Rambling about Possibilities (Patreon)

Lately, I’ve been thinking about how I might add a little extra substance to the first book once it’s done being uploaded to RR/SH. I’m not sure I will, but I’ve been weighing a few ideas that feel worth exploring against some good reasons not to.

Chief among which is adding to the book once it's already complete. That just feels... off to me.

But this is a Ramble, and I've had this on my mind for a while. Now I want to just let it all out. Maybe afterwards I'll be able to stop thinking about it so much!

So here we go!

One idea I’ve been toying with is introducing a few additional POVs. Another is finding a way to incorporate some of my lore rambles through excerpts from Emilia’s lost book, Omen of a Bluebell (this one seems more fun).

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On Additional POVs

If I did include them, they’d come from key characters like Agora, Cari, Krissy, Arabella, Scruffy, and perhaps a few more significant figures like Kiri, or Emsala Ken (grand matriarch of the Ken clan). These would likely be one-off or two-off chapters. Just enough to give a little more context to the wider world orbiting Emilia.

Since the story is written in first person present tense, everything is filtered through Emilia’s eyes. That’s great for immersion, but it also limits perspective.

She misses things. Misinterprets them. Ignores others entirely. She’s impulsive, and not always aware of how her actions ripple outward.

That limited scope is both the greatest strength and the greatest weakness of this POV style, at least in my experience so far.

To balance that, I’d likely write the other POVs in first person past tense. This would be to give a degree of separation from those characters, because I don’t want people to connect quite as much with them as they might with Emilia. But I’m not sure if that writing style shift would work as well in practice…

The biggest risk, of course, is that adding other perspectives could break some of the mystery. A careful balance would be needed, because with too much context, it might dull the intrigue that comes from only knowing what Emilia knows.

I even have some super rough drafts of other POVs from my earliest iterations of the story, back when I first started writing it.

It’s weird to me that I’m even considering other POVs, because as a reader, I don’t usually like them. But as a writer… I can’t help but think they’d be a damn good tool to expand the world around her.

On Lore Ramble Excerpts

This idea is a bit more interesting and fun, in my opinion. It'd be for integrating some of my lore Rambles as in-world excerpts. Something like:

Notes from Emilia’s Lost Copy of “Omen of a Bluebell,” Page 1

Maybe I’d drop one of these in every ten chapters or so (or whenever most relevant), each written as a short, Emilia-style recap of knowledge she’s gathered. Covering things like Mana, Enchantments, Rituals, the Gods, and so on.

It would show how her understanding grew as she worked toward her ultimate goal of accessing the System, while exploring the common knowledge of the world alongside her own theories.

Some of those ‘theories’ would be utter nonsense, of course, and I could add snippets of Emilia’s notes being scratched out or added onto, maybe with her own commentary on how silly the idea was, or how upset she is that something didn’t pan out how she’d hoped.

Maybe even with timestamps for how old she was when the note was made, then how old she was when she altered it, stuff like that.

I think it could be really fun and give readers a peek into her thought process without needing full exposition dumps.

But again, there’s the risk of it feeling too info-heavy or forced if not handled carefully. And I’m definitely no master wordsmith.

But… maybe?

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Both seem like fun, and when I have more time, I’ll probably experiment with a few short chapters in both styles. If they work… well, we’ll see. Writing them for fun is one thing; adding them to the story proper is another.

Something about adding to the book when it's already done just doesn't seem like a good idea to me, but I can't pinpoint why.

Regardless of whether I end up using these ideas or not, it’s fun to think about.

If you're the type to comment on things like this, what do you think?