Ex-Wife is a Big Villainess
Chapter 89: Shelf Speech

Chapter 89: Shelf Speech

It would go live tomorrow.

The new book period was extended by a week, but it still didn’t advance in the Sanjiang recommendation, barely missing out just like the last time. Rather than blaming it on bad luck, it’s a fact that my writing wasn’t as good as others, and I have to admit that. After all, luck in writing is built on skill.

This is the third book to hit the shelves at Qidian.

I clearly remember when writing the first book, "Lady," it also failed to advance to the Sanjiang recommendation. The pacing was slow due to excessive preliminary setup, and I still remember the comments from many readers: "Swinging randomly from one thing to another, it’s unclear what the author is writing about," "Confusing," "Does the author have an outline? It’s already going off track," "Trying to be mysterious," "Honestly, I don’t understand it," "Too many characters," and other such comments. So, when it went live, it was disastrous, garnering only a thousand initial orders. (Crying to death)

I recall it was probably around Chapter 120, when all the threads came together, that "Lady" slowly started to gain popularity, and finally it caught a small fire, rising from one thousand initial orders to an average order of nine thousand. It could have reached ten thousand, but it was taken down and "harmonized," and now it can only be found through audiobooks. This was my own fault, and I have nothing to blame. However, this book also brought me confidence and some solid readers.

In the second book, "Madame," the initial comments were similar. The old readers were okay, but the new ones were still baffled. Fortunately, because of the performance of "Lady" and a gripping start of "Madame," it almost secured all the recommendations for the new book period, with initial orders close to four thousand. If I could stick with it, I believe it would have reached ten thousand. The momentum after going live was good.

The irony, however, was that with "Lady’s" initial one thousand, facing many doubts, I stuck to the outline, and it was a success. Yet with the better-performing "Madame," I failed to keep true to myself, changed the outline significantly, and ultimately collapsed completely, leaving many readers disappointed and abandoning the book.

This third book, "Ex-Wife," was also starting from scratch.

Although I tried to improve the pacing, I still couldn’t escape the old problems of too much setup and slow start, naturally facing some skepticism from readers who thought it was too montage-like, too scattered, and hard to understand. Indeed, this book had even more setup than before. This time, although I stuck with it without changing the outline, I still ended up cutting a lot throughout the process. This included cutting the content of two Chapters where Ran Qingchen and her maternal grandmother had heart-to-hearts with the protagonist.

At the time, I thought these two Chapters had no effect on the current storyline and dragged down the pacing, so I didn’t write them. As a result, this became a major failure in the early stages, causing a huge contradiction in the female lead’s character. After all, aside from content, character development is crucial in a book, especially for one of the two main female leads. Missing the setup for her personality traits was fatal, and I could only slowly remedy it later.

As for the character of Ran Qingchen, she indeed wasn’t appealing in the early stages. It’s not that she looked down on the protagonist, but that she was disillusioned with marriage. She was rather proud and cared about appearances, so even though she didn’t like her husband, she treated the protagonist as her possession, not allowing others to disrupt or bully him. This personality trait would later bring disaster upon her. It wasn’t until the protagonist entered the Demon Clan and she pursued her husband over thousands of miles that her character really started to fill out.

As for the other main female characters, I won’t say too much, as they will also be controversial. For example, Li Guanshi, some might feel this woman is very cold-hearted, not kind enough, as seen from the episodes where she coerces the Snake Demon. But this is exactly her character, disdainful of romantic love, only valuing the Tao. In her eyes, everyone is usable.

Similarly, the Demon Venerable is also very cold-hearted, caring only about power and believing that killing is the way to stay on top. Including Empress Dowager Xiao later, who is not caught up in familial emotions and harbors grand ambitions to fight for the world.

As for the issue of having too many female leads, I won’t explain much. I just want to tell a smooth story, and whichever characters can add to this story will appear; it’s as simple as that.

Honestly, although I’m quite open-minded, not achieving good results with the new book really hits my confidence. But it also shows that my decision was right; I need to make a change, to switch to writing about a different subject. "Ex-Wife" will be the last book of this theme by Bean Sprout, a concluding work.

After finishing this book, I will write something more straightforward and simpler, considering a system genre or post-apocalyptic theme.

Additionally, "Ex-Wife" will undergo some changes. Besides the familiar investigative style in the beginning, there won’t be much twist and turn later on. All the necessary characters, antagonists, and the worldview have been set up; the rest will be straightforward, without trying to be mysterious. In the first volume, the protagonist will kill two bosses—one is Nalan Xie, the other is Crown Prince.

In the second volume, after leaving the Capital, the protagonist will adopt a style similar to Chu Liuxiang and Lu Xiaofeng, entering Jianghu, cultivating while solving cases and wooing women.

That’s it. I’m going back to writing now. The update tomorrow when it goes live will happen just after noon.

Updates in the future will follow the schedule of the old books. Since the Chapter word count will increase, updates will mostly be in the evening, either around six or seven o’clock, or before midnight, almost being written and posted in real-time.

With the increased word count, the quality might drop a bit. Although I have an outline, the writing won’t be as meticulous as before, a problem many authors face. Naturally, if there’s a serious dip in quality, I will slow down and make necessary corrections. After all, paying for a book, the content is what matters most.

Also, thanks to the main editor, Cookie Almightily and Late-Night Snack Almightily, for their advice and care.

I hope this book can be written smoothly, and I will strive to maintain a calm mindset. Naming the protagonist ’Shouzhong’ was also a reminder to myself to always stay calm and righteous.

This name, derived from the "Tao Te Ching," signifies that the protagonist should always maintain a peaceful, neutral, and meditative mind, corresponding to "Water Moon Dream Mirror," to refine his spirit.

Tomorrow, updates around noon, not sure how much I can write, probably around twenty thousand words.

Thanks for the support, love you all.

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