Vandalarius AAR: Where to go from here?

[Lugotorix]

Well, my AAR for Attila as the Ostrogoths will be coming to a close soon. I have the entire conclusion planned out, and will likely finish the story with just under 60k views, all's said. I'd very much like to move on to part-time work, and perhaps a professional historical fiction project about the life and times of Genseric. It's been very fun writing the AAR, but time consuming and at times, hard work. Petellius has suggested that he'd like to see an AAR for Ancient Empires, which I will be playing, but to follow up this AAR with the same amount of detail in a future project would be a daunting undertaking, and I have to worry about real life, of course.

I'm wondering if I should continue the story going to flesh out the legacy to the point of the epilogue conclusion that ties up all of the loose ends that I currently have planned, as the campaign screens and materials have grown thin. Images have been a major strength of the AAR and this would be image light, as a story driven hard narrative that keeps the AAR burning to what to me is the coveted 70k or 100k views, or just finish the story as planned. This is more of a popularity indicator.

I'm looking for feedback as to whether the planned ending will be sufficient or people would want to see the surviving characters from the documented conclusion progress in a hard narrative up to the final length I took the campaign to achieve the major victory conditions (and settle scores) If anyone interested needs to have a better picture of who will be left surviving- and whether you care about them as characters- I'll have that determined by the last update before the currently planned epilogue.

[Alwyn]

The word 'epic' is, perhaps, overused, but your Attila AAR truly deserves this description. I will be sad to see this story come to its end. A historical fiction project about Genseric's time sounds like a good idea. Of course, if you decide to write an AAR using the Ancient Empires mod, I'll be reading it.

You wondered about continuing the story to flesh out the legacy. I think that an epilogue can work well; I don't think that you need to tie up every loose end. Unresolved threads in a story can fire up the imagination of readers, as we speculate about what would have happened.

You asked for feedback on whether to stop at your planned ending or to continue in a hard narrative. I wonder where your story would end, if you go beyond your planned ending - and which would be more satisfying, the ending which you originally planned or this possible new ending? I have not managed to write a satisfying ending to one of my AARs, but I have read plenty of good and bad endings in books. Reading Jeff Vandermeer's Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction, I picked up the idea that a good ending should not only resolve the main story-line. If an ending can contain both an unexpected element and yet, at the same time, contain a connection with the setting, situation or a character at the start of your story (so that, having arrived at the ending, there is a kind of recognition in the reader.) As I see it, if your epilogue can contain these elements of resolution, surprise and recognition, then it should work well.