Siblings at the Edge; Writer's Diary 01 · 9:49pm Mar 10th, 2014
As I write what is the twenty third draft chapter of my story, Siblings at the Edge, I feel inclined towards taking a bit of time and letting my audience in on just a small part of the creative process that's gone into this story.
I started this story with an idea, an entire universe to call exclusively my own, a world that is changing, a world where people are uncertain if the world is climbing to a new renaissance or stumbling into another dark age, as many a time of change has been labeled. I also wanted the world to involve ponies, because I like them... My reasons can't always be overly poetic.
I'm a fan of transformation fiction, have been since I was knee-high to Fluttershy... Or maybe that was when Fluttershy was knee-high to me. After all, we can't be too certain just how 'little' these little ponies are. Regardless, I'm a fan of transformation because ultimately a change in circumstance and the subsequent conflicts that arise from it lies at the heart of any story. In a transformation story that change in circumstance is the protagonist's own body, and the challenges that come to them or they go towards in the process of finding a new balance with themselves.
So I needed a setting where the world is changing, where Earth and Equestria have met, and people are changing as well in sometimes quite visceral ways.
Going forward I've kept two things in mind with my writing. The first is a quote from Ernest Hemingway:
If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water.
Hemingway's quote can perhaps be summarized as just another way of saying "show, don't tell". However, I've taken it to heart when I've been constructing the story, particularly in matters of world-building, and writing from the combined perspectives of two orphaned siblings has helped me gain a new appreciation for the wisdom in the statement.
This matter combines with the second thing I've kept in mind while writing. When writing, have your character be the main character because interesting things happen to them. Conversely, don't have interesting things happen to your main character just because they're the main character. The characters we portray are dumped into circumstances they don't quite understand in the immediate moment they are happening, but the situation they are in can be rationalized and dealt with.
Taking these two together, I knew that if I intended to write multiple stories in this world (and now I do intend to do so), I would need to work on constructing an entire world and lay out the cause and effect of matters. The task soon evolved into something of a science fiction, as I began tracing the root problems various issues into physics and biology, where I started inserting and playing with what is real, to produce a distinctive setting. I extrapolated this to the entire world until I had a patchwork of scenarios and situations that made up the core of my setting.
I wrote either the first few chapters or a one-shot to about eight different stories, and as I got through them narrowed it down until I had finally settled on a story I thought had potential, Siblings at the Edge.
And then I wrote, and throughout all of that I always kept in mind, "my protagonists are children, the world is still confusing to them, and is even confusing to the adults that occupy it at times." Keeping this in mind I've kept an eye out in writing my drafts where I can offer my two characters, Ivan and Katna, glimpses into the events that shaped their world, what that world is, and maybe, eventually, they'll be able to see how the world changed them in ways far more profound than "I drank a potion, and woke up as a pony."
That said I'm just one person, and I'm still looking for anyone interested in pre-reading for my story. You don't have to worry about grammar, I'm more concerned with someone making sure I keep a consistently toned dialogue between characters that shifts as the situation warrants, and somebody to point out where I should linger a bit and describe something in more detail, or where I've inadvertently left a plot hole in the course of planning out a massive journey to the south.
(Those not politically inclined may wish to stop here.)
And lastly, on that note, when I began writing this story in earnest in the early fall of 2013, I never imagined that the country I chose to set a large part of my story in would become the center of a major political conflict point.
Protests erupted in Ukraine a few months ago when its president pulled out of a deal that would result in closer ties with the European Union, opting instead to side with the country of Russia, a nation that even today draws the critical eye of human rights advocates across the world. A nation led by a man who was the head of the USSR's spy agency, the KGB, which attempted alongside military generals, to remove Russian leader Boris Yeltzin with a coup.
Now Ukraine's president has fled the capital after the signing of a peace arrangement sponsored by the European Union. In response, Russian military forces have occupied the souther peninsular region of Crimea, and are now locking down the border area, and occupying Ukrainian towns. The Russians claim the move is to protect ethnic Russians in the area, but world leaders across the world are calling a spade a spade, and Russia's actions an invasion.
So I'd like to take this time where people are uncertain of what actions should be taken, I can only implore you to look into the situation. I think you'll find that Russia is in the wrong. Nations need the political resolve of their people in order to affect real change in the world. With that, write to your congressman, senator, member of parliament or other duly elected member of your nation's government and tell them that you do not support Russia's overt aggression in the Ukraine, and that they should continue in condemning and resisting such brutish tactics, while pushing firmly for a peaceful resolution, with the respect of human rights and national sovereignty.
I want the circumstances of my story to remain as much of a fiction as possible. I want a world where human dignity is respected and supported, and you don't have to be a pony to want that.
I immediately thought of your story when the news of the invasion got to me. If Russia wasn't in the world's spotlight before, it is now.