The Days of Greys · 5:38pm Jan 12th, 2014
WARNING: The following post contains bellyaching.
A few days ago, Biblical Monsters was inducted into the Royal Canterlot Library.
Of my first three serious stories—that is, those I put effort into—all have either gotten into the Library or the Vault. The same stories have been posted on Equestria Daily. It's six for three.
I'm not aware of anyone else who has done this.
And over the past ten months, Monsters has racked up enough accolades to essentially make me the Francis Coppola of the pony fandom.
"Why can't I hold all these Oscars?"
You would think I'd be happier about all this than I am. But there's only one way to go from here, and that's down.
It's already begun. Wild Fire had something like a dozen people go over it, and it's still the weakest of my serious stories. The new story I was working on last month has been shelved until further notice due to dissatisfaction with its quality. (Apologies to my collaborator; it was no fault of his.)
Writing a story of this caliber is a time-consuming process. I might spend days or weeks on research before I write a single word. So shelving a story after the research phase is absolutely demoralizing. I've gotten a lot of personal projects accomplished these past few weeks, because I've been looking for excuses to not write. These are the days of greys.
However, this doesn't mean you've seen the last of me.
The one-year anniversary of Monsters's publication is coming up, and I have something special planned, which as far as I know, has never been done by any writer in the history of fan fiction. So watch this space on March 2nd.
I've also possibly gotten in on the creation of an independent short story collection. Details are still being worked out, so it will be some time before I can reveal any. But there is a deadline, and those have a way of sneaking up if you're not prompt. Yes, I'm afraid this must take precedence.
So in lieu of new stories, I'll see if I can post more discussion topics along these lines over the next few weeks. And once my two current projects are done, maybe I'll finally be inspired to write a worthy follow-up to my earlier stories.
Be well, everyone.
HV
No one said you had to keep churning out beloved stories like some kind of machine. Fan fiction should be something you enjoy, not some onerous duty to the hungry masses. It's not like we're getting paid.
Just asking, do you seriously have a beard as awesome as Coppola's?
HEY BRO YOU SHOULD SIGN ON TO SKYPE MORE THAN ONCE A WEEK
ALSO GLAD TO HAVE HELPED MAKE THE STORY EXIST IN ITS CURRENT FORM
I don't like it when people think they've reached the peak of their work and start to feel bad because of that. All in all it should still be fun, even if the response isn't as great as it used to be with whatever other story you had before.
Though I think that goes without saying.
Just keep trucking, There will always be detractors who argue that "wur this isn't as good as Biblical Monsters wur" but it frankly can't be helped. These people have put that story on a high pedestal and it will be hard to beat their abject worship of it.
Just do what you do best and enjoy writing, no need to constantly assess whether it is "as good" as Biblical, because at the end of the day, you will probably churn out something better than that as well. It could be your next story that does this, or it could be in a few more stories, who knows, just keep on at it.
Piquo Pie just posted an infoblog about how to deal with a lack of love for your content. I feel the same way. My most recent story was greeted with a universal "meh." It's the lowest rated and lowest viewed story I've ever written. I have 1,550 followers and this story has accumulated just 66 views two days after posting.
At the same time, a brand new author might be very pleased with a story that got 15 likes and just 3 dislikes. My experience, however, has made me disappointed with such a low rating. If you hadn't had so much success, you certainly wouldn't be complaining about Wild Fire and its 46:0 rating.
If writing so much has taught me anything, it's that there are highs and lows. I've had a couple of smash hits and a couple of forgotten whimpers.
Like others have said, you aren't getting paid for this. The only compensation you get is your own enjoyment. Don't confuse that with other people telling you how much they enjoy you.
Everypony's gotta find whatever lens to view their work through: looks like you have a good one in that 'Pony Coppola' concept. Works for me :)
Well, THAT one doesn't work for me. I do more of a 'Steven King' thing in that I can't get 'mainstream ponyfic cred' for my books, and furthermore can't get the feature box partly because I'm a novelist and serial works don't really lend themselves to FIMfiction featuring. What I do have is the #3 novel above 100K words sitewide in the 'mature/sex' category (and four other novels in the top something-or-other: 100? 50?), #21 sitewide including all categories (but over 100K and completed). That's more reads than 'Austraeoh', and I get very good re-read numbers and normally have more than a hundred folks reading my books a day (typically several hundred).
That's nice to have when I'll never, ever get EqD, or the Library, or the Vault, or even a kind word from anypony who is overly afraid of being mocked for speaking well of explicit clopfics.
I've spent a lot of time clicking the 'stats' icon to confirm that there are still dozens of people reading what I wrote, and comparing it to stories that have ten or a hundred times the upvotes and are getting about three reads nowadays. That said, if I was getting the upvotes, I'd be looking at that. I've never got those and never will compared to some other genres or approaches, so I don't look at upthumbs.
You gotta find whatever context you need that lets you feel like you're doing what you set out to do.
Also, you mustn't get thrown by a hit story. I find my hit story continues to get most of the reads and the rest straggle along behind, and that's perfectly natural. Your hit story is an entrance into the rest of your stuff, which typically will only catch the run-off of that main flow. It's not about making that match the previous thing, it's about whether the folks who ARE looking further are finding what they hoped for. I'm pleased to have continued my story out through four additional novels, because that's my thing. If you can think of things to do that live up to the daring you wished for yourself when you wrote Biblical Monsters, you're winning as far as I'm concerned.
Don't ever feel that you have to match the popularity of a fluke thing. I did a pony song that hit FunnyJunk and got three hundred thousand views, but my usual song numbers for stuff that's hit EqD is more like 3000, and without EqD it's like 300. There's no relation to whether the song's good, those orders of magnitude are nothing but context and tell you what places got hold of each piece of music. The 300K one was mostly hostile, jaded gawkers.
You gotta define your own values, and then you'll know whether you're doing stuff right.
Don't go! I need my Fimfiction bestie!
Oh, BOO HOO, I'm on the top of the world. The view is so shitty from here.
I understand your predicament, really I do. But you're acting like having a couple fanfictions on EqG is the tippy top of a writer's career.
But if being on the top is such a buzz kill to you, allow me to help you with that.
Look at my story. It has more upvotes, more favs, and I have more watchers than you. There! Now get better, scrub.
Meanwhile, with the other perspective...
A musical fellow I discovered with the moniker 'Le Soldat Pony' says that he already made his big hits, knows he's never going to top them, and it's kinda freeing not to have the pressure of trying.
Don't know if that's actually encouraging, but I hope it helps.
It is possible to avoid a downhill slump also. Look at mr james cameron, everyone thought he'd topped out with Titanic. It may have taken him a while, but he then topped it with Avatar.
I ... can't say much. I really don't think it's all downhill, HV. You've got a rare talent expressing yourself and so long as what you have to say is meaningful - and I'm pretty sure there isn't a meaningless bone in your body - you'll do excellent work.
Hell, you inspire others; emotions, writing, art. To inspire another with what you've created is amazing.
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Thanks, guys. That actually does make me feel better.
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I wish! But I seem to be cursed with a thin one.
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I appreciate the advice; it definitely puts things in perspective. It really is all relative. This reminds me of a Rudyard Kipling poem:
In August was the jackal born;
The rains fell in September.
"Now, such an awful flood as this,"
Said he, "I can't remember."
Guess I'd better push through this flood, then.
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Right. You're more like... Francis Cloppola.
............
Aww, it's not so bad. You got a kind word from me... for your Dark stories. On that note, you could totally get those things. All you have to do is sell your soul, abandon the Trixieverse, and start writing nothing but darkfic.
3.bp.blogspot.com/_gp82qpd__5I/TMt1VvKZljI/AAAAAAAABXE/BCzZi-64A3g/s1600/darth-vader%2Bjoin%2Bme%2Band%2Bwe%2Bwill%2Brule.jpg
In all seriousness, artistic integrity is more important than awards. It's good that you take pride in having maintained it.
Part of me felt that was the case. I just needed someone to articulate it. Thanks.
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The last time he grew a beard, I kept laughing at how weaksauce it was until he gave up.
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Ouch! The truth is a harsh medicine. And you're right, of course. Sometimes, we all need a firework under the chair to get us moving again.
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Even if the day comes when I have to retire from writing pony, I'll still drop in to answer messages and requests and stuff. (That is, unless I get doxed or something, like Device Heretic did.)
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I appreciate that. I knew I could count on you.
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Oh, you ratbastard. How dare you tell my fans the truth!
It's my fault, Horse Voice. I didn't follow you after BM came out, I just fav'd the story after enjoying it immensely.
Good thing such a mistake is easy to rectify.
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Thanks! But as they say, it's not you, it's me.
Well, I guess I had better get started on my next story, hadn't I?
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I'm glad you took my little firecracker the right way.
Have I mentioned that I've been told that I'm brutally honest?
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But… trixieverse is my aClopalypse Now!
Glad you appreciated the note about hit stories. You mustn't let that bother you, isolated instances of extreme attention mustn't alter your goals. I find that completely scrapping any hope of popular acclaim is liberating: I had to do that back in Rarity's Worst Day Ever when chapter updates did not even hit the front page of FIMfiction at the time.
Back then, things were literally arranged so that what I did could not possibly be stumbled across by mistake. The only thing I COULD do was see to it that no reader could possibly look away or miss the next chapter if they already knew about it, and so my ponies started getting in these severe irreconcilable conflicts and the next thing you know I was presiding over Aclopalypse Now and having a lot of fun plotting out how on earth they'd fight their way through to a happy ending.
That became more important than whether I was making reader numbers, and that in turn is probably why I'm not burdened by the concern that prompted your blog post
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One of the signs that a critic is bad, is that he doesn't know how to deliver tough love. Luckily, you don't have that problem.
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You win this round.
Not to mention, you never can tell what will catch on with readers. And hey, there's nothing wrong with playing to small-but-dedicated audiences.
Cheers.
I still really hate the way Biblical Monsters ended. All that potential, lost for the sake of a shitty [Grimdark] ending that made no sense (I'm a perfectly normal human--no, wait, I'm a paranoid xenophobe who's going to kill someone after talking to them for a few hours).
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That's what half its detractors said. The other half said it was too predictable, and they could tell from the beginning how it was going to end. They can't both be right.
After all this time, I still can't think of a better way I could have ended it, while keeping the same themes. If you have a suggestion, I'm all ears, but if not, it can't be helped.
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I think the big problem is the unnamed main character is portrayed through the first few chapters as being a fairly ordinarily guy who rolls his eyes at the antics of the religious one--then immediately starts nodding and plotting Twilight's murder when she whips out the Conversion Bureau power point.
Normal ordinary people just don't do that. They don't go from perfectly rational to paranoid murders in two days. Simply, I'd rewrite his character to make him less "stable" and less "normal." Make it more believable that he'd bash somebody's head in after talking to them for a few hours. Maybe make Twilight's overtures a bit more aggressive as well.
Because the way it's written right now makes it seem like there's a really cool first contact story that would play with the Conversion Bureau plot for fifteen chapters only for the [Grimdark] ball to be tossed into the characters laps in the last chapter to make for a "thought provoking" ending.
I also think that the people that felt it was "predictable" probably have seen many a first contact story where humanity royally fucks up first contact. There's hundreds of Conversion Bureau stories that show humanity in general in a very similar way to the unnamed main character and his delusional friend.
They probably looked at the plot, saw it was another first contact story with a [Dark] tag, and rolled their eyes at the inevitability of "Humans are Bastards" coming into play--like so many first contact stories before. It's the reason Spacebattles had such a strong reaction. They've grinded themselves on those kinds of stories and when this one ended the same way so many other had, their jimmies went nuclear.
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It's my belief that normal, stable, ordinary people are all capable of defending themselves with lethal force, whether they admit it or not. I think we'll have to agree to disagree.
I know it's not kosher to explain the themes in your own work, so everything I'm about to say has already been pointed out by others in various comments and reviews. Here goes.
The theme is not that humans are bastards. If you read carefully, you'll notice that in the first three chapters, no one really acts in bad faith. Even Adams brings Twi in out of the cold and feeds her. The tragedy is that in the end, it doesn't matter. The two cultures are incompatible, and their meeting can only end badly, regardless of the participants' intent.
If you look closely, the Narrator is a coward, and we see this from the beginning. He has little strength of conviction, never standing up to Adams except obliquely. It's no wonder he can't do the deed by himself, or even land the first blow. And crucially, it could never occur to him that his own culture might prove the stronger of the two.
If you'll pardon my bluntness, the spacebattles people have watched way too much Star Trek. Here's the kicker: They liked the story at first, but when it unexpectedly delivered an unfamiliar theme, they instantly turned on it, downvoting, posting flames, and assassinating my character. Their actions mirrored the Narrator's, and they didn't even realize it.
And to think--they had seemed rational and reasonable, right up to that point. Unwittingly, they proved the theme correct.
The thing is, I actually like cool first-contact stories, even if I think their idealism is unrealistic. But they're a dime a dozen, and any points they can make have already been made. If nothing else, take my story as a warning that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.