Outside Edge: The Wandering Inn

The wonderful thing about being a writer is having a legitimate excuse to read all the time. So why not just bathe in it?

Today I discovered The Wandering Inn web series and published works written by pirateaba. Originally started as a web publication almost ten years ago, this has turned into a mega writing project. Many books published, assembled from a continuous stream of writing, deepening the world and the characters. The word count over the series is currently way over ten million! How is this possible? Is the writing any good? Who is reading this stuff?

I believe that these are all valid reactions to discovering this scale of endeavour.

In fact, I honestly don't know quite where to start with The Wandering Inn. According to reports from readers, at the beginning the prose is a little basic, however there's a twist which hooks them in. The story is a part uses a fantasy/RPG (Role Playing Game) metatextual device indicating how the story can be interpreted. So it reads like a story, however, the author - pirateaba - is able to indicate how the characters 'level up' through awarding them skills or roles shown within square brackets. The author is essentially giving hints to the reader through the mechanism of a meta game engine in the writing.

For example, instead of writing:

The story can suddenly indicate:

And you immediately get character development, worldbuilding, game mechanics and foreshadowing in four words rather than a lot of description. From a literary point of view, it's certainly an interesting way of approaching writing and reading. Perhaps something for the younger reader you might think? But the reviews are generally very positive - with some being confused and engaged simultaneously. It's breathtaking and wonderful as a literary experiment and seems to be both a lot of work and pretty successful.

What's also fascinating is consequently just how much of this book series there is. The graph below is from the Wandering Inn Reddit community from a few years ago. Just look at the word counts per year!

Not only is it astounding how much Pirateaba writes but also how she writes. She live streams many of her first draft sessions, writing directly onto the screen for subscribers and patreons and twitch followers to see. This gives a unique view into the act of creation.

Certainly, the sheer amount of output, the invention of this RPG-like twist which allows this world to be built in shortcuts, and the incessant and highly detailed worlds that appear seem to point to something either very suspicious or very clever going on, but bear in mind this project started pre-AI.

Stephen King and Brandon Sanderson are both prolific authors. King likes to write 'good' first drafts in three months. Sanderson has written seventy one novels as of 2023. Sanderson also wrote thirteen novels before he found a publisher, and if you find a publisher there's no guarantee you'll find an audience. Ian Rankin for example, author of the famous Rebus series, didn't have a hit until his eighth book.

So, in publishing, is it just a case of more is better? You refine your art, you find an audience, you build something. Food for thought.

Keep going and enjoy your Sunday.