User blog:Chicken Bond/The Dark Realities Trilogy: BIG ANNOUNCEMENT!

After a discussion held earlier today with my brilliant writing collaborators, and, we have all agreed to completely reboot our Dark Realities Trilogy! Some of you, I expect, will not be very affected by this decision; you've either never read, heard or taken an interest in the original Dark Realities, which for a time was the longest story on the entire wiki.

Now, many of you may be wondering what inspired such a radical decision to completely restart from scratch? Well, to put it simply, looking back over what we had originally written back in 2010 and 2011, we found ourselves extremely dissatisfied with the plotting and the quality of the writing of the original DR, and found ourselves considering two things:

One: Either continue it and complete the trilogy.

Two: Rewrite the original DR to squash our inner disappointment.

As you can see, we chose an unexpected third option. We are extremely excited to get to work because for a while, we've had very little motivation to write the stories. Now, we're still in the basic stages of planning out the reboot, but it will be extremely different from the Dark Realities that users read so long ago. Since we like to think we've developed into better writers (you'll be the judge of that), we feel we can tell a story that is far more interesting, gripping and intellectually engaging than our original ever was. So we intend to try and bring out the best of our writing for you guys. We hope to start writing this revamped version of the DR continuity soon, but first, I would like to outline some of the changes we've made that we feel we can reveal.

Due to our planning, we have decided to make each story twenty-one chapters long; no more, no less. Unlike before in the original DR, we want to plan out everything beforehand, rather than just make it up as we go along. This means that each of the three writers of the trilogy will have seven chapters between us. It's also worth noting the plot of the reboot will be completely different from the original, so don't expect many returning subplots. Also, the first and last instalments of the trilogy will have new story names.

Dark Realities, though iconic, is out the window for now. Unless we can't think of anything ourselves, you shouldn't think of calling this first instalment is called Dark Realities. Broken Worlds, however, will remain unchanged. Warped Futures, the silliest title I've ever come up with, is definitely gone too.

Another major change to the DR Trilogy, one that was once one of our focal points in the original, is that this time around we will not be allowing users to enter characters into the story. This is because the original DR suffered from an oversized cast of characters, which resulted in a huge number of them only appearing in only one or two scenes and suffering from a severe lack of development. As such, not only are we not admitting characters, but we're also cutting off a lot of the characters who were originally submitted to appear. This is because we want to have a smaller, more focused cast of characters who can all receive a fair amount of development, so we'll primarily be keeping characters who we think can contribute to the overarching plot and themes of the narrative. We especially don't want unnecessary cramming.

Finally, the setting of the DR Trilogy will also change. Whilst it will still be set on the world of Spherus Magna, it will not be based off of the canon version of it. This will be our own interpretation of Spherus Magna, so whilst many familiar locations from canon will appear, they will also be very different. Much like in the Xaterex Multiverse Storyline, this trilogy will no longer take place in the canon storyline, meaning the history of this world will be very different, though certain events from canon will be adapted and included. We did this so we could avoid the limitations of the canon BIONICLE storyline in order to grant us more creative freedom. This is a particularly big move for us, as in the original DR's backstory, everything up to the reformation of Spherus Magna was strictly canon.

More details on this reboot will emerge over time as we get closer to writing the actual trilogy out. We are keen to start this as soon as possible, so do keep an eye out for it. This reboot (we hope) will also allow us to draw in a new audience of potential readers, so if you didn't read the original DR, now is your chance to start following us. This story will also be submitted on BZPower, so you can keep an eye on it there.

As for my own storyline, since it is currently experiencing a semi-reboot, I feel now is a good time to put it in a form of temporary stasis. It'll be put on hold until this trilogy is finished, or at least until it starts taking off. This does not mean my story planning with Varkanax and will stop. As for the other writers, Varkanax has completed the XMS as a whole, so he's perfectly willing to commit to this and Jareroden97 tells us that this fits comfortably into his own writing schedule.

With all this said and done, please, please, PLEASE give us feedback in the comments below. We would really like to hear your thoughts, opinions and ideas.

Until next time!