The Hero Should've Known Better

Afterword

AFTERWORD

Hello. This is CSD, and I would like to give my thanks to you for reading my story. The author's note below will contain my thoughts after finishing this story, along with some rambling about my process in creating it. It's not necessarily additional story content, but if you want an insight into my story making process, I'll lay it out for any interested parties to read.

MY FIRST ORIGINAL

While I've been writing for years, almost 11 years at this point, this is actually the first fully-original published story I've ever completed. And, I'll say, it's quite an improvement over my first original works.

Prior to this, I had mostly been writing and publishing fanfiction. While fanfiction is fun, I wish to do entirely original stories from now on. Part of the demotivation that would prevent me from completing a fanfiction was the fact that, in the end, it was simply fanfiction. Not only is it a little difficult to attribute fanfiction to yourself, even if it's a particularly successful one, but I figured that my own abilities in writing narratives would transfer well to creating an original story.

Building something from scratch has its own challenges. With fanfiction, I've found that it's rather fun creating an interesting narrative that cleverly fits itself into these pre-existing elements and lore of a series. Therefore, it felt like I was cheating by creating and manipulating a setting that I could change at my whim, in any way I want. But I think I did well with wrapping up the multitude of elements in this story to a final conclusion. Every single character has a purpose, every single description exists for a reason.

Admittedly, I was particularly self-conscious about publishing this story, and at two primary points: Halfway through the project when I realized that I underestimated the sheer scale of this project, and around the end, when I was doing the animating portion. Imposter syndrome is an occupational hazard of content creation, however. So I was determined to send this off.

THE STORY

The inspiration for the general premise of this story is an intriguing one.

For the longest time, I have always had an interest in story premises that revolved around a pursuit — except, the character being pursued is actually innocent of whatever they are being pursued for. I am not sure if there is an explicit name for this trope, but I've seen it played out a few times in crime and detective stories.

In this case, it is a bit more innate than that. Sollar is being pursued because she happened to be the brother of the Demon Lord. She's done nothing wrong; Ronn and his immeasurable amounts of cognitive dissonance were the primary driving force behind the pursuit. Add onto the fact that she's not intelligent enough to be aware of this, much less trying to clear her name, and you have a story where the only way the antagonist will stop is if he gets it in his thick skull that what he's doing is wrong.

I do feel this story would be quite darker if Sollar was far more intelligent, or even a regular person. While the setting itself is a little fantastical and the worldbuilding a bit parodic in some aspects, I typically have my characters take themselves and their surroundings seriously.

For that reason, I actually have a question to ask you readers: What impression or atmosphere does my story give? What do you think is the youngest my story's audience could potentially be, where they'd still be able to understand what's happening?

The story itself contains little profanity. Sollar is a loveable dork, and nobody gets grievously hurt or killed. But there are definitely aspects that would go over the heads of a younger audience; Fraul's market manipulation, the economics of the setting, Salkin's constant drunkenness, and the literal riots at the end.

In that sense, I'm reminded of movies like The Incredibles. The action appealed to a younger audience, but the plot and intricacies of the setting could keep an older audience engaged.

INSPIRATION

When I was writing this story, I went back to my roots. I thought back to stories that I read in the years that I'd consider 'starting' as a story writer, and pulled minor elements from those stories that I enjoyed. It was quite the trip down a nostalgia memory lane, I'll say.

I'll give one example. Okay, so many people might not remember this, but do any of you remember that old Minecraft animation series, Digging Holes and Building Things? That particularly surreal series was one that influenced the beginning of my story, as you can tell with the railway.

It's an obscure example, and just one of many small elements that made up this story. I've researched other pieces of media like Forrest Gump, Of Mice and Men, and drew from personal life experiences to write Sollar. Given that she is essentially a child in the mental sense, I also tried to incorporate some quirks that children might have.

Sollar's primary tic is that she ends all names in 'ar'. Makes no sense, until you realize that she has had little contact with people before, and she knows her own name ends in 'ar'. Thus, she reasons that everyone's name must end in 'ar'.

I recall a particular anecdote where someone, when they were young, assumed that because a company named Texas Instruments existed, there must exist a California Instruments or a Florida Instruments. It's an incomplete and blatantly incorrect extrapolation of their limited knowledge, but that's the impression I wanted. It doesn't make sense to a reasonable adult, until you explain to them how the child reasoned themselves from Point A to Point B.

THANKS

I wrote this entire story on my own, but if not for the help of a multitude of individuals, I would not have finished it nearly as quickly. This ranges from a long list of individuals I have consulted for information and have asked to volunteer their time for proofreading. To them, I give my thanks.

And finally, I give my thanks to you. If you're someone who's stuck with me since No Step On Slime, I greatly appreciate that you've stuck around for this one. If you're a new reader, welcome aboard. Regardless if you are one or the other, I sincerely appreciate you taking the time to read my work.

WHAT'S NEXT?

Anyone who's really observant would probably notice that I've left a fair amount of open ends in the conclusion of this story. Yes, I have an idea in mind for a sequel. But it is not something that I will be working on immediately. I need time to consolidate, make plots, characters, and the like.

That, and I also wish to work on other stories.

For those who do not already know, the next story of mine will be a spiritual successor of a fanfiction that I've previously written, from 2021 to early 2022. The main premise of both consists of a few hard hitters: Isekai, reincarnation, genderbending, and gunpowder weapons. But, as I've continued to craft the framework of that story, I've come to the realization that it is... a spiritual successor in premise only. It'll be diving far deeper into more emotional subjects than any of my other stories.

The Hero Should've Known Better was written to be an inherently comedic novel. Admittedly, I do feel as though writing comedy is a bit of an outlier for me. I can do comedy within a specific situation, but centering an entire series around comedy without outright making it satire or parody was a challenge.

This next one is much more serious in tone. But... we'll see.

Onto the next story.