Author's Notes: The Emperor's Dream Epilogue

Hello and welcome to my author’s notes for the epilogue of The Emperor’s Dream! This is the part where I re-read each chapter and write up my honest thoughts about it. It’s a first draft, after all!

If you haven’t read the epilogue yet, you can read it here.

If you are quite far behind, you can read chapter one here. Remember, these are first drafts only, so the final published version might change a little or a lot, but hopefully you either enjoy or learn something from seeing the process.

Now on with this week’s author’s notes!

• The end! We've made it! It has been such a joy to share this story with you. From here on out, I'll be working through edits and trying to bring this project through to the true finish line.
• Speaking of that, if you would like to be a beta reader (re-read after I've made the first few rounds of edits), please let me know! I'd love to have you.
• Even if you're not up for that, I would love to hear your feedback. Shoot me an email! dalton@daltonhuey.com
• Now that the announcements are out of the way, I really like this little scene, but I also feel a little weird about it. I've never written a love scene before, and I can't help but feeling a little like a kid holding two dolls together and going, "Now kiss."
• But scenes like this have to happen. This is what happens even in the real world, and it's awesome. Love is awesome. I love love. But I still feel a little awkward writing about it.
• My biggest concern with this scene is its abruptness. I'm concerned that, despite having spent months together, it feels too soon for Wanyi to profess his love for Meisun.
• The timeline of Wanyi and Meisun's romance has had a huge impact on this story. In my very first idea, they would be married at the end, and we'd have a nice little happily-ever-after. Then, I got the idea to make this novella into a trilogy of novellas, which would allow me to give more time to their love story—time that I think it needs/deserves. But then I have these weird questions of how long the whole process should take, and when/in which book should key events of their story take place? Oh the joys of plotting series.

Anyway, that's it from me for the first draft of The Emperor's Dream! Thank you again for joining me. For those of you who subscribe to the newsletter, you'll hear from me soon about what comes next.

If you’d like to support the work I’m doing here, you can buy me a coffee here. Or, if you’d like to become a monthly supporter, you can do so by becoming a paid subscriber on my website. Whatever floats your boat. I’m grateful either way. See you soon!

Until next time!