Oof, Help peoples? · 11:24am Nov 4th, 2013
Someone brought up something lately which I'm having a terrible time unclogging from my brain.
Starlight is awfully long. I mean, it's REALLY long. Not Project Horizons long, but long. We're about half-way through the planned story at this point, and it's LONG. There's just a lot there. Ton of content.
We didn't know this going in and half the fun has been coming up with new places and characters for you guys every month. Sometimes it's stronger, sometimes it's weaker. It depends on how much time Kasen and I have to devote each chapter, but it's all for nothing if people are getting confused or we're losing the impact. I don't know how to restore that if it's being lost and it's just a LONG story. We've got a lot to go.
I started Starlight to teach myself to write, and I've learned more about writing from this than about anything I've ever done. I want to FINISH it, though. Not so much be done with it. I want to finish it, eventually. I don't want it to be another in a list of half completed projects. I want Starlight Over Detrot to have an ending.
If you have any suggestions, encouragement, or thoughts, send'em my way. I could really use them. Might just be the winter getting to me.
-Chessie
But you've already had an Act One that was the size of a book, culminating with the hero getting killed of all things. Don't worry! You'll do fine.
It's really, really obvious that there's an ending waiting. It has to do with the solution of the initial murder, and whoever is behind the scenes and so powerful they can scare the King of Ace, and I have no reason to doubt the story is going somewhere.
You're FINE.
1480812 Flerble. Thanks AJinx. I think I just really needed to hear that. S'onea those nights, yahknow?
-Chessie
1480824
Tell me about it. I just updated, and somepony is hacking the site so now the latest reader comment and THE CHAPTER is replaced with nothing but the words 'DON'T BAN KAIDANN'.
Starlight is great by any standards, but as a first story it's fantastic. The characters are diverse, flawed individuals wading through a strange and ever-changing setting. It's one of my favorite stories on this site and one of very few that I read as it's posted, as apposed to waiting for it to finish as I do with most. I don't know if people have been complaining to you, but I can say that personally I haven't been confused or bored by the story yet.
Just keep doing whatever you're doing, because I think it's working.
I think Starlight is a great story, and I love it. But it has noticeable problems.The biggest issue I have with it is its uneven pace. Now I don't mind a story being long but too long with too much in it leans toward overload. And if reading feels like it takes longer than it should that can be a problem. (Or maybe that's just how I read it)
For an example, lets use a fic that is twice as long as Starlight is now Capn' Chryssalid's This Platinum Crown. This story has just as much intrigue with its multiple characters and subplots and it's still going but the end is in the horizon.
What TPC does and what your story should do is that it always brings focus back to the main conflict. In TPC its a changeling invasion. For Starlight its stopping some huge conspiracy. But that leads me to my second biggest issue, nothing is clear enough for me to follow it. I love complex and diverse stories but they work because things are made clear on what objective or subplot is happening.
It's like this: What's happening in Act 2?
Hardy is brought back to life through Cosmo's brothers still beating heart, Swift now has scary teeth and Taxi is... still Taxi. Their mission now went from a simple murder investigation to figuring out and stopping whatever has been pulling the strings with Cosmo.
How are they going about it?
Well they had to see a zebra librarian for... something and they took one of his sons Limerance and they had to sneak into the Police Ball(?) to see this stage magician(?) who I guess lead them to this diamond dog street(?) to find out.... what exactly?
See what I mean? Not enough focus and clarity leaves me more confused than continually interested. I still love this story but I need a clearer idea of what I am seeing and what the characters goal is.
To me Starlight is another example of the amazing stuff you can do with ponies. A lot of what you two do in this fic feels only possible with ponies. To use other beings would make it far more difficult.
This is a lovely fic and clearly you've put so much work into it. Please don't stop anytime soon.
I'll be more eloquent when I'm more awake I promise.
I think the biggest issue behind all of this is that you're putting so damn much into one book. I'm not saying that as a complaint, more an observation. Obviously I don't care how long you decide to make it, but I think you should consider breaking it up a little bit. Acts one and two are, for all intents and purposes, two different books. You could easily have uploaded them as two different stories and still have the exact same effect. In fact, it would (in my humble opinion) add something to it: it wouldbecome episodic in a good way.
Allow me to elaborate. Were you to split the book into two as it is now, youwould have two distinct advantages: one, each could stand as it's own story, still answering all the same questions, but have enough individuality that youdon't need to lean on early parts of the story to keep it marching. Honestly, by the time that mare (redacted for spoilers) on the museum security camera I'd totally forgotten who she was or why she was relevant. Once I rememberedI was like "Oh, shi-", but that a common problem with having one really long story: you fall into the fear of explaining or reminding people of previous things because you don't want to sound repetitive. Were Act 2 asecond book, instances like this wouldn't be repitition; it would be callbacks. Like if you were to revisit a locale or a person in that scenario, people wouldn't go "Oh, well, we've already seen this place in this story, that's just lazy." It would be more like "Oh hey, I remember that guy from the last book! This should be good!"
I think you may also be running into the problem of trying to keep everything relevant. Now, I personally don't have much of a problem following the plot, but others might, and I believe it's been brought up in earlier comments. Maybe a side narrative or occasional blurb about the how and why might help. Juniper sounds like a great way to do that.
One last piece: don't beafraid to use ongoing character developments as either slight filler or reasoning. Like, Hardy's already talked about sharing emotions with theprevious owner of the heart. Maybe pull in some more input from that. Or a tidbit about Taxi's current, if stable, state. Maybe the meat-eating thing affects more than just her appetite and diet. Stuff like that.
Also, as a last note: more Taxi. ABSOLUTELY more Taxi. I'm so curious about her.
But winter is the best season!
Also, what 1480999 said, with a smattering of 1481659 in terms of splitting into 2 books might be a good idea. (It's big enough to count as a book anyway)
My only advice is to keep writing, because the story is AWESOME. Movie Reel does bring up a good point, in that some of the references will get missed, and thus the readers will miss those clues vital to solving the mystery before Hardy does. But that happens in regular novels/series, too.
Bear in mind that when you establish stuff that seems to drop out of the story and you foreshadow it just right, you can set up a situation where people are not expecting the twist that happens, but it BLOWS THEIR MINDS because once it hits, everything falls into place.
If you're doing that, you're SUPPOSED to not have everypony 'get' every step of the way, some of what you're doing lies in wait until its moment. So be brave, and don't be afraid to foreshadow and set stuff up in ways that will only make sense afterwards.
I'm doing that with this pony
and she's suffering terribly at the hooves of my readers, but for all that she's doing the best she can and the important ponies in the story are capable of recognizing that and playing a scene with her where it all makes sense. Which is not to say it's a simple, happy, fun scene, but all the same, it's toward a goal and toward deeper, more mature understanding of the characters. Sometimes you gotta drag readers unwillingly to this understanding. 
I think the story rocks, its well written, honestly surprise's me, the characters are lovable, or if that's there role, detestable. Its a all round good story that's better than most of the stuff I've read which is published to the public, but that's just my opinion, thank you.
I do not agree with Movie Reel critique. I like story pacing and focus. I think you are doing it just right. Also every reader has his own vision and preferences. For example I am following 'This Platinum Crown' mentioned by Movie Reel too, and my opinion is literally opposite to Movie Reel's - I think that 'This Platinum Crown' has huge problems with focus - author is so much focused on the plot that he often forgets about characters. There are so many characters in sight that he has very small time for development of each one, regardless of huge size of the story. And constant shifts of pov are annoying. As a result I simply skipped several parts of his story. These flows are absent in Starlight - the story focuses on characters and plot just right. Background characters are loveable too (more Jade, please) but stay background characters, and it is right.
I follow this fic for a year now and it became a part of my life for which I am extremely grateful.
Every second week I look forward to the weekend knowing that there will be new chapter of Starlight.
Also in my opinion (and it seems from previous comments - not only my opinion) this story is among the best on fimfiction at all.
So just keep going.
and more Jade, please
1483477 Heee, more Jade is coming. Promise.
-Chessie
YOU CAN DO ET!
Seriously, though you've done a fantastic job and written an amazing amount of material. I regret I'm not up to date on the story. Real life is busy, but I am looking forward to catching up on my break. Just wanted to take a little time and say how truly great your story is and that I am happy to hear you two are committed to its completion.
I suppose you could always revert to using comedic "lampshading" effect for any minor details that you're not sure how to throw into a story later on.
I mean you got Queeny right? it's a creature that sees and records stuff then there's Swift with her very keen sense of writing everything down for evidence.
You got plenty of ways to throw in old details that the audience might have forgotten.
I think all large stories suffer from this same issue although I suppose it's compounded by the way this particular story is written in a very real-time sort of style.
You'll think of something don't worry too much about it, I love this story to bits. Long as the characters are true to their form things can only get better as far as i'm concerned