Writing Blog: The Eastern Port City Tournament (Patreon)

During one of the early chapters of the Eastern Port City Tournament Arc, one of the comments voiced a desire to see what Xiao Nan was up to. This was one of those moments where I had to bite my tongue because anything I could say in reply would either be a hint or just come across as really smug, which I’m not a fan of. I always hate it when the writers are all smug because they know stuff.

Writers are the worst.

Anyway, back to the post, I refrained from replying to that comment because I didn’t want to accidentally give away what Xiao Nan was up to. In several ways, it is Xiao Nan, not Liu Jin or Xiao Fang, who is the key player of the Eastern Port City Tournament. 

The idea of the Eastern Port City Tournament Arc is “An arc where the important stuff happens off-screen.” The important stuff in this case being Xiao Nan’s struggles to uncover enough evidence to expose Elder Hui and his link to the Yun Sect. Trust me when I say that Xiao Nan had quite an adventure, and if it weren’t for him, the tournament wouldn’t have ended the way it did.

That’s not to say what happened to Liu Jin and Xiao Fang wasn’t important. On a personal level, the tournament ended up being quite significant to them. They both grew up, and the whole thing marks a big shifting point in their relationship, which I very much enjoyed writing. However, as important as the whole thing was for them, Liu Jin and Xiao Fang were, in the grand scheme of things, a distraction. 

This was a risky choice, but I wanted to play the arc this way. I wanted Xiao Nan’s appearance at the end to be a surprise for the readers and for Liu Jin. Similarly, I wanted Liu Jin to feel that, in spite of all the stuff he has done since the story began, he still kind of is playing in the kiddie pool when it comes to Sect politics.

However, because I chose to focus the story this way, there is some information that didn’t make its way to the audience and that’s my bad. In hindsight, maybe I should have done an epilogue chapter from Xiao Zheng and Xiao Nan’s perspective. Oh, well. Live and learn.