How shall I put this...
The issue isn't Thorns. That story hasn't seen much progress entirely because I've been too busy fighting with the next main chapter to focus on it. My issues start with how I've gone about introducing many of the characters. Let's take Lockler as an example. His first scene is basically running about being something of a blowhard screaming about anathema and coming off like a knock-off 40k Commissar... Compare that with what we've seen since. Really doesn't fit what the character has become, does it? More recently I feel like I've bungled Emily's intro. The project I have her working on is... meta at best. Miyu could do with a better introduction and in fact, the only ones I'm happy with are Kiku and Hikari who doesn't even have a perspective scene. Really it's not one thing. It's a bunch of little things that are piling up.
If I do continue this version of the story I'll need to go back and fix a few scenes from the last chapter at the minimum.
Those are the minor issues I'm finding. Going right back to the start the first three chapters were me forcing things out so I'd stop changing my damned mind about what I actually wanted to write. I kept jumping from one thing to another. This story started as a DnD crossover originally, went through three versions there before I discovered Exalted then it went through four versions set in the north of creation, five in the scavenger lands, and visited Greyfalls twice before I managed to wrangle my thoughts onto a single path. Chapter one was done in a rush and rather than review it I kicked it out the door so that I could count on feeling some obligation to continue writing. Chapters two and three followed in the same manner. It was only after I hit chapter four, and the Curse fiasco that occurred, that I started really figuring things out. Who these characters were, what their motivations are, how they talk, and what the world is. Frankly looking back at chapters 1-4 the only parts I can consider salvageable is everything before Ranma crashes through the roof of the Greyfalls Keep.
The amount of changes I've mapped out that I would make if I rewrote it basically makes everything after chapter 4 irrelevant. Same characters, but the exact events change immensely. The same general storyline I will admit. Crashland in Greyfalls, chaos, a different sort of "Ranma takes charge", and then a siege/battle and take it from there.
My point is that looking back I figured out what I wanted from the story after I wrote the foundations, and those foundations are only barely stable. I can continue on them, but that nagging feeling of I can do better is getting to me, and it's getting worse as time goes on...
