The Writing of The Bonds of Love (Chapter One: Transition) · 4:53pm Mar 10th, 2023
And we're back once more with the next installment of The Writing of The Bonds of Love!
Today, we're discussing the very first chapter of The Bonds of Love, and was it the bang most stories are expected to begin with? Well…? We’ll see as we go on.
But to start things off now, we’ve already got a major cut concept to discuss, so let's dive on in!
~ The Diary That Never Was ~
When I first started writing Ch.1(Transition) I was still in the throes of “Boy, I wish I had been able to give Silverstream more screentime in A Day for Family,” so I began the chapter from her perspective. She would essentially return to her room after the Friends and Family Day Festival, greet Edith, and then recap the events of A.D.F.F. in her diary.
Why the need for the recap? Since T.B.O.L. was a sequel, I had to assume not everyone had read A.D.F.F. and those who did may not have remembered everything that happened.
A good sequel reminds its returning audience of what transpired in its predecessor while informing newcomers of anything relevant to the sequel. Yeah, I know that’s Sequel 101, but it was still something I was aware of and needed to account for.
This is why, scattered throughout both Ch.1(Transition) and Ch.2(Reprieve), you’ll see several scenes that positively reek of “Hey, guys! Do you remember A Day for Family!? Ooh! Did you remember this happened in A Day for Family!? Did you remember that happened in A Day for Family!? Wasn’t that story sooooo interesting!? 
”
That was the purpose behind this scene, and it was completely and utterly boring! So I cut it. Yes, it was also going to set up Silverstream’s extreme worry for Gallus’ well-being, but the scene really was nothing more than a wall of mind-numbing exposition.
Exposition may be a necessary component of story-telling, but when it’s done horribly—which it was here—it detracts from the story being told.
Ironic I say that when there are far, far worse problems plaguing T.B.O.L. Case in point:
~ Grammar Mistakes Galore ~
There’s no doubt the quality of The Bonds of Love got progressively better with each subsequent chapter. And I’m not just talking about the plot, but the writing quality itself improved drastically too.
I dreaded re-reading these first few chapters for the “Writing of…” because I knew—I! Knew!—the mistakes I would see. And sadly, past me did indeed disappoint.
Capitalization issues, spacing issues; missing punctuation marks… Okay, this is a fanfiction; that stuff isn’t exactly uncommon. But then we also have parenthesis randomly appearing, semicolons being used to introduce adverbial phrases, and both ellipses and exclamation marks appearing everywhere! Which, thanks again to TexasDragon1995 for pointing that particular issue out to me.
Oh, and let’s not forget the under-usage of dialogue tags, some sentences using present tense verbs for some reason, and sentences where there aren’t even verbs at all! Yeah, verbs! Literally the most basic part of sentences, and there are sentences in T.B.O.L. that lack them.
And these are merely the problems I noticed; I can’t even fathom how many mistakes I completely missed!
I debated whether to go through T.B.O.L. and fix these issues or leave them be. Honestly, I wanted to ignore them since T.B.O.L. is finished; besides, no one would really care if I fixed those mistakes, right? … Well, no. I care. I may not like the idea of retroactively correcting mistakes I let slip through and deserved to be criticized for, but The Bonds of Love is my story, and I want it to be the best it can be.
So even though I had already spent a year of my life working on this thing, even though T.B.O.L. is done, and even though most people probably don’t care that I did it… I went through and re-edited everything as I was working on the “Writing of…”
I already revealed this when I made a Blog Post back in September, and like I said there, I didn’t change the story whatsoever. I merely made a few quality of life improvements such as corrected punctuation, added dialogue tags, verb fixes; etc. So if anyone goes back, re-reads T.B.O.L. and spots a sentence or two hundred that seems different than what you remember…? That’d be why. Here’s hoping I didn’t create any extra issues on the re-edit! 
To reiterate: The story of The Bonds of Love is exactly the same as it was before I went full Grammar Nazi on it.
Speaking of the story, how about we actually get back to that?
~ A Letter from an Empathetic Princess ~
After scrapping the “Silver’s Diary” scene, I pondered what exactly I would do for the first chapter. I still needed to continue from where I left off in A.D.F.F. and give a decent recap of what happened in that story, all while advancing the main plot.
Luckily, I may have been stupid enough to leave in present tense verbs, but I was smart enough to give myself a significantly easy method to accomplish all three goals at once!
A Day for Family ended with Gallus giving Twilight a Friendship Report, so I decided to have Twilight write him back. It’s something Twilight would realistically do and was shown doing at the end of A.D.F.F., swiftly summarized A.D.F.F.’s conflict, and helped reestablish the Gallus-Stream subplot. I even managed to sprinkle in some comedy with Twilight wanting to get Cadence a better hobby and even hinted at a future O&O scene.
Sadly, said O&O scene never came to be which sucks because I really did want to do it!
A quick romp through an imaginary adventure alongside Spike, Discord, Big Mac, and Sugar Belle? That sounded cool! Plus, having a relatively jovial scene or chapter where the characters goof off and relax in a make-believe campaign against the Squizard would have been a welcome breath of fresh air in contrast to the otherwise constant emotional drama.
Not to mention it would have given me a chance to have Big Mac/Sugar Belle give Gallus/Silverstream some couple’s advice. We could have even seen more of Spike in the story, and I think we can all agree it never hurts to see more of our brave and glorious Spikey-Wikey. 
Especially since I absolutely would have given him some one-on-one time with Gallus where he asks how he’s doing and gives him some life advice too.
Oh, and Discord would have been there too, and you know he would have messed with the campaign so Gallus could conveniently have a “Save the Princess” moment for Silverstream(Or vice-versa.).
Why’d this ultimately get cut? Two reasons:
#1) The O&O campaign kept getting buried under all the other subplots, so I kept having to postpone it until I gave up entirely and nixed it.
Pray tell, would anyone have been happy if the Smolder subplot got abruptly interrupted by something as random as an O&O chapter? I mean, I might have been able to make it work it, but still…
And #2) I considered making the O&O campaign a separate side story rather than a chapter. It would obviously be canon, but it would be entirely disconnected from the main story of T.B.O.L. and focus on Big Mac and Sugar Belle rather than Gallus and Silver.
Why in the world was this a potential thing I considered doing? Well? You have FanficReader920 to thank for that. Remember when Spike mentioned Discord messing with Sugar Belle’s mail? FanficReader920 commented on that, saying:
I smell one-shot!
That sparked the idea to turn the O&O scene into a different story, but well? Ch.6(Stagnation) happened, and… Ugh, we’ll get there. But for now, let’s just say something happened, and as a result, I’m reluctant to revisit this one-shot idea anytime soon. Sorry, FanficReader920.
Speaking of things I couldn’t include despite wanting to: Let’s circle back to Silverstream’s diary.
I may not have introduced T.B.O.L. through it, but I did want her to still have one since it would have been a great way to see even more of her inner thoughts on the Smolder situation and her annoyance with Gallus constantly postponing the 2nd Date. Conversely, we’d have also gotten more moments of her planning to make amends with her mother and fawning over what she loves most about Gallus. It also would have been a great way to recycle the scrapped “Gallus and Silver get their own Friendship Journal” idea from A.D.F.F.
This regrettably never came to be; I couldn’t even figure out how to introduce her having a diary, let alone expand upon it. Merely a missed opportunity, I suppose. The first of many…
Ah well. It’s probably better to cut something from a story rather than include and subsequently screw it up. Like with our next topic!
~ The Phantom Filly F
ck-Up ~
Why, why, WHY! Did I think Gallus talking to a hallucination was a good idea!? Oh. Right. Dialogue.
I won’t beat around the bush—“Cozy Glow” existed purely to have additional dialogue in A.D.F.F. Why? Simple. Writing 101: Show, don’t tell.
I loathed the idea of summarizing Gallus’ issues in a giant multi-paragraph exposition dump, so I opted to communicate the conflict through a confrontation instead. That way, you guys would get all that glorious character drama but through a far more engaging scenario than:
Unfortunately, Gallus was an orphan. As such, he didn’t have a family, nor had he ever had anything close to one. So seeing everycreature around him enjoying the holiday and celebrating the bonds of love he could never have…? It hurt him more than words could describe.
And while Gallus knew his friends and teachers would likely comfort him were he to tell them of his woes, he refused to say a word, lest he taint their happiness and burden them even more than he already did.
See? Same information given in a different way. A way I was directly opposed to at the time of writing A.D.F.F. Exposition like this obviously needed to happen to get the conflict started, but it came off as far too bland and uninteresting for my tastes, so I went with the “Cozy Glow” idea.
And, well, I clearly made it work! When A.D.F.F. got reviewed for Seattle’s Angels, this aspect was something FanficReader920 complimented. And since the sequel was set literally the day after that story took place, I decided to bring the concept back.
That was a mistake.
Gallus either has Schizophrenia or some other type of Multiple Personality Disorder on top of his trauma over having no family.
Matthais Unidostres said this concerning “Cozy Glow” after Ch.2(Reprieve). Remember how I said I know nothing about how therapy and psychology work? I know even less about Schizophrenia, so you can imagine my immediate dismay when the comparison was made.
I did not mean for “Cozy” to be indicative of Gallus having legitimate Schizophrenia or anything similar. Rather, “Cozy” in-universe was supposed to be exactly what Starlight suggested it was: Gallus personifying his worst thoughts and insecurities as Cozy Glow. Nothing more. Nothing less.
At least, that’s what I had intended for “Cozy” to be. But “Death of the Author” is a thing, so whatever my intentions were is ultimately irrelevant compared to what I actually did. And what I did was screw up so atrociously that it’s arguable T.B.O.L.’s Gallus is genuinely Schizophrenic when that’s not at all what I was gong for. “Cozy” was supposed to be a stress-induced figment of his imagination, not evidence he had Schizophrenia!
There’s even a precedent for this type of plot point in the show! Twilight talking to herself in “Lesson Zero” and her Magic Kindergarten nightmares, Fluttershy’s anxiety attacks in both “Hurricane Fluttershy” and “Filli Vanilli”; and Rainbow Dash seeing Applejack’s head in “Grannies Gone Wild.” Then, of course, there’s Pinkie Pie who saw small visions of her friends in “The Maud Couple” all acting opposite to their personalities—“I never learned to read!” Yeah, remember that joke?—and that’s not even counting her infamous breakdown in “Party of One.”
Why do I bring this up? Since MLP itself literally did the same stress-induced hallucination idea and played it for comedy without calling its characters’ mental status into question, I figured I could surely do the same thing and treat it as a legitimate plot point.
…
Yeah, no. No! No-no-no-no-no! Absolutely not! That was stupid of me to think that!
Instead of contemplating the risks of re-using “Cozy Glow”—such as it being construed as Schizophrenia—I justified myself with the pitiful excuse of “Well, the show did it, so I can too!”
I may be a newbie author, but that speaks volumes as to the sheer amount of ignorance, carelessness, and idiocy I had when I first began writing The Bonds of Love.
“Cozy Glow” was nothing more than an excuse to disguise exposition as dialogue. At best, it was an interesting idea with a flawed execution; at worst, it was a cheap gimmick. I just wish I didn’t go the extra mile and accidentally hint at T.B.O.L.’s Gallus having Schizophrenia… 
Granted, the concept wasn’t exactly irredeemably awful; it’s was simply a double-edged sword.
Having Gallus’ insecurities and anxieties build until they manifest into a dark, twisted voice that relentlessly assaults him until he breaks? That’s a neat idea, and not one you’d think would work with Gallus, considering he’s ordinarily a rather level-headed character, but the fact he is experiencing this hammers in both how terrible his situation truly is and how much he’s been bottling it up.
Having said voice be portrayed as a character? Much less one that seemingly embodied a near-identical personality to the psychopath it appeared as? And having Gallus engage with it as if it were a living, breathing creature, and even worse, having it respond back!? Yeah… No. No. That was absolutely, unquestionably the wrong decision.
Not counting the self-justification junk I mentioned a moment ago, I think that’s where I screwed up the most: Making “Cozy Glow” a character. If she were merely this tiny voice in the back of Gallus’ head feeding him little doubts or fears that he never spoke to, it would have been far, far better and may not have crossed into Schizophrenia territory. But nooo! I had to be grandiose and turn a hallucination into a character Gallus unironically talked with.
This plot point isn’t so terrible that T.B.O.L. is unreadable because of it, thankfully; “Cozy” is only in Ch.1(Transition) and Ch.2(Reprieve) after all, not counting Gallus’ nightmare. And in all fairness, “Cozy” did work as an effective early-story antagonist; plus, since “Cozy” was in A.D.F.F. I kinda had to include her to some degree…
Nonetheless, that’s no excuse. Just because its inclusion doesn’t ruin the story, doesn’t mean “Cozy” wasn’t a stupendous failure on my part. And for all my talk earlier about wanting to treat Gallus’ recovery with the care and respect it deserved, I failed spectacularly where this was concerned. For that, I am sorry. To everyone with issues such as Schizophrenia and the like, I am deeply sorry I misrepresented the condition to such a degree.
Let’s move onto the next, hopefully more positive topic…
~ Love Advice Is Scary. Read a Book on Evil Curses Instead! ~
Full disclosure: The Gallus-Stream setup at the end of A.D.F.F. was purely fan-service. I like the pairing, and since I had no sequel plans originally, I figured it’d be fine. Then obviously the sequel happened, so I got to address that setup! So what better way to kick off the romance plot than with Gallus being utterly terrified to so much as touch the love advice he asked for?
To my knowledge, the show never gave Gallus or Silverstream any genuinely romantic moments—No, I’m not counting their hug in “What Lies Beneath”—either between them or any other characters. With that in mind, I opted to make their romance-less…ness a plot point with neither of them having any clue how to go about it.
This was what inspired the decision to have Gallus ask for help on the matter, and since Cadence is the Princess of Love, it was obvious he’d ask her for advice specifically. Also, Cadence barely got anything in the show, so I thought it appropriate to give her some of the appreciation she was unjustly robbed of.
But this is only the first chapter, and I was going for a slower paced story. And Gallus was still at a very low point in both his life and character development, sooo…? I took advantage of that and had him scamper off to the next main scene and far away from the love advice.
Why did I have him run off to the library specifically? Once again, for two reasons:
#1) Ocellus. I needed to introduce her into the story, and where else would she show up but the library?
And #2) “Cozy Glow”! Yep, we’re talking about her again; I’m sorry, but she’s such a prevalent part of these first two chapters that I have to.
Like the complete dunderhead I was when first writing this story, I was completely oblivious to the Schizophrenia implications she imposed, but I was aware I was characterizing the brat a little too well. Unfortunately, I was only concerned with preemptively clarifying “No, this isn’t really Cozy screwing with Gallus from beyond her petrified grave; this is actually Gallus’ issues reaching a breaking point.”
Basically, I wanted to avoid this:
Wait, so Cozy Glow, a literal child who lacks innate magical abilities, was able to speak to Gallus through the ether because he… entered her old room? Somehow she knows all the details about his past and his anger despite never being close enough to him to get this sort of information? And he just sat there and spilled his guts at length to her when she was being openly antagonistic and cruel to him?
I don’t buy it, man.
That’s part of the comment Jack of a Few Trades left on A.D.F.F., and we’ll certainly discuss the rest of their comment later. But for now, yeah.
The idea Cozy was somehow responsible for hurting Gallus was lazy, stupid, disrespectful, contrived, and worst of all, would have turned her into a scapegoat for his every problem. As such, I didn’t want to leave any implications she was real or the true cause of his breakdown.
That said? The idea Gallus would want to scapegoat his problems onto her and not face the terrifying prospect that he needed serious help? That seemed like a good plot point, and he is a smart enough character to consider the possibility of magic being at play in his situation.
So off to the library we go! Well? After taking a minute to needlessly(And boringly) describe the school cleaning up after the Friends and Family Day Festival, anyway.
Even though I obviously wasn’t going to have dark magic be at play in the story, I’m a bit bummed I didn’t let Gallus read that book he found. I like writing about complex magic rules, explanations, and whatnot, but that stuff was unnecessary so the book fell to the wayside.
That’s all I really have to say about that stuff, so let’s move on.
~ Gallus Is as Bad At Faking Being Fine as I Am At Writing Comedy ~
For the story to go forward, the rest of the Student Six needed to learn about Gallus’ breakdown since they didn’t already know, but there was no way he’d willingly tell them about it anytime soon.
Despite this, I was determined to include Gallus spending time with the others in this chapter, resulting in me stalling the plot slightly. And by “stall” I mean: Lay the groundwork for the Science Fair subplot and establish Yona’s seamstress gig.
I first want to deeply apologize for that horrendous “Ocellus smells like fireworks” joke. Goodness, that was cringeworthy. It was a quick, one-off joke at the end of A.D.F.F. and I guess it was okay there, but trying to bring it back and keep it as a reoccurring gag? Ugh, what was I thinking? 
Speaking of Ocellus, would you believe the Science Fair subplot only exists because I needed a reason for her to be in the library at the same time as Gallus? Because that’s what happened.
For every idea or story beat, I would do everything I could to determine how it would realistically play out.
To use this particular instance as an example:
Question: “Gallus is in the library, but I don’t want him to read the dark magic book and accidentally hint “Cozy” might genuinely be some stupid, shark-jumping nonsense. What do I do?”
Answer: “Ocellus is the group’s main bookworm, so it would be a natural way to introduce her to the story.”
Q: “But why would Ocellus be in the library at that specific point in time?”
A: “She’s working on an assignment.”
Q: “What assignment?”
A: “The students definitely weren’t given any homework to do over the course of Friends and Family Day, so her project would have to be something special necessitating the extra work, maybe something magic-related? It should also be something directly tying into her character and passions.”
Q: “A science project then. But how would Gallus get in on it?”
A: “He would volunteer to help.”
Q: “But if this is a normal science project, why wasn’t Gallus already supposed to do one?”
A: “We can hint he was supposed to do one, but it wasn’t something he was taking too seriously—*Cough* The cup of dirt joke. *Cough* Furthermore, the project could be extracurricular. Not necessarily extra credit, but something not all the students have to do.”
Q: “So not a science project, but rather…?”
A: “A science FAIR project.”
This is far from the only time I went through the “How do I make this happen realistically?” debate. Yes, that level of attention to detail is entirely par for the course when crafting a world and having it progress in a believable manner, but eh. I figured I’d mention it.
Plus, I’m still a rookie author, so I’m gonna take pride in whatever successes I made in my writing, even if it’s just following the basics. Sue me.
In the midst of setting up the Science Fair subplot, I decided to inject a bit of levity—and a minor timeline issue we’ll discuss later—before circling back to Gallus running away from his friends and bottling up his problems once more.
Again, sorry for that stupid firework joke… Totally not sorry for those cup and jar of dirt jokes though; I love both that cup of dirt animation and Pirates of the Caribbean scene so dang much. Nor am I sorry for the Hot Cocoa is Illegal in Yakyakistan reference either; in fact, I considered referencing all of the other stories from Miller Minus’ Young Six contest throughout T.B.O.L. as a fun nod to it for sparking this whole story, but that sadly didn’t pan out.
Another fun fact: That Shadow Pyre being the “Father of Necromancy” joke? There’s a story behind that. Literally. Before I debuted on Fimfic, I wrote a story featuring that character. It was mostly for writing practice and to have some fun playing around with necromancy as a story element. It’s also trash.
But we can’t keep the bad jokes running forever, so Smolder pops up, meaning Gallus can’t go double-check if Cozy really did curse him which, of course, re-stresses him out.
After a brief hint toward Ocellus’ emotion-reading spell, Gallus flees, and just like Silverstream before them, Smolder and Ocellus both realize something’s wrong. Same goes for Yona and Sandbar later on.
This was something I intended right from the get-go.
Originally, the rest of the Student Six were going to learn of Gallus’ breakdown in A.D.F.F. but that didn’t happen, leaving Silverstream to be the only one who knew. That said, if the others had known what was going on, they’d have all tried to help him, so now that they were finally spending time with him, they’d naturally pick up on the same signs Silver did.
I clearly couldn’t let them know all the details yet, but it would have been a crime against their characters if they were completely clueless to Gallus being in such obvious distress. They’re his family after all.
I have nothing to say about that closet panic attack scene other than that all those “Coward. Yada-yada-yada…” lines were me being “fancy” and referencing the Elements of Disharmony concept.
I also have nothing to say about the Yona/Sandbar/Gallus scene; it exists primarily to establish both Yona’s apprenticeship to Rarity and Sandbar’s “Accidentally makes things worse without realizing it” flaw, and to give them a turn to be clued into Gallus’ issues.
I wish I had gotten to show more of Yona-Bar though; you’d think I would have done more with them considering they’re the other major couple, and it would have been cool to contrast their relationship with Gallus-Stream. However, Sandbar isn’t part of the Drama Club arc, and since we launched straight into the Science Fair subplot after that, it resulted in most of their appearances being apart from each other.
On a brighter note, I do adore what I did with them while they were on-screen together since I sold their relationship very well too. Shame I couldn’t have given it more prominence.
~ Let the Therapy Commence! ~
At this point in the story, I felt Gallus still wouldn’t feel ready to talk to Starlight, so I had him hide far away from the school. Thankfully, one more “What is wrong with me?” monologue later, we get introduced to…!
Derpy/Ditsy being the third member of Gallus and Silver’s laser tag team was yet another one-off joke in A.D.F.F. I brought back for the sequel.
This was the only chance I’d have to use Derpy/Ditsy, and since Gallus only needed one last push to finally give up and talk to Starlight, I went with her.
And since I still have no clue what her canonical name was, I had Gallus call her “Mrs. D/Mrs. Doo” the entire time. Seriously, is her canon name “Derpy,” “Ditsy Doo,” or “Muffin”? 
There’s also one of those “Panicked over-corrections” I mentioned earlier in this scene.
You know how Derpy/Ditsy sought Gallus out because she delivered more of Cadence’s letters to his room? I only threw that in there to explain why she was around to talk to Gallus. Then right before I posted Ch.1(Transition) I realized, “Oh crap! Cadence could teleport her letters to Gallus like Twilight and Celestia did for each other; why would Cadence send him anything through the normal postal service!?” Thus, she express-shipped it to him overnight. It’s a relatively minor example of that over-correction problem, but it’s definitely not the only one.
Onto the real therapy scene!
Surprisingly, I don’t have much to say about this scene either. I’ve already noted how I had no real experience with therapy, so I was mostly winging this entire scene in an effort to:
#1) Show Gallus finally getting some genuine, albeit unprofessional therapy.
And #2) Show he’s making more progress despite the many issues he still has.
I think I did those two things rather well, both here and in the other counseling scenes. But other than that, I’ve nothing more to talkabout here.
The only other thing I have yet to discuss is Starlight’s role, but I’m gonna save that discussion for when we get to Ch.2(Reprieve). Same thing goes for Smolder—For obvious reasons, I’ll be going over her role once we get to Ch.8(Tension) and Ch.9(Fear).
Speaking of Smolder, I may not have wanted Gallus to spill the beans earlier, but I definitely didn’t want to drag the revelation out for longer than necessary. As such, I had Silverstream recount A.D.F.F. to their friends off-screen and ended the chapter with them confronting Gallus about it.
This confrontation mostly served as a glimpse into how the others were going to react to Gallus’ breakdown moving forward. Admittedly, I do regret neither showing Silver telling the others about what happened, nor having Smolder or Yona openly think to ask Silver what was going on. Considering how I played this last scene out, they wouldn’t really have been needed, but it would have been nice. I also wish I had given Silver more screentime in this chapter, but I was still focusing predominantly on Gallus’ P.O.V. At least I rectified that later.
So! That was Ch.1(Transition).
…
Goodness gracious, this chapter sucks. 
For a first chapter pulling quadruple duty of introducing the main characters, setting up the story going forward, recapping its predecessor’s plot, and doing all this while telling its own self-contained story…? It’s… Fine.
I personally dislike Ch.6(Stagnation) more, but I think Ch.1(Transition) is legitimately the worst chapter of The Bonds of Love. Which doubly sucks because this was the first chapter; therefore, it should have represented the quality of the rest of T.B.O.L. But no. It’s almost pure garbage, and I can’t help but understand why, according to the statistics, so many people dropped T.B.O.L. after this chapter.
I am thankful this was the chapter I screwed up most and not Ch.9(Fear) or Ch.12-13(Serenity), but that’s a small comfort.
Anywho, now that we've reached the end of this part of the discussion, here's the Google Doc link for the entire "Writing of..." for those who wish to read beyond this portion of it.
I hope you're all having a great day and enjoying this commentary so far!
Next time! We discuss Chapter Two(Reprieve), and with it, the single greatest cut subplot from all of T.B.O.L. Tune in next Friday, Saturday, or Sunday to see just what that may have been.
~ Additional Tidbits ~
— 1) I considered adding the Drama tag to this story because of all the, well, emotional drama that happens; however, I decided against it ‘cause beyond that, I’m not entirely certain if T.B.O.L. qualifies as that particular genre.
— 2) Throughout T.B.O.L. I never figured out if I should write the possessive form of Gallus as Gallus’ or Gallus’s, so you’ll occasionally see a moment where I clearly went out of my way to avoid facing the debate.
— 3) Funny story regarding all those lines dedicated to describing Starlight’s office.
In-universe, they’re Gallus’ last attempt to put off his counseling via focusing on literally everything but his counselor. However, they’re also a bit of self-deprecation.
In previous stories, I described things so blandly and matter-of-factly that it utterly ruined the scenes in question, but despite recognizing the issue, the drive to describe in such a way remained. So when I found myself looking up pictures of Starlight’s office and itching to describe every single inch of its appearance…? Well, I saw the perfect opportunity to do exactly that, while still having a laugh at myself via making the overly specific descriptions be a proper plot point.
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Oh! That third one hits real close to home for me. Great use of your own past weaknesses! And a nice little jab at your own writing.
A long time ago, I used to have problems with writing in too much purple prose for no good reason. That was the biggest criticism my group of editor friends used to give me. And though I could not shake my pension for it, eventually I made an entire story whose purpose lay in purple prose, and it worked out fantastically. Still my favorite story I wrote to date.
Sometimes, all we need is a shift in perspective!