous approach to writing, and so combine that with less writing time, and these chapters take so much longer to get out.

TL;DR: My current writing method combined with an otherwise packed schedule means my publishing time has taken a massive hit. But that doesn't mean I'm not working on chapters.

For this particular story, Smash: Emissary, the new general outline was complete and in place before the reset. The detailed outline is currently at 7 chapters of what I see as a max of 10-12 chapters. Once the detailed outline is done, I will be publishing chapters at a much faster rate. This story has been in limbo for the better part of two years. I want it out the door, and I want it done right, hence why I reset it in the first place.

With this long rant out of the way, and a sneak peek into how my writing method has changed, I appreciate everyone's patience, and Smash: Emissary will continue soon with "Chapter 3: Ready and Abel".