Greetings everyone. YuujinZone is here today because he has an announcement to make concerning the state of the story. It's been almost two months since the fic was last updated and put on hiatus so I can decide on what to do with it. Now this may sound like I'm bringing bad news and to be honest… That's what I'm going to deliver. But there's also good news!
So after months of thinking on if Living Things should continue in its current form or give it a second and complete revision, I've come to a decision to do the latter - completely overhaul the entire fic by splitting the chapters into three or four chapters in order to eliminate the excessive number of words bloating every chapters. That way, shorter chapters, at least those not reaching up to 10,000 word threshold, will occupy the story to make each chapter easier to read and process. By consequence, this means I must end the current run of the fic.
However, you shouldn't worry that this is it for the legendary and fabulous zombies. Even when I'm feeling dispirited or overwhelmed by real life so much I've no time to write, it remains in the backburner of my mind even at my worst days, and I've personally dedicated so much up to its near completion to have it cut short. It's like this fic is my main reason for living, pun unintended.
Ahem, so! In a couple of days, probably on Friday or Saturday, I'll put up the new, revised and brand new version of the story. Not all chapters will be put up, so I'm planning to publish the revised shorter chapters every day or two to give me some time to properly polish them. As I said, I didn't like how my chapters went too long when I gave them a read, making me, and perhaps all of you too, overwhelmed by the wall of text, especially made prominent in the story's third act. At first, I thought they were fine and I was showing my writing chops or how many words I can cram in a single chapter but looking back now, I began disliking having written them with so many words within a long paragraph or prose that I found myself unable to finish reading it in one or two sittings. Maybe this has been a problem to you all, as well, or at least I think so. Kinda hard to gauge your reactions when no reviews or comments are showing up in the latest chapters, though that's only my opinion.
As such, my main goal for the second revision of Living Things is to make each edited chapter contain 4k to 7k words and not reach or extend past 10k words. Hopefully it'll make each chapter manageable to edit and read. For simplicity's sake, imagine each chapter length equalling an average JoJo chapter. Either shonen or seinen length.
Now, I know some of you might be peeved that the fic is being reworked for the second time and I'm restarting it all over and I can sympathize with you there since it's very close to being completed, but take it from me. As stated above, I'm overwhelmed just how exceedingly long most chapters are, to the point I made a vow not to write an extra long chapter again. That said though, I might make an exception if it's necessary, like I'm writing a one-shot fic but for now, I'll refrain from writing a single chapter containing so much words and prose just for the sake of making it long and passable in my eyes.
Alright, I've pretty much said what I wanted to say about ending the current version. Regardless of your thoughts about Living Things, I hope you did get to enjoy it and I'm glad it received attention. It feels sad having to end it abruptly at 50 chapters but I'm relieved it happened because I can properly revisit the story from start to finish to refresh my memory and rewrite them! This is also my chance to add certain details, extra scenes or elements that I wished should've been in the finished chapters. This is to provide more context or enhance most chapters and scenes, and have a sense of cohesion in between each scene. In spite of that, just to be clear, the entire story will not change so you don't have to worry about if there'll be differences or I changed something.
Well, maybe. I'm thinking of adding new chapters, but mainly to accommodate some preexisting chapters and add new scenes I should've included before but couldn't due to how long I wrote it.
See you in the second revision of Living Things, everyone! In the meantime, the old version won't be deleted and shall remain up on this site for your leisure. Thank you for taking your time to read this, and this fic! Whether you left a review or not, I'm happy to have made you all intrigued or impressed with the main crossover story between JoJo and Zombie Land Saga, as well as Pocket Mirror/Little Goody Two Shoes! Their combined lores have tickled my imagination enough to write it down, just so you know!
Stay safe and have a nice day/night!