Finishing Chapter 7: Updates and Progress  

If you read Skai’s previous devlog, you know there’s already a messy draft I whipped up some time in January this year. The initial Chapter 7 was something I worked on in a frenzy. With the initial release date having passed and a whole new year  starting, I felt an immense amount of pressure not just with my responsibilities to the studio but in my real life as well. I won’t bore you with the details, but rest assured that the team is still working on the project, albeit at a snail’s pace. 

The team has had the vision that every update would be akin to a “season” of a TV show. Since Chapter 7 would be the final chapter for our Shooting Stars update, it’d be akin to the first season’s “finale”, so I wanted to do a good job at tying together all the intertwining characters and story plots together.  Luckily with a little time off, I’ve been able to tinkle with this last chapter, and been enjoying how it’s turning out. We’ve been able to give this chapter more thought and consideration in it. Skai gave the first draft a read, and left some notes for when I’m rewriting or revising for cohesion’s sake.  

I realized that one of my toxic trait is having scenes drag out. I’ve cut out some of (a lot) of scenes that seemed to take up more page count and beat a dead horse more than moving the plot along. I’ve had to cut down an interaction with some two characters making a cameo that I had too much fun with, and a bunch of scenes of Julio and Taylor. I’m trying to be better, especially once we get started on the second update (who knows when that’ll be).

Currently finishing up on the second section out of the eight sections. The messy draft covers as far as section 5 of the story. Still a long haul from here, but hoping that these little updates can ease the long wait.