What just happened?
Well, hopefully, you just finished Power of Creation.
No, I mean, what is with that ending?
Although most readers didn’t know this, Power of Creation has always been about the relationship between Whizzer, the writer, and you, the reader. In a way, all writers are the true “God” of whatever world you’re visiting. This story just made that literal.
Having Whizzer be revealed as the Demon God and the final antagonist seemed fitting for this story. Basically, Whizzer brought you into this world to give him a reason to make it, and thus the two of you grew a dependence on each other. He needed you to read the novel just as much as you needed him to write it.
He created an eronovel for his own desires, but he used you to justify its creation. In essence, the power of creation was always a metaphor for the power to create your own fantasies and follow your imagination. It explored the relationship between a writer and his readers. Well, more like a case study of when that relationship goes wrong.
You keep saying ‘he’. Aren’t you the author?
I’m Whatsawhizzer, the username of the author of all of these novels, Terrance Phillipe. Whizzer is the fictionalized author persona that I undertook during the writing of Power of Creation. You guys murdered him at the end of PoC. I, Whatsawhizzer, will gracefully take over all of his writing stuff.
Persona? Are you saying Whatsawhizzer and Whizzer are two different people?
Whatsawhizzer is the real person, Whizzer is his fictional author. As far as how our personalities differ, Whizzer is more confrontational, whiny, and negative. It was always intended for him to be the reader’s antagonist, and your relationship with him was intended to decline as the story progressed. I aimed to have an author that fought with and grew into an antagonistic relationship with the reader over the course of the story.
Huh? My relationship with the author?
The relationship between you and Whizzer was a deeper layer to the relatively simple story of PoC. I encouraged everyone to comment and often engaged people in conversations in the comments section, in discord, and in author notes. Whizzer was quick to argue and fight, and openly mocked commenters in the story. This was all intentional. That was actually the true “plot” of Power of Creation, and for those who commented and got into fights with Whizzer, you participated! Telling Whizzer not to comment or to just do what he wanted to do and not listen to comments defeated the point of the story. The fact that elements were changed by comments was an integral part of the story! Whizzer arguing, fighting, and changing sections of the story were all parts of the overall narrative.
What about your lazy 4th wall breaks?
As a “hero” from another world and the reader, you were less “in” the world than everyone else, which is why you could have bouts of breaking the 4th wall. Of course, as the narrator, Whizzer also could break the 4th wall, which he often did to harass and troll you. Other heros also had this ability. It was only later in the novel when Whizzer was breaking into the story that the 4th wall began to crumble, and other characters exuded more and more 4th wall breaks. One of the most hated aspects of this story (the 4th wall break humor) was actually a major plot point!
It was when you cast the barrier magic that you finally shattered the wall and could see the world for the story it was. The guy who had been with you all along, talking with and reading all of his words, the narrator, Whizzer, was the real antagonist. He orchestrated everything, all to satisfy his NTR fetish.
You seriously planned this out from the beginning?
Well, no. Obviously, I wrote TOAS in entirety as Whizzer. As to when I decided to make Whizzer a fictionalized character and send PoC this direction? For those of you who followed this from the beginning, you know I wrote PoC just to blow off stress from writing TOAS. Around Chapter 40, I had finished TOAS and I wasn’t getting any excitement from PoC. I suggested turning it into a choose your own adventure and the overwhelming response from fans was “Keep everything the same”.
Then, in a twist that should have surprised no one, when I kept everything the same, I grew bored and quit writing it. It ended up on hiatus for a bit until its sudden resurgence. That’s when I decided to go this route. I still dragged you guys into being an active part of the story, I just did it in a way you didn’t realize it! I created Whatsawhizzer, who is the author of WoW and my other novels, and steadily separated and refined the Whizzer personality.
Ironically, a few have said that they stopped liking PoC around chapter 50, so perhaps they subtly picked up the change in focus from a generic everystory to something with a direction that explored the complex relationship between writers and their readers.
So, that’s it? Everything went according to plan?
Actually, this entire story didn’t really go to my original plan. Originally, I was planning to completely duck out of MSB upon Whizzer’s death. The plan was to finish TOAE/D under a different name after retiring Whizzer. This entire thing was my exit strategy for the ero business. Then things changed.
What changed?
Isn’t it obvious? World of Women became a ridiculous hit. Patreon took off. I started writing other stories and started growing a fanbase. Remember, when I conceived all this, there was no Discord community. I had two books total. There was no 300+ patreons. I had 7 Patreons, and brought in $30 a month. This naturally massively changed things. For example, I had to tone down the mental break a bit. Yeah, I planned to go even more insane, but when I have $1500 riding on it, I tried to keep the mental breakdowns to something tolerable. Even then, I’m sure my shitty attitude has lost many readers. If you were the target of my ire, I do apologize, it really was all part of the act.
Wait, if Whizzer is a PoC fictionalized author, why did you act confrontational in a none PoC IP or under the Whatsawhizzer name?
Hey, once you start acting a certain way, it’s kind of tough to turn it off, you know? It was already difficult enough maintaining a balance between being antagonistic but not causing me to lose readers. I was very fearful of going too far and end up pushing away a bunch of readers, so I could never go full asshole. I had to keep reassuring people (especially those who thought I was genuinely on the edge of a psychotic break), that this is fine (while acting like I was on the edge of a psychotic break). Even still, I wish I could have been a bit more antagonistic, but then I wouldn’t have any readers by the time I reached the big reveal! I chose to act somewhat antagonistic in WoW as well, because I figured most PoC readers also read WoW. As far as areas like my disqus where Whatsawhizzer was used, they were all affected by the Whizzer personality.
Are you going to be different now that PoC is over?
Yes… I’m going to start acting like me again. But who knows, as I said, it was somewhat difficult to turn off once it got started, and I can’t say it wasn’t fun to be particularly jerkish and troll the fans. I might need to come up with the equivalent of a Whizzer swear jar to curb my previous behavior. We’ll see.
What about the readers that didn’t read the comments?
Too bad, they missed out on an integral part of the story. They wouldn’t understand various references in the text, nor the humor of some of the veiled insults. The fact all the girls were in collars because someone requested it… the “specials” that often ended disastrously, randomly changing the direction of the story at a key point (Megara *cough*), these were all intentional parts of the story. They were the story beyond the story.
What about the Volume PDFs? By very nature, aren’t they devalued by the fact that the “integral” comments and author notes are absent from them?”
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Look, there is plenty to like about PoC without being aware of comments. It had sex. It had humor. Most people had no clue the conversations in comments were story related, and for the most part they’re still there if you want to go read them on MSB.
Well, I hate 4th wall breaks and that ending ruined Power of Creation for me!
Too bad. Probably shouldn’t have murdered the author then. Whizzer was the kind of guy who might have changed it with enough complaining.
What does this mean for the future of your writing?
Power of Creation had to find an end eventually. I planned for it to end around chapter 300. Now it is over, I’ll start something else. You still have TOAE (when I return to it) and you still have WoW and NTR Crush. I plan to pick up and start writing something else. I’ll put out a survey soon to decide what that will be. There are a lot of options.
Thank you for enjoying Power of Creation. I hope to keep writing with your continued support. Have a good one!