Problem? Bored. Solution? AMA Time. · 10:21pm Aug 9th, 2013
So yeah, I'm still thinking about how I'm going to put Chapter 19 of Snow and Shadows together, and since I always take a day off from writing after posting a chapter, I have nothing of real interest to do. Therefore, I figure some of you people probably have questions, whether about my work or about me in general, and I figure I'll answer them. Because what could possibly go wrong?
I'll just give you a fair warning, asking about spoilers for future chapters of either mine or LoyalLiar's works will be met with an explosion of appropriate size. I will be more than happy to discuss why I did things in previous chapters, however.
Now, I know I have 89 followers, and some of you probably have burning questions you want to ask me. So, ask me anything!
EDIT: This thing will go on for as long as you guys got questions to ask me, so don't feel shy or not say anything because you're worried it's "too late". There's never a such thing as too late.
Why are you so terribly fantastically awesomely evilly conflictingly cruel?
And how do you put so much emotion onto your writing?
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Because honestly every author likes to get reactions for their work. CRY FOR ME, MY PRETTIES
But seriously, I'm more of a fan of dark or bittersweet endings as opposed to the happy ones. I like putting the heroes through the wringer and seeing just how much they can take before they break. Being an avid reader, I want to see my characters succeed. Being a writer, I want to make it difficult. Sometimes, that means that they die. When that happens, believe me, I'm right alongside you guys in the feels.
That's probably why I'm able to put so much emotion into my writing, because I love the characters just as much as you all do. I built them from the ground up, gave them names and personalities, and guided them through their journeys. They're like children to me, and when I write a sad scene, I make sure it stings me as well. That's how I know I'm doing it right.
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I don't know why, but I love torturing myself with sad scenes.
I know that a story is good when I actually cry from a scene.
Usually accompanied by a comment such as this:
But it always impresses me that people can do that.
No matter how [conflicting adjectives] cruel they must be to do so.
I'm just going to assume *explosion* as the answer to all of the things I'd like answers to.
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Can't help you about that, anything through S&S 18 is fair game though
How is it that you are able to put out consistently good writing at very regular intervals? I mean, as a writer myself, I know there really is no such thing as a "secret to good writing", but still, how do you motivate yourself to keep writing. I've tried, and I've never been pleased with the results I get when I try to write when I'm not in "the zone".
-C.Storm.
How do you come up with your OC's? I mean do you just make an OC and fit it into the story or do you base it on how you want the story to go?
Also do you like riddles?
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It really is all about being in the zone. I can't write well if I'm distracted or tired, and I frankly just don't try when I am. When I do write, I try to clear a spot on my schedule where I can sit down and focus.
There are three things I do when I write to make sure that I've got a good batch of words when I'm done:
1) Set myself a limit. When I write, I tell myself "I'm going to write X many words today." Usually, that number is at least 2,000 words OR one scene. I don't stop writing and don't give myself opportunity to do other things until I hit one of those two benchmarks.
2) Plan out what I'm going to write. I usually know exactly what scene I'm going to write and how it will unfold before I even get to it. Having that sort of road map really helps cut down on the time spent scratching my head on what to do next, and I can focus on filling up the word quota with fine brushstrokes as opposed to throwing paint at the wall and hoping something comes out of it.
3) Musik. As I'm sure you know, I started attaching music links to my stories every scene/major event. These aren't just random; when I'm writing that scene/event, that is the song I am listening to over and over and OVER again on youtuberepeater.com. Sometimes, setting yourself an atmosphere when you're trying to write gives you the inspiration you need to carry on.
Hope that helps!
24
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Most of the time I come up with OCs on the spot, with a few exceptions. Obviously, Swift Spear, Silver Sword, Typhoon and Cyclone were planned out, because I needed them as pivotal characters from which I could hang the story around. Other characters, such as Diadem and Warlord Halite, were summoned during one of my lucid writing sessions and stuck with me. I can tell you, both of those characters did not exist in my prewrite or in my mind until I actually put them down on digital paper.
The most I involve myself in an OC during its creation is trying to get in my mind what they look like and get a sense for why I want them there. For example, let's go with Warlord Halite. He showed up because I needed some way to get Platinum and Clover to a common area that Hurricane, Pan Sea, Puddinghead, and Smart Cookie all were coming to as well. Why is he a warlord? Because obviously a group of barbarians out in the wilderness needs some leader. Why does he seem much more intelligent than the barbarians around him? Because I needed a pony to rally a challenge for our dear adventurers and serve as a kind of "Half-Boss" in the progression of their arc. Halite's personality and relation towards Commander Jade fleshed themselves out as I needed them to.
Basically what I just spent that last wall of text saying is that the good OCs develop themselves, whether or not you actively try to. All you need to do at the time of their creation is ask why they're there and what their relation to the story/characters present is. With time, as they interact with your hero/villain, they'll come to have a life of their own. It's one of those weird quirks of writing that just sort of... happens.
For your last question, this is what happened the last time someone presented me with a riddle:
Happy to answer your quesitons!
24
Any specific inspirations for your works?
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Thanks for the advice! Keep being awesome!
-C.Storm.
P.S. I definitely agree that listening to music helps.
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First, and this goes without saying, is the Hearth's Warming episode. The idea for this trilogy first started because after I saw that ancient pegasi were basically Romans, and being fiercely proud of my Italian and Roman heritage, not to mention pegasi being awesome, I really wanted to expand on the ideas the show presented. It's obviously a very pivotal time in the history of Equestria from what little the episode showed, but that was just it; it was too little. Therefore, I made it my mission to expand on this little sliver of the show that, to the best of my knowledge, not many authors have ever touched.
I can't really say I have any specific inspirations for my works; it's more like a collection of different story elements I've seen from games, movies, other stories, etc. Playing games like Battlefield 3 and Total War, along with countless documentaries on the military channel, gave me a sense of how soldiers interacted on the battlefield. Skyrim was a huge inspiration in creating the setting and atmosphere of my stories, especially Of Skies Long Forgotten. Also [inbound plug detected], Loyal Liar's stories gave me several ideas for characters and a general sense of how to write that really helped me get started. Yes, Loyal, I used the way you write as a reference several times in the creation of OSLF to see how exactly I should word my stuff.
The other key inspiration to my stories is this one simple fact: History is wrong. It's biased, it's incomplete, and the real story is often much more interesting than what gets published in the final papers. The entire reason I wanted to cover Hearth's Warming was because, looking at it from an analytical perspective and as something much deeper than what it was for its intended audience, there's no possible way in all hell/Tartarus that resolving a crisis as deeply rooted as that would ever be that simple. Call me out or whatever for ripping apart the logic of a damned children's show, but I decided to look at the context of that episode as a mature story, something that would actually happen in the real world with quasi-real socioeconomics. And that's why I committed over 215,000 words to a simple 22 minute episode about pastel horses.
tl;dr Don't always trust what the history books tell you, the truth is often far more interesting and I felt the need to draw it out of the Hearth's Warming episode with a damned trilogy about Commander Hurricane.
Hope I overwhelmed your simple question with way more text than you probably thought you were going to receive,
24
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I actually had the same thought while watching the episode that the story told was a simplification of a much larger conflict, that's exactly how I found your fic!
Also I'm glad you decided to elaborate on my question
If this is still going, I have a couple for ya.
1) Why did you reveal Pansy might be alive at the end of the last chapter? Hinting that he might have been still alive, but not confirming it, seems more like something I would have expected. Just curious.
2) Zebras. I look forward to seeing if you ever put out any epic zebra history stories. There really aren't a lot.
Hi, a couple of questions I'd like to ask:
1) Did you base Silver Sword's final fight off a Jackie Chan movie? Because I'm quite sure it was fairly reminiscent of one scene where he fights off a bajillion enemiy soldiers by himself though heavily injured and dies to the enemy commander in the end.
2) Why did you choose to kill off Swift Spear?
3) I'm currently writing a sci-fi crossover fic with Halo. Do you have any advice on how to inject emotion into characters without making it over dramatic? And also, is there a way to provide backstory and information without going into an infodump? I understand you haven't written any crossovers before but those two sub-questions seem appropriate.
Thanks for your attention and offer to answer these questions!
Pega-ace
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Number 1:
Number 2: I'm not really sure about putting out an "epic zebra history story", as you put it. I'm sure they're fun to write for, but the tribalism and all that goes around that isn't really my cup of tea. Call me biased towards western culture and war (because ponies are basically the west anyway), but I prefer writing for that style much more. If you want stuff with Zebras, check out Where Loyalties Lie: Honor Guard. It's got a few chapters of nice zebra stuff that will hopefully keep you satisfied, and goes more in-depth with their culture than I could ever be bothered to.
And yes, as a note for everyone else, this thing will be going on for until you run out of questions for me. It's not like I'm being swarmed that I have to put a time limit on it, I can do a few at a time with ease.
24
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1): Silver Sword's death was strongly influenced by Boromir's death in the Fellowship of the Ring. It's about as heroic of a last stand as you can get, and unbelievably badass:
2):
The only thing I'll say about killing her off is that I wasn't too thrilled to do it, but it was necessary for the next book.
3): My best advice is focus on building the characters first and hang off on the emotion and drama until later. People aren't going to particularly care if something bad happens to a central character if they don't really feel like they know that person inside and out. As for the characters' emotions themselves, you have to think about how the character would react in a given situation, and let them "write themselves", as it were. Don't force them to say things they wouldn't say or do things they wouldn't do, because readers will pick up on that and the character will only seem to be phony. Want to show that a character is a hothead? Put him/her in a situation where they recklessly endanger the lives of others because of their actions. Want to show that a character has lingering damage to their psyche from some past event? Put them in a situation where they're force to relive parts of that without ever directly telling the other characters. Characterization is largely done by setting, not narrative. If people see how your characters feel and think as opposed to being told, the characters become a lot more believable.
How to avoid exposition and backstory without an info dump? There are a few key ways to fix this problem. They are:
-Conversation: Characters can talk with each other about themselves or things that happened. It's a fairly easy method, and allows you to cover broad events generally. However, do to the nature of conversation and banter, it tends to bog down if you're attempting to discuss something specific in great detail.
-Flashback: This is one of the better ways to convey information about a specific event in the past that happened to a character or group of people. It's a story in its own right, complete with narrative and dialogue, but it fails to cover general or long events because of its selectivity.
-Piece by Piece: This is one of the more interesting methods that kind of combines the two mentioned above. It lets you drag out backstory over several chapters, giving the audience little hints of what exactly happened either through dialogue, narrative, or flashbacks. A few hints per chapter about some key event that happened in a character's past without actually saying what it is at once is a good way to keep readers engaged as they try to unravel the mystery.
As with any of these, however, make sure you use them conservatively. Resorting to dialogue or flashbacks (flashbacks especially) as a means to convey information in too dense of a time frame leaves a sour taste in your readers' mouths. In such a case, it becomes almost as bad as info dumps, and you're not doing yourself any favors. Mix and match with the three and try to keep it fresh, and you'll avoid creating an exposition deathtrap.
Thank you for your questions,
24
First, I offer my praises on "Of Skies Long Forgotten". I'm really looking forward to reading the sequel, "Snow and Shadows". This leads to the story related question. Any idea when it will be complete? (This may have been answered already, but I didn't see it in the comments anywhere. I might have missed it, and I apologize if I did.)
I'm holding off on starting it until then so I don't have to stop halfway through. I read pretty fast ("Of Skies Long Forgotten" only took me 3 or 4 hours...) and your stuff is good enough to be throughly engrossing. Very real characters, well developed plots, and *squeals like a filly* PROPER GRAMMAR! It's so rare in modern society as to be worthy of comment. I blame text messages.
And now another question just for the sake of randomness and completely unrelated to anything story-wise. If given the choice between a box of Derpy's homemade muffins, a 300-foot tall inflatable statue Princess Luna on your roof, or a date night of undisclosed nature with Roseluck (she gets to decide the venue and/or activities), which would you pick?
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I'm not 24th, but I'd probably choose the date, if for nothing more than shirking my responsibilities.
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Having known 24, I have a feeling he'd pick the Luna.
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Thank you! I always appreciate it when people like you come out and say how much you like my stories. It gives me that warm tingly feeling inside.
I'm going to be working my ass off to try and get Snow and Shadows reasonably close to being finished by August 20th, as that's when I go off to college. Regardless, the majority of the plot is pretty much done, with just a chapter needed for closure. So you don't have to fear, it should be done sometime soon.
Also, give me Luna. I shirk responsibilities enough as it is, and even if it isn't a Cadence statue (yes, I have a soft spot for our pretty pink princess, perhaps even more so than the sisters), it's still magnificent.
Thank you for your questions!
24
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I'll do my best to input your suggestions into my fic.
Thanks for answering my questions.
P.S If you've read the books, I think his book death is better than the movie one. Eowyn's battle with the Ringwraith and Gandalf's with the Balrog were also good.
P.P.S Silver Sword beats them all. Good job.
How would you react if there was an episode of the show where Pinkie Pie turned into a whale?
But for a more serious question, what would your life be like right now if MLP: FiM never became popular?
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A lot more boring, to say the least. About 30% of my time nowadays is spent around pony related stuff, with most of that being writing, but also reading fanfics, watching videos, and organizing other various MLP related events.
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He killed off Swift Spear so that in book 3 when Hurricane meets Celestia and Luna he falls madly in love with Luna. Then when he inevitably dies (cause everypony dies eventually) Luna is SO heartbroken that she slowly succumbs to her grief and is driven to the madness known as Nightmare Moon.
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You forgot the part where they go off and save Equestria from changelings through the power of love and donuts, because who doesn't love donuts?
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I am laughing so hard, but only 24 and you know why. I love editing 24's work, just so I get to know things like this.
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Why thank you, 24.
Also, a legit question for an AMA, even if I already know the answer:
Apart from 'Part 3' of the OSFL/S&S saga, what works can the delightful individuals in this comment thread look forward to from you?
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This is why I love my job.
For your serious question, I'm going to be trying my hand at a slice-of-life, alternate universe style fic that I'm really excited to be working on. There'll be considerably less death, and in fact, it has nothing to do with Cirra or any of the nations I've built up; it's entirely separate from all of that in just about every way, shape, or form. It focuses on Rainbow Dash and the ponies around her. And Discord. he's in there too. In fact, I've already written 3 chapters plus a prologue for the thing so far, and let me tell you, I am loving it. The change of pace and mood is so refreshing.
For everyone else out there that doesn't have access to our super secret google docs folder of secrets, let me just know that you'll see this story after Snow and Shadows is finished. And when Ruirik gets me cover art. Because he's a kind and generous soul who does these things from the bottom of his infinite heart and love for all things and all the tiny fuzzy woodland critters around.
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That's nice to know. LUNA IS BEST PONY!!!!!!!! WGTGFTEYWGFTGWTGFYWEYBDYQGTWGFYBEUHUWYEGYFGWEYGFYWGFTYQQQQFHHQGUNJNKMXKGEWFIUQFOQJOEPFQEIINXKMZNXGWYTEVFETEQDVQBNIUCN
"Clonks on head"
"Ahem"
Anyway, I eagerly look forward to seeing your next story. All the best for your writing!
if you were a famous person/pony who whold you be?
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Famous person? Hmmm... Probably good ol' RDJ (Robert Downey Jr), because the man's just a total boss all around, and is absolutely amazing on the silver screen.
Famous Pony? They'd have to be a pegasus of some kind, and I really don't feel like being Commander Hurricane, despite how awesome he is. There's not much fun about seeing everybody you know and love die around you all the time.
So who does that leave? I guess the Wonderbolts and Rainbow Dash, really. So I mean, I wouldn't complain too much if I was RD or Spitfire or Soarin'.