Dear Readers of Silent
Hero, Both New and Old,
As some of you know, I am in the process of re-vamping many
of my self-published works. Most of these are those which were not on the
market long, which I published hastily in my impatient youth, and which I now
wish to see perfected before being re-released into the world. Thankfully,
having been on the market a short time, hardly any copies were sold, which
leaves me a broad audience hungry for fantasy and adventure upon their
re-release. Currently, I’m working with the brilliant Kira Lerner to restore
two of my series, The Gailean Quartet
and The Legends of Surprisers; the
goal is to complete both by the end of 2013.
That brings me to Silent
Hero, my first and only fanfic, inspired by Nintendo’s Legend of Zelda game series. Even though it is merely a fanfic, I
did want to do another read-through and address any issues I came across. And
did I find some! Readers had spoken of minor plot holes; I am ashamed to have
found several of these myself, from things like our heroes finding the Zora’s
sapphire twice, to a couple of other
moments which make one just stop and scratch their heads. Thus, I’ve read
through, fixing these issues. While I am sorry to have found such problems, I
am also glad too; it means I am learning much as an author and can begin to see
and fix such problems for myself.
I’ve also sought to tighten up the writing a tad; I’ve been
learning that, while one of my strengths is being a very visual writer, I can
also tend to be too “flowery” with my language, I vice I’m working to improve
upon and which I hope reflects in this newly edited version of Silent Hero.
Silent Hero is
still a fan-based work; therefore, I see no need to pay to work with a
professional editor like I’m currently doing with many of my original works.
However, after reading through, there were certainly some small errors and plot
holes which needed addressing, as well as some things which could use better
explanations. Our heroes end up collecting Shards, Songs, and Stones, which
makes things sort of convoluted. And while I wasn’t prepared for a complete
overhaul, this again being a fan-based work, I at least wanted to explain what
was going on better, such as what exactly our heroes were looking for and why,
and how these things would help them.
Is the plot still convoluted? Honestly, from all I’ve
learned from my editors thus far, I can say, “Yes!” And, was this an original
work and not a fan-based one, I would seek to correct it. As it is, I’ve kept
in all the hodge-podge stuff from several Zelda games, although, as said above,
I’ve worked to make it make more sense.
Again, though I recognize the book as still being
convoluted, my recognizing this is a good
thing. It means I’m learning; I’m
working on a book with my editor right now which, before her input, had a very
confusing mythos with far too many rules. Now, the mythos is simpler, but
better for it. As I said, Silent Hero
is a fanfic, so I’ll let what is be, especially as many of the readers who
enjoyed the book liked seeing all the different elements of the different games
that I included. However, were this an original work set in an original world
of mine, I would definitely improve upon the that aspect of the book.
I apologize to the thousands of fans who have already
downloaded the book, both those of you who have enjoyed and those who haven’t.
To those who enjoyed, you deserve something even better! To those of you who didn’t, I can’t guarantee you’ll like
the book now, especially if you don’t like Midna and the bits of romance added
in. Many of the changes I made were necessary, but small, and the overall story
is still the same. However, like it or not, at least I’ve addressed some of the
issues.
So, on then with the adventure, and enjoy reading! Oh, and
enjoy the new cover too; I’ve learned a lot about cover art the past year or so
as well and quite enjoyed the subtle but very impactful changes to Silent Hero’s cover.
Thanks again to all of my readers, fellow Zelda-fans
included!
God bless, happy reading, and may you all be inspired!
~ Christine E. Schulze
