Taking a day off during the Monthly Ticket competition might not be ideal, but the story has naturally reached this point, and following the usual routine, I really need to sit down and organize and polish the outline for Book Six.
My outlines aren't actually as detailed as you might think. Beyond a heap of densely packed setting notes, all I have is one main storyline, several foreshadowing threads, and a few subplot ideas I'd worked out before starting the book. Then I fill in the relevant characters, scenes, dialogue, and props, and before each book I draft a detailed outline incorporating all the creative sparks that came up during writing. That way I can keep the plot from spiraling out of control, maintain consistency between earlier and later chapters, and still keep my creative inspiration alive — rather than feeling so constrained there's no room to work.
Book Six contains several scenes I'd envisioned from the very beginning. It's a pivotal book that bridges what came before and what comes after, and it's one of the driving forces behind why I'm writing this story. So I need to weave the plot together well, develop the characters properly, and present a few key scenes from my vision as beautifully as I can. That's why I'm taking a day off — I'll resume updates at twelve-thirty the day after tomorrow.
There are several parts of Book Five I'm quite satisfied with. One was the montage-style writing of the quantum hypothesis and Planck's constant. Another was the Voice of Mystery radio segment. And then there was the whole sequence that just concluded — the
Another one was the Levsky scene, where Lucian points to the papers on the wall and says: "Your eyes can deceive you, your ears can deceive you, your experience can deceive you, your imagination can deceive you as well — but mathematics cannot."
That line originally came to me before I'd even written the outline, back when I was still doing research. I was reading about Lobachevsky's life, looking at all the ways modern physics defied intuitive understanding, and the sentence just popped into my head. You could call it a bit of personal conviction slipped in there. So when someone asked me, back when I first started uploading, to name the most iconic line from this book as a signature quote, I gave them that sentence without a moment's hesitation. I did polish it afterward, of course — changed half the sentence to make it flow more smoothly.
When that scene came out in early October, the response from readers was incredibly enthusiastic, and I was really happy. Mm, really happy. Every time I finish writing something like that, I feel completely drained, but seeing the praise gradually revives me.
Oh, and the Dark Council members who were supposed to appear — I cut those scenes, because suddenly splitting focus to deal with the Dark Council during the Congus chase would have weakened the tension and pressure, which wouldn't serve the reading experience. It'd be like a duel where, midway through, one side says "Hold on, let me go run a dungeon and level up first before we continue" — that obviously wrecks the pacing.
Also, I'd misread the character name list earlier and wrote the Lord of
Alright, to repeat — I'll resume updates at twelve-thirty the day after tomorrow. Please bear with me; stepping back for a moment now is so the story ahead can be even more exciting. Mm, I've currently completed four days of triple updates, with sixteen more to go. I remember that clearly — I won't forget.
Last but not least, shamelessly asking for monthly tickets, on behalf of the entirety of Book Five~
(To be continued)