Alright, a few simple questions. I know must of you haven't read Sargeras, and most of you haven't been reading Nu at all for that matter. But for those of you that have, I know it's annoying for me to keep asking how I'm doing, but I need some kind of reassurance or otherwise what's the point of writing for no audience.

Sargeras 13. How did it make you feel? My whole intent of that chapter is about mood -the dialogue sounding semi believable, the narration, but most of all, the feeling that once you read it, you stare at your monitor and can say nothing more than "Holy Something or other." In fact, that's the whole point of Sargeras. Suspense, shock, something that puts you on the edge of your seat, speechless and not sure whether you should be worried about the future or angry that I've done something so outlandish.

Yeah, the last 12 chapters of it were all boring, and maybe I should have said right from the start that Mykil makes a return and Toma gets his arm chopped off (and hopefully that'll make you stop where you are and start reading it now, but...) but did any part of Sargeras 13 make you cringe in fear, agony, hate, or just say "what the hell is going on?" in general? Because that's what I wanted. That's the whole point.

I know writing something for the sole purpose of twisting your emotions might seem bad, but it's what any story is designed to do. And to do it well enough where you can actually care about someone. And the only reason that wouldn't happen is either bad writing, or being desensitized to it all before. Sure, not many people care who Toma was. But a lot of Nu's earlier chapters, that were "get to know" periods, where introductions of characters who may or may not look so great from the start, because it's simply too early to tell. Judging from a character's stats, you can't immediately tell whether you like a character or not until you've read a few. And somehow, I can read something and not be disinterested about a character no matter how the author's style is, or how unnappealing the character may seem at first glance.

But of course I can't force anyone to care. I can't make anyone like a person, fictional or not. I just wanted to take an almost "average" character with no super keen abilities, and make him a person who seems valuable enough to care about.

I know the method I pulled it off was a little hokey, a little comic-booky, but I'm not ashamed of it. I'm not ashamed of grandiose, sometimes overdramatic fight scenes placed in the middle of a chapter just to get the adrenaline going. Or overdramatic, stereotyped dialogue. In many cases it can't be avoided, without turning itself into a full soap opera of seriousness and believability. Most any anime, comic book, sci-fi or fantasy book or movie will have moments of seriousness mixed with moments of action, and sometimes you may wonder whether you'd rather have one or the other. But if you're unsatisfied that I take the flashy action route, don't feel that way because you'd rather be reading shakespeare or some literary masterwork.

Here's what I tried to do in Sargeras 13. If you care, tell me if these worked out:

Narrator giving a sense of foreboding Dialogue that's not too unbelievable An overall sense of importance for the characters and events taking place

Hell, I know it's annoying for me to constantly rant about my own fallacies, but I need to learn about myself. I need to understand what I'm doing right, and what I'm doing wrong. And if chances are I'm just overworrying about the whole mess and the truth is ALL chapters are given the same amount of glancing over and tossing over the shoulder, then that's that.

Don't let it ruin your day.