paper love | edward nygma

ANNOUNCEMENT - PLEASE READ!!

Hello everyone,
It's been nearly three full years since I've made any posts on Wattpad — I haven't even read any stories on Wattpad for a while either.

Paper Love is probably the most popular thing I've ever done, if that makes any sense. I didn't expect it in ANY way to grow to the size it has. I'm so glad that even one person was able to get some form of happiness, even just ANYTHING, out of something I did. Something I worked on for years.

But, I have to point out the obvious that Paper Love isn't finished. It hasn't been finished or updated for a very, very long time.

There's two reasons for this:

1) The Gotham fandom is not the most active anymore  (it is, there's still a lot of amazing people out there creating and showing love for the series to this day — it's just that the fandom has sized down a lot and everything's gotten a bit slower). I wrote Paper Love when Gotham was still on TV, which was one of the main reasons why I was able to write as much as I did and why I had such a velocity of putting out chapters. There was always new content to look forward to and to gain inspiration from.

However, that motivation doesn't really exist anymore.

Gotham ended.

I moved on to other things in my life. I had no creativity or motivation left in me to dedicate to Paper Love or Gotham as a fanbase. I stayed active on Tumblr, but even that section of the fandom ended up going fairly inactive. I just felt no joy from writing Gotham fanfic anymore because I was already disconnecting from the characters.

What I would've written wouldn't have been good, either.

2) I was and am embarrassed of the writing in this story.

I wrote Paper Love when I was still a kid. I'm an adult now. My writing style has changed A LOT. The grammar, dialogue, POVs, etc. in Paper Love are, well, not good. I reread it sometimes and I hate it.

My approach to writing is much more thought out. I used to submit first drafts, not thinking about what I was publishing. I don't do that anymore.

That's what this update is about.

I am thinking of doing a complete rewrite of Paper Love. I'd even change the plot a bit and go further from canon. Maybe even bring in new characters. I just don't think the story that's public right now is the best I can put out there; it's boring and lackluster and juvenile. I owe it to the new and old readers who stick around even to this day to show love and support to this project to redo it and make it better.

I don't know when this will be done, but I will be starting drafts soon of the rewritten fic. I'm also considering recasting my characters and just making everything a lot neater, more concise, and shorter while also maintaining the plot. The original just doesn't do that.

Feel free to comment or DM me any criticisms (nice or harsh, either way I need criticism to get better). I want to hear from you, the readers, because without you all I'd have no faith in my work and nothing TRULY MOTIVATING ME and pushing me to rewrite this.

Thank you all and I look forward to reading any of your comments and messages.

Amelia

EDIT: By the way, if the rewrite is scrapped or ends up not happening, I will likely orphan Paper Love and keep it uploaded here and on AO3 for anyone who would like to read it.