A Good Friend: a stranger things fanfic

*Announcement*

Well it's been a little while, let me start by saying thank you so much for everyone that's read the book. It means a lot that you've had to bare through this writing, this book was the first one I ever seriously did and it shows. Nonetheless it's very memorable to me and means a lot and that's why there's a few things that have to change.

Chapter 7, Brother, was the entire inspiration for even writing this book and I'm happy with how evolved it became. In saying that, the situations that the Stranger Things crew encounter in this book make me feel, for lack of a better word, cringey. I don't really like using that word, but I feel that embarrassed isn't true, I'm not embarrassed about anything I've written here. The problem comes in with the fact that the majority of these characters exist in their own universe, one for example that none of them show any musical talent, at least as far as season 3. It's off putting, to me at least, to try and imagine Eleven from Stranger Things, running around on stage singing covers of Iron Maiden, Metallica, and Bon Jovi.

Additionally, I've thought about this book a lot while I've been away and there's a few things I'd like to say. The book is not an average narrative, as I'm sure you've guessed due to its length. No, see this book was a hobby and something that brought me (and still brings me) a lot of pleasure. This is really more of an epic than a narrative, as each chapter is its own story, with a few exceptions. This became intentional about halfway through the book, and honesty I kinda knew that's what I wanted after I finished writing chapter 7. In saying this, I am fully aware that the book might seem aimless and that's partially by design, however there was always an end to the book.

Now that I've said both of those things it's time that I say what the actual announcement is. I have written myself into a dead end. There's storylines I started that I regret and there's not much that I can think of for what happens next. At least the ideas I have about what comes next seem unreachable, given where the characters are now. This in combination with my first point brought me to an interesting conclusion. What if I do a complete reedit of the entire book and remove all elements of the Netflix show? The more I thought about it the more I liked the idea, so that's what I'm going to do.

Don't freak out, this book is going to be left untouched. I am going to copy paste the chapters from this book to the other book and then massively edit each one. The new book, entitled Friends to The End, will show where the original story was supposed to go, at least the last few chapters that is. Names, places, and all supernatural content is going to be changed and/or removed so that the book is entirely about a growing group of friends as they grow up. It will focus more heavily on the musical aspect and the religious aspect as the main point of this book will be about growing up.

I know what you might be thinking, "So you're just copying this book and only changing the names?" Well, kinda. Several chapters from this book are going to be excluded, namely those like Papa, I'll Kill You, M.I.A., She's Gone, etc. As I stated above there will be no supernatural content, so for example She's Back had been renamed to Mrs. Howard's Surprise, and is entirely written from scratch.

My writing here is what I would expect it to be from a brand new writer, but I've changed and there's many things that I can improve. The most important one is the structure of my paragraphs. The way I have them structured here is that every time a character speaks I start a new "paragraph." I've had time to read other books while I've been gone and that's something that will be changed.

One thing that will also be changed is the formatting of the chapters, although the new book will be shorter than what I intended for this book, it is still going to be quite long. Because of this, the book will have only a few chapters, but these chapters will consist of separate parts (which is what you would think of as the traditional chapter.) Currently, February 12, 2021, I have not planned out how many chapters there will be, my goal is for there to be 50 parts but the grouping remains to be seen.

I hope you don't feel like there's no point in you reading my new book because I'm going to put as much time and effort into it as I've done here. Characters will be slightly different, although you'll probably able to tell who's who from this book. Jack, Julie, Jen, and Liz are going to keep their names for the most part. 3 of these I invented myself and as for Jennifer Hayes, she's mentioned once in the first season. Because of that I'm only going to change her name to Jenny and have her still be called Jen.

If you still feel like there's no point for you to start from the beginning than I understand. If you would like to see how this book was supposed to play out, it will happen for the most part in my new book.

This book is now on hold and probably will remain that way forever, unless I develop some reason to come back and finish it.

Chapter 1 of Friends to The End is our now and I will continue to update this announcement for when other chapters are released.

Thank y'all so much for everything, I hope you found some sort of enjoyment out of this book and I pray you'll read my new one if you'd like. Thank you, God bless you.