Worldshift Beta Reading and Discord |
Alright, I’ve finally gotten this entire novel written, edited, and prepared for beta reading. Writing a book takes a long time. Who knew? Here's the plot summary of Worldshift: Virtual Revolution.
Society has grown rich thanks to automation and technology. As a result, jobs are scarce, but its easy for society to provide its people with all their basic needs. Strict proscriptions on research and development prevent disruption, while the government tightly controls commerce with the help of the mega corporations to prevent economic disharmony.
Ethan is young and unemployed. One of the many who fail to find a job and join the elite. Nonetheless, he lives a secure life thanks to the economic support he gets, and he finds excitement playing virtual reality games where he can take risks and lash out.
However, despite his security and determination to avoid what’s happening around him in the real world, he can’t help but feel that something is wrong with society. That feeling becomes inescapable when he starts playing the latest event in the world’s most popular game, Worldshift. Thousands of players are lured into climbing the Tower of Ascension by an incredible prize, where they team-up and battle amongst themselves, but nothing is as it seems. The tower is far more than a game. Not only are its rewards real, but so are its dangers.
Change is coming to a long stagnant world -a virtual revolution- and everything Ethan knows will be threatened.
Writing Worldshift was an experiment and an exercise to improve my writing craft. It’s a combination of a more traditional sci-fi and litrpg. I wanted a chance to write a contained story with a obvious beginning and end that was a single book in length. I also wanted the chance to really edit it several times before it was released, which you can’t do with a web serial. The end product is very different from The Iron Teeth, but I hope people like it. At over 160000 words it’s not short.
I believe that writing Worldshift made me a better writer though. Among other things, it allowed me to focus on how to craft interesting characters that feel more real and have contained arcs.
The beta draft of the novel is available to VIP tier users at Patreon if you’re interested in taking part in the beta reading. I’ve set up a discord server so that beta readers can discuss the novel.
If you’re not interested in that, then you can still head over to the discord to chat with people about my work. There are several channels where you can discuss different things. After the beta reading is done and I've done another round of editing, I plan on making this novel availible on Amazon.
