Guardian Souls- Author's Notes

Guardian Souls-
Author's Notes

Wow, where do I even start with this thing? This monster has taken up more of my time and brain power than any story I have ever written. I cannot believe I posted the first chapter on December 4, 2002. And here it is December 2007 and I've just barely finished it at a whopping 21 chapters averaging from 15-20 pages each. Still that is a ridiculous amount of time to finish one fanfic. I really can't believe it's taken me almost five years to complete the thing. I honestly hope it never takes me that long again.

But because this fic took so darn long to write, it had a lot of time to grow and develop and change as I grew and changed as well. It was almost as if completely different people wrote the beginning and the end of "Guardian Souls". Starting out, I had completely different ideas, different plot points, and different roles for the characters than what came out in the end. Because I had so much time to think about where I was going with everything and what I wanted to do, this story was far more thought out and planned than it would have been if I had finished it as fast as I finished "Demons in the Doorway".

And even then, not all of it was as thought out as I'd like everyone to think. There were a lot of things I pulled out of thin air at the last minute and a lot of things that changed from my original plan when I first began this story. Originally, Yanushi was supposed to be the king of the country opposing Falnan. Akuma was his general. It's been so long I can't remember exactly why I changed that, but I really liked Yanushi better as kind of a neutral, but still a very strong power in the story. I really enjoy it when everything isn't black and white and villains, aren't always complete villains, like Yanushi. And heros aren't always complete heros, like Myune.

Speaking of Myune, she had her role in the story changed as well. She was supposed to be the villain. I originally wanted her to grow kind of power hungry and try to get all the armors for herself and then eventually kill her off in the end. I liked this way better. Less cliche. I found it amusing just how many comments I got about Myune. Pretty much everyone hated her. Some people would tell me they hated her almost as an apology. Others said they hated her in kind of an "I hated one of the characters you made, so there," type tone. And with each comment I just shook my head. You were SUPPOSED to hate Myune. She was a bitch! Sure, she was on the side of good, but she made everyone's life hell while she tried to save the kingdom. In this, I think Myune was an extremely original character. As far as I have seen, no one has made a Ronin fanfic like this (A "five girls have the same titles as the Ronins and work with them" fic) and purposefully made one of them someone the readers would not like.

And thus we come to the close of cliche number three in my fanfic series. (Mary Sue, check. Sailor Moon crossover, check. Ronins get paired with a group of girls with powers, check. (And in a smaller sense, Ronin fantasy fic, check)) All this to further prove my point that even if every plot ever conceived has already been done; even if it's a plot done to death by others, it's still possible to put together something original and entertaining. One must simply put in the effort to be original and creative. Sometimes that can be hard. It can be a constant struggle to try to come up with something fresh and unexpected for the scenario you've created. But the effort is worth it when you surprise the pants off your readers.

I say always be open to new ideas because some time the first idea that comes to your head isn't always the best one. If I would have stayed with the first plot idea for "Guardian Souls" it probably wouldn't have turned out as well as it did. Even half way through the fic, keep your mind open to changes. Hariel was made up after I had already finished a few chapters. But I was so glad I decided to put him in. I had a lot of fun writing him and he was well received by the readers. I'm really going to have to try to sneak him in again if I can.

There were a lot of other plot elements that came in on the fly. Sage losing his armor happened as I was writing the chapter. I just thought "Yeah, I'll let Myune take it. It will stir things up a bit." And then when readers started asking how he was going to get it back, I was like "I have no idea." Lucky for me, it worked out anyway. I really couldn't even begin to list how many things I added as I was writing and thus taking the story in completely different directions. You also can't start to imagine how lucky I am that everything closed itself as neatly as it did. I was worried there for a while, but it all turned out fairly well.

As a whole, I think GS was successful in some aspects and not so successful in others. I think this was good practice for me. Even though it was a fanfic, I still had to do a lot of work. It was almost like an original story in the fact that I had to make up a whole world with its own history and characters. It was kind of fun, but I don't want to do it again any time soon. And I'm actually not a fantasy fan AT ALL. I don't read it. So I was asking myself many, many times over the years why I decided to write a fantasy Ronin fic. I'm still not sure, but I'm glad it's done. And since I don't read fantasy, I was hoping I didn't slip into anything too cliche with the story. Since I'm not familiar with what's out there, I have no idea what's been done to death and what hasn't. In that case, I was hoping my mere lack of exposure to it kept me out of anything too over done.

There were several morals and messages I wanted to tell with this story. I think some worked out better than others. I'm not going to go over what they were as I'm sure everyone got something different out of it. Another goal was I wanted to do more with Mia and also get some character development out of Anubis. This didn't really happen. Mia hardly had any importance to the plot and Anubis was as flat as can be. Shinsetsu and Shinmei, I wanted to go into a bit more about who and what they were there for. But that didn't really fit into the last chapter without feeling forced, so their story got kicked out. Which in the end is fine since it's not about the original characters, it's about the Ronins anyway. But if anyone is interested, they were kind of there to be almost like judges for Yanushi. They both had lived in that world for a long time and each held a different opinion of that world and of the people.

With Diana and Miniko (And I'm REALLY sorry for all the M names in this fic) I wish I could have given them some more character development, too. But there was just too much plot to really stop anything and give them a moment. However, a little trivia about Diana's character. She was already dead in this fic and went around as almost a ghost. And she was the priestess of the dawn. Ghost of the Dawn. Yes, that's where I got my pen name and that is how long I have been planning this fic. And how long I've been waiting to finish it. *sigh*

But now it is over and I can FINALLY move forward to something else. (Can you say "OMG Warlords!!"?) I am very excited fro the next story. I'm sure some of you have seen promotional art for it already. It's going to be a lot of fun. There's also going to be less history to cover which is nice. So less back plot and more character development and more action. And Warlords! Woot!

So in closing, I thank all of you for reading "Guardian Souls" whether you've been with it from the start or just got into it recently. And if you have time, please drop me a line in some form or another, message board, FF.net, email, whatever, and let me know what you thought of "Guardian Souls" as a whole. Even if you hated it. I am not looking for empty praise, but for your opinion. I have worked on this a LONG time, I am dying to hear what people have to say about it. So let me know and I hope to see you all again at the end of "Warriors Still" which hopefully won't be in another five years. *crosses fingers*

~Ghost