I wrapped this book up in a rush. My body couldn't take it anymore; I'd been suffering from insomnia. The later chapters really weren't very good, so let me talk about a few problems I ran into while writing it.
First, I didn't do enough research!
I had an idea and wanted to write it, so I jumped straight in. Without doing my research, I was writing with the mindset I'd had two or three years ago, and I couldn't quite keep up with the times.
For example, back when I used to write, it was perfectly normal to make Bibi Dong and Qian Renxue the female leads. That no longer worked; the climate had changed. I realized it a few dozen chapters in, but all I could do was grit my teeth and keep going.
Second, I hadn't adjusted my mindset!
Why hadn't I written a book in over two years? Because I'd realized something: reading could do more for me than writing. You could write over a million words and still improve your prose less than you would by reading a few dozen more books. So over those two years, I read books on writing craft, including work on character psychology, McKee's Story, Character, and Dialogue, and The Storytelling Animal. I also read plenty of fiction, such as Dragon Egg, Starquake, The Stars Are Cold Toys, One Hundred Years of Solitude, and The Love Story in the Cholera...
But the techniques in those books weren't the right mindset for writing a wish-fulfillment novel. Take Yu Xiaogang: I used him to practice writing the Dark Triad, the three traits that can make a person repellent—Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy. Then I took his characterization too far, and readers couldn't stand him.
The techniques I'd studied helped a little with wish-fulfillment