• Member Since 13th Feb, 2012
  • offline last seen 2 hours ago

Void Chicken


I wrote a horse story once.

More Blog Posts14

  • 223 weeks
    It's That Time Again

    Remember that cute Raridash I wrote? If you don't, or maybe just never got around to it, feel free to give it a read:

    EFeathers Are in Style
    Pretending to be somepony's marefriend can be fun. Becoming that pony's marefriend can be fulfilling.
    Void Chicken · 34k words  ·  150  10 · 3.2k views

    Read More

    0 comments · 220 views
  • 370 weeks
    Feathers Are in Style Deleted Scene

    Hey there loyal readers and stumblers-on. If you haven't read Feathers Are in Style Chapter 4 (On Pinions and Needles), then go do that first.

    Read More

    1 comments · 523 views
  • 528 weeks
    From the Rejected Pile, Part 2

    Or: I Actually Wanted to Write This One Someday

    Three Sisters
    Apparently there's a somewhat popular fic called that so I'd have had to have changed it at some point.

    This one was inspired by another fic. I liked the headcanon so much I wanted to give my take on it. Then season 4 happened, completely destroying the premise.

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    7 comments · 695 views
  • 528 weeks
    From the Rejected Pile, Part 1

    Or: Void Got Bored and Made a Silly Blog Post

    As part of the "Void Procrastinates on Writing an Actual Story" series, I figured I'd ramble on a few ideas that I came up with, but never wrote for some reason or another.

    If any of my plucky readers want to take one of these and run with it, feel free. Non-plucky readers need not apply.

    A Thing I Never Got a Title for

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    1 comments · 705 views
  • 532 weeks
    Void Takes a Long Time to Write Something Short

    It's been, what, close to a year?

    But like the title implies, I am back in business peddling my horse stories on the side of the metaphorical road. Or one horse story, at any rate. The point is, expect something new in the next few days.

    Rainbow Dash will die in the first scene. It's a comedy.

    Coming Soon: Rainbownomicon

    7 comments · 712 views
Jan
25th
2013

A Chapter to Forget · 4:54am Jan 25th, 2013

So as more than a few commenters have pointed out, the latest chapter of Three Hundred and Fifty kinda sucked. As I consider it to be the most significant chapter in the story, next to perhaps the ending, this ain't acceptable.

I think I just got too eager to hit those particular scenes/lines and forgot to, you know, properly tell the story. Yeah yeah I know some earlier parts have issues too. I'll fix those eventually.

So I'm going back and re-doing that thing. The chapter will stay up in the meantime for the hell of it, but at some point it'll get unpublished and replaced.

Things to change (more of a note to self than anything else):
Properly foreshadow/address Twilight's neglect, i.e. make a nice fluff scene andor chapter to show that off in. More rehearsal perhaps? Definitely partway into our eight month gap. Take the opportunity to have some mother/daughter bonding too somehow.
Delay Sweetie's forgiveness of Twilight and extend out the 'I love you' part somehow. See if I can squeeze more feels from that stone.
Drop Sweetie's 'admittance' to the time travelling, kick that can down to another chapter (likely the next one) where I can handle it better. I already have something in mind and half-started in the gdoc.

So yeah. If there are any more suggestions from the peanut gallery my lovely audience on potential improvements, now's a swell time.

Sorry for the delays this'll cause.

Report Void Chicken · 671 views · Story: Three Hundred and Fifty ·
Comments ( 14 )

I thought it was really good, I suppose forgiveness and neglect could be longer but still.... OH well.

I think you should bring me on as a pre-reader... No? Oh well worth a try

I still like the whole premise of your story, and find it quite enjoyable as it is. Improvements? Sure, why not? :twilightsmile:

My suggestion? Don't field very many suggestions. This is your story; tell it the way you want it to be told. If you have a pre-reader or editor, that's another thing. But fielding from the peanut gallery can get troublesome.

I don't think it sucked at all. And I'm sure the rest of those who may have mentioned some things also didn't think you sucked with the chapter. It was a good chapter. And I think the awesomeness was what highlighted so many shortcomings :P

I actually really liked the offhand "I'm a timetraveller and founder of the Cutie Mark Crusaders" thing. At first, I was shocked and thought you were going to go the bad writing route and have her really explain everything, but it ended as a joke, and I think was of great importance to highlight the frustration of keeping that secret. Twilight Sparkle has Princess Celestia to talk to about her homesickness. Sweetie Belle only has Twilight, who is in the same position.

Maybe that's how Twilight has neglected her, too? That they haven't been talking about adjusting to being in the future, to missing their friends/family, even though it's clearly on Twilight's mind constantly.

749540
*hisses and recoils*

749583 I know, I'm a horrible person.

My thoughts on it are this:

Yes it was the weakest chapter thusfar. 4-6 were a lot better.

No, I do not think it is worth taking a whole bunch of time out to change it.

You are moving along at a good clip and enjoying what you are doing. Spending a bunch of time and delaying where you want the story to go for the sake of editing will only hurt things in the long run.

If you want to change things // improve stuff, sure, but it is not necessary to do it now. We have all read the chapter in question and I for one would rather read a new chapter than a fixed old chapter. The time for fixing a weak middle chapter of a story is after the whole story is completed. Then you can go back and fix it.

749597
Heh. I'm sure you're fine, but trust me, you don't want this job. I mean, Void's a great guy, but sometimes he loses his temper and then... well, I still have whip-marks...:fluttercry:

749607 I've only had easy people to work with so far... I work security for a living, he's got nothing.

Oh and thank you for one other thing with it. I said before that we have very similar writing styles and right now I am working on chapter 2 of a fic of my own. What you wrote in chapter 7 actually made me take more caution with some of what I am writing currently because I noticed just what mistakes you made in this chapter vs the last few and I did not want to make the same ones(which could have happened in spots). As such it was a help.

As much as I would like to say that the chapter didn't have too many flaws, I will say that you have a good point, Void. The structure of the chapter could definitely use improvement, particularly the big reveal of where and when Sweetie Belle is from. As a founder of the CMC, I would think she could lay out the origins of the group quite well...

Try to flesh out the scene of her big reveal in a way that leaves readers satisfied with the way it was presented. Personally, I think it would surprise readers more if the other three crusaders actually found a way to spend time with Sweetie Belle and earn their cutie marks right alongside her. You don't even have to permanently put them into the story; just find a way to make a temporal rift in the space/time continuum that allows them to be together as a group for a short period of time, be it a day, or a week, or even a month. It'd be an interesting twist to the story. Heck, it would allow Twilight to come up with an idea of how to get back to their time period if you haven't figured out that little detail yet.

Okay, I think I've probably said enough; just wanted to convey an idea that I'd love to see in the story. Heck, unless the crusaders actually get their cutie marks, this could be canon material. Come to think of it, the future might even inspire them to work harder and found the group that exists in the current time line, not to mention stand up to DT and SS without the support of their levelheaded friend. Hope to see how you improve the approach of Sweetie's big reveal soon!

The neglect was heavily implied to be coming, I don't think you need to change that, but you could make it clearer. As for the gap, well it didn't seem that unreasonable to me, but I'm currently writing something with Celestia that is currently at the point where there are decades between some scenes so, yea.

The pacing was a little fast I guess, but it didn't bother me. As for forgiveness being fast, it should be, maybe you just need to describe it more. I dunno.

Awwww, but that line where she admits the time travel thing was so great. Especially since of course they didn't take it seriously. It's then tons funnier when you seriously deal with it. "That was the truth?"

Things to make better if you now simply have to (I'm a great hater of re-writing, it mixes up everything):
How Sweetie explains the reason she's in there.
Apple Critter should calm the fuck down! Didn't Sweetie just say she lost pretty much everything.
Sweetie felt a little left out of conversations anyway...

Everything doesn't bother me at all, and never did those things up there ^^^, I gave just a couple of suggestions.

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