Shorgoth
Member
- Joined
- Sep 6, 2025
- Messages
- 40
- Points
- 18
Hello everyone, I'm new here, but I've been working on this book for 17 or so years now (not quite sure at this point, honestly), and I'm still on Royal Road with it, just trying to expand my reach a bit and test the water...
The why of the challenge: In the past decades, I noticed a stagnation of the "Overton Window" (acceptable discourse) in how books are conceived narratively. Basically there is a lack of experimental works. While they are not nonexistent, they are, for the most part, invisible in the algorithms of today. The more we, as creatives, follow the general marketing trends, the less creative as artists we become. The idea of becoming popular poisons creativity in the long run, as we tend to default to the easy answers and the law of bigger numbers. We tend to forget what art is truly about for paint-by-number "industrial" answers. We sacrificed making people feel something for easy marketability. Now, if this is what you want, market, do as you will. This is not for you. All the power to you if this is what you want to make; this is fine, we are not competing with each other. I'm not here for money, I'm here to make a book that matters to me. Two different and valid goals.
I am not sending this challenge to say my way is the "bestest" way, far from it. I know this is a challenging read. It breaks god damn nearly every freaking rule in the book, so to speak. It has original music, hopefully with time tons of images, and they replace 2/3 of the narration. The only narration is solely sensory from the scene's main character's perspective. It is emotionally raw, and textually reads like a Tarantino script with all the vulgarity and street grammar you can imagine. Underneath, though, there are multiple hidden layers
All of this to say, please, if you are curious about expanding your horizons on what can be done with a book, if you want to explore new narrative styles or if you want to exchange ideas, give it a try as a conversation piece. I do not expect everyone to like it; this is not the goal. The goal is exploratory. This is about eating greens as a writer. If I succeeded in making this an interesting read, good. It is not incidental however; this is about the possible, pushing the limits, trying something new. And for me to maybe hear some good ideas to expand on it at some point, to make it more impactful... or just to have an interesting conversation with creative people who want to try new things.
No, none of the text is AI-made or assisted past spellcheck and some light grammar support (Id, not auto replacement). Yes, the images and music are AI-made, sorry, I do not have hundreds of millions of dollars (I made the maths and due to the music and art, that's what it would cost, give or take, for the whole trilogy to get that much original music and images dedicate to the project) to make my book the way I'd like it to be and I don't have enough lives to learn to compose a hundred different music styles and paint like a 17th century master, no matter how much I would like it to be otherwise. I still put a lot of work in those, often days for a single one. So please be respectful.
Last thing before we go, why chapter 6? Because the first emotional payoff is in chapter 6. I hope some of you will go deeper, but I think that's a good cutting point. If someone is curious to go farther in the book, it is on Royal Road also, and I've rewritten up to chapter 24 for now... I'm currently giving it an extra editing pass before I transfer it here (it will stay on both platforms, my readers are few and far between, to be honest).
Paradise City: Dark Side of the Moon
The why of the challenge: In the past decades, I noticed a stagnation of the "Overton Window" (acceptable discourse) in how books are conceived narratively. Basically there is a lack of experimental works. While they are not nonexistent, they are, for the most part, invisible in the algorithms of today. The more we, as creatives, follow the general marketing trends, the less creative as artists we become. The idea of becoming popular poisons creativity in the long run, as we tend to default to the easy answers and the law of bigger numbers. We tend to forget what art is truly about for paint-by-number "industrial" answers. We sacrificed making people feel something for easy marketability. Now, if this is what you want, market, do as you will. This is not for you. All the power to you if this is what you want to make; this is fine, we are not competing with each other. I'm not here for money, I'm here to make a book that matters to me. Two different and valid goals.
I am not sending this challenge to say my way is the "bestest" way, far from it. I know this is a challenging read. It breaks god damn nearly every freaking rule in the book, so to speak. It has original music, hopefully with time tons of images, and they replace 2/3 of the narration. The only narration is solely sensory from the scene's main character's perspective. It is emotionally raw, and textually reads like a Tarantino script with all the vulgarity and street grammar you can imagine. Underneath, though, there are multiple hidden layers
, and if any of you ever make it to the end of the series, there will be a reveal recontextualizing every event, like in the 6th sense, changing even the fundamental style of the book from a gritty, noir, cyberpunk drama/character study to a philosophical high sci-fi epic bout matrioshka brains and the Heat Death of the Universe
All of this to say, please, if you are curious about expanding your horizons on what can be done with a book, if you want to explore new narrative styles or if you want to exchange ideas, give it a try as a conversation piece. I do not expect everyone to like it; this is not the goal. The goal is exploratory. This is about eating greens as a writer. If I succeeded in making this an interesting read, good. It is not incidental however; this is about the possible, pushing the limits, trying something new. And for me to maybe hear some good ideas to expand on it at some point, to make it more impactful... or just to have an interesting conversation with creative people who want to try new things.
No, none of the text is AI-made or assisted past spellcheck and some light grammar support (Id, not auto replacement). Yes, the images and music are AI-made, sorry, I do not have hundreds of millions of dollars (I made the maths and due to the music and art, that's what it would cost, give or take, for the whole trilogy to get that much original music and images dedicate to the project) to make my book the way I'd like it to be and I don't have enough lives to learn to compose a hundred different music styles and paint like a 17th century master, no matter how much I would like it to be otherwise. I still put a lot of work in those, often days for a single one. So please be respectful.
Last thing before we go, why chapter 6? Because the first emotional payoff is in chapter 6. I hope some of you will go deeper, but I think that's a good cutting point. If someone is curious to go farther in the book, it is on Royal Road also, and I've rewritten up to chapter 24 for now... I'm currently giving it an extra editing pass before I transfer it here (it will stay on both platforms, my readers are few and far between, to be honest).
Paradise City: Dark Side of the Moon
