Recently, I've been reading through some comments, and I'm grateful for the passionate readers' feedback. Many of you have said the plot feels padded, but in truth, I've put a great deal of thought into it. For example, the supporting characters chosen in this chapter were all selected after careful deliberation. On the surface, the thread running through this chapter is a dispute over a residence. Beneath that lies Righteousness Gu. What it reveals is the Heavenly Court's way of operating, Star Constellation Immortal Venerable's stratagems, and the Iron Family's own ideology.
But I must admit that Reverend Insanity, as a novel, isn't really suited to being read chapter by chapter as it's released. There are simply too many threads and too many characters. Once they all start playing out, the scale of the story balloons overnight. The ideal window for following along week to week is probably one to three chapters at a time. That's why so many people feel the first few chapters are exciting.
There's plenty of excitement in the later stages too — it's just a different kind. If you read through it all in one go, you'll find the characters echo and mirror one another, events influence each other in turn, and characters introduced millions of words ago still have their moments in the endgame. Each person has their own motivations and philosophy; the entire world feels alive.
Once the story reaches its final act, the life-and-death struggles of these characters, the collision of their ideals, the way they rise and fall through their fated destinies — all of it will set them blazing with brilliant sparks!
This style of writing is closer to traditional literature, and I won't deny it's a thankless approach. In the web-novel format, each individual chapter gets magnified infinitely in readers' perception, while the beauty of the larger architecture shrinks and shrinks. My outline runs to over 860,000 characters. Each chapter takes at least half an hour of planning before I even start writing.
Very few web novels involve this many characters. For me, it's a tremendous challenge. I don't know yet how the final result will turn out — success or failure. But through this challenge, I've found genuine joy in writing.
That said, I understand that for many of you, readers and friends, you only check in for a few minutes each day. A lot of characters end up slipping your memory.
Recently, several readers have offered suggestions, and I've read every one of them carefully.
Many of the suggestions are spot-on.
For example: too many typos. On this, I want to offer a sincere apology. I truly haven't done well enough. Right now, I go back periodically to fix the typos that readers have flagged. Going forward, I'll try to proofread several more times before uploading and publishing. I do proofread, honestly — it's just that I'm so familiar with the text that my eyes tend to race through it. Truthfully, proofreading is genuinely difficult. A first-time reader is far more likely to catch errors than I am.
There are also suggestions about writing style and approach.
First, the moderation team has put together a survey questionnaire, which will be distributed through WeChat, QQ groups, Tieba, and other channels. Please fill it out if you can. I want to see what everyone is thinking.
Second, I've done some reflection of my own.
For me, changing my writing style would be easy. Writing in a straightforward, linear fashion would indeed make readers feel more satisfied when following along chapter by chapter. I'd probably earn more money too. But that would be a waste.
Writing in a flat, straightforward manner actually takes less brainpower and presents less of a challenge than my current approach, and that would diminish the pleasure I get from writing.
Reverend Insanity, in my own positioning of this novel, has always placed making money as the very last priority.
I think updating a bit more frequently might shift perceptions somewhat. After all, judged chapter by chapter, the plot advancement in any single installment is limited. My approach requires juggling a huge cast of supporting characters, and that does come with this kind of drawback.
The tricky part is that this style demands enormous amounts of planning and meticulous structuring, which means the actual time I spend writing the prose isn't that much.
So the updates can only be what they are.
I hope we can all understand each other.
I'll try to update more whenever I can.
But everything is contingent on maintaining quality.
Thank you all for the suggestions you've offered. I've seen some of the posts readers have written — long, detailed, heartfelt pieces. I'm truly moved.
I know it all comes from love for this book.
And some of you even included illustrations — wow, truly impressive.