A call for continuations · 5:17am May 2nd, 2014
Right now, about three-quarters of you are saying, "WHAAAAT? HARD RESET 2 UPDATED UNANNOUNCED?! WHAT SORCERY IS THIS?!?" The rest of you are wondering why I'm leading with Hard Reset 2 in a post whose title references my latest story. Let's answer all of your questions at once —
Á̸̛̺̰̤̬̳̖̳̻̬̮͕̽̓̈́̀̈́͐͐͊̕N̸̢̡̠̯̖͚̫̖͉̣̾̂͂͆̔̐̉́́̾̍͜Ṡ̴̢̨̛̛̼͓̘̥̜̙̻̜̭̀͑̌̀̿̏̆͘W̶̢͚̲̖̲̞̩͙͔̙̝̎̀̀̐̑͐̄̕͘̚͝Ȩ̶̢̧̜͓̫̜̣̩̪̱̎͌̋̋͆̈́̈́͂͒̚͠R̷̨̝̻̫̗͕̥͔͓̗̞̀͐͛̋̉̂̋́͊̚͝
— okay, maybe not quite so all at once. Instead, let's talk about fanfiction!
Here's a process you will recognize: someone appreciates a creative work, rolls it around in their head, injects their own creativity into the gaps left by the source material, and writes something which takes that work in new directions. By definition we are all familiar with it, because that's exactly what fanfiction is. So what happens when you take that exact same process, and apply it to fanfiction itself?
The answer is, you get unexpected beauty. When you deal with a recursive process, naturally you're going to expect diminishing returns — but that doesn't happen. Instead, you descend into endless fractal spirals; whether one or four or fourteen levels deep, a good author can breathe prose as vivid and detailed as the works that inspired it, and that can start the inspiration anew. You get your Fallout: Equestrias and your Friendship Is Optimals and your Winningverses and Conversion Bureaus. You get the brilliant Hard Reset inspiring a clearly insane semisequel that many of you nevertheless seem to enjoy. And — probably not last, and definitely not least — you get Prawo Jazdy's enjoyable HR2 hypothetical, the aptly and cleverly named "Erred Earth's Re-had Easter". It extrapolates from Twilight's current dilemma, and from an easter egg that never was, into a tale of accomplishment, timefoolery, and Pinkie Pie with wings. (Pinkie Pie with wings! More terrifying than anything I've written.) You HR2 fans should need no prodding to go read it, but this is a stellar start for a new fanfic author — doing a remarkable job matching the tone and pitch of my original, throwing in thoughtful worldbuilding and plot twists, and including some great Mane Six moments.
At any rate: One thing that does become an issue as you fling yourself down into the fractal pits is that derivative works lose audience all out of proportion to their quality. I've written some flash-fics in response to stories I've greatly enjoyed, for example, that languished in the comments section where I posted them — and I've seen other authors do the same, with some unappreciated but remarkable results. (I've followed people based purely on a comment-section ficlet before.)
There's a pleasant intimacy to those continuations — it's a way to really impress on the author that their work was worth your time to respond in kind — but there can be some real gems that aren't publishable on their own, and aren't likely to ever see more than a few dozen eyeballs.
Enter Never The Final Word. I've started an open anthology for collecting "continuations" — microfic written as an extension of, or response to, other fanfic, which isn't substantial enough to get posted on its own. It serves double duty as a collection: not only is it a pointer to stories which are inspiring enough to merit that sort of response, but also a repository of nifty flash-fics. You can see a half-dozen of mine there, along with (as of this writing) one other guest contribution.
If you've ever written a mini-story in comments (or via PM) as a love letter to another author's work, drop me a line. I'd love to give both it and the source work a signal boost! If you've received one, or seen a good one, let me and/or the commenter know — I'd love to do the same.
... how did you make the text wrap around that quote box in BBCode?
I've tried to make complex formatting work on Fimfic and it never has. Tell me of your secrets!
Actually I found a second one. Look at Comment #4 on Bad Horse's Fluttershy's Night Out.
As I may have mentioned, when I read 'Heritage', it didn't quite sit right with me. It didn't sit right with a lot of people, and that ultimately is a large part of why the author deleted it. After reading the first chapter, I posted a drabble in the comments that gave me a bit more closure and covered my issues with it well. It had at least 11 upvotes, as I recall.
There still is a copy of Heritage on fanfiction.net, so if you read the first chapter, this was a reaction to it. (Though a bit unpolished, since this was totally unedited...)
--arcum42
I wrote:
"The Golden Age" in response to Cold in Gardez's story "In the Garden of Good and Evil" which he had written in response to SleeplessBrony's Romance Reports. I mean, talk about fractals!
Mike
2069378
[ right_insert ]content![ /right_insert ] without the spaces. There's also a left_insert, though it's not so insanely useful.
I'll let you know if I see any that catch my eye, though to be honest most of the ones I find are yours.
2069378
http://www.fimfiction.net/blog/110091
(left_insert) and (right_insert), though I don't know if it has changed - the blog was made quite a while ago.
Remember that Unlikely Crossovers thing I do? Well, it's a good thing I didn't call them Impossible Crossovers, because Ghost went and wrote the ending to Who We Are, The Princesses Would Destroy. I don't know what you even call something like this, but it seems relevant to your project, if you want to poke Ghost about it.
Firstly, thank you for saying something nice about Conversion Bureau. I've never felt worse about liking something.
Secondly, I'll keep an eye out for comment ficlets in the future. I get the feeling that this continuation compilation is going to be a big sensation.
I do believe I may write a continuation of your infobox info of "Not a Changeling." I would of course draw upon that conversation we had upon one of your blogs a few blogs ago where you showed us your ID card and explained your family name being "Changeling." It would involve you being dragged to the Canterlot civil services dept. for questioning, and you can probably guess who I would love to have (with permission from Ghost, of course) make a guest appearance.
I wrote this untitled comment regarding Horse Voice's Writing On The Wall. It's meta-fanfiction, and in light of this season's revelations about Daring Do and Maude Pie, I can see all sorts of continuations of my continuation. Let's call it "Badass Waterwheels and Fire Rocks."
2069388 2072271
Awesome! I'll include these in an upcoming round of updates. Georg, any preference for the title?
2069450
That's delightful, and I'll shoot Ghost an email to see if he'd like to have it included.
2069390
This is definitely the sort of thing I'm looking for, but I'm on the fence about adding this one to the collection given that the source story was removed (even if it does still exist elsewhere). I'm not sure I want to call attention to stories which the author has retracted.
2069847
It sounds like it could be amusing, but I want this particular collection to be about mini-stories that are written to reflect on other stories.
I'm … not sure that's a continuation exactly.
2069427
I wonder how many levels deep the most meta story on the site is? (By which I mean something published as a story.) I can't imagine there aren't four-layer stories over somewhere in Fallout: Equestria land, maybe even five.
(At that point, the real question would be: why didn't Skywriter write it?)
2087838 To Fluttershy, My Beloved Granddaughter
2087838
If it helps, the author is doing a rewrite of Heritage called Estranged without the issues that prompted my continuation. In the description of that fanfic, he provides a link to the copy of Heritage I referenced, which he authorized...
--arcum42
2087838
Skywriter could just:
Write a story about himself writing the supposed story. I mean, think of all the time he'd save!
Mike
2087865
After some thought, I'll queue it up. Any preference on the title?
2093972
Didn't really have one in mind, so unless you've got some ideas, I'd have to think about it. I did notice one sentence wasn't capitalised, too, and if you do queue it up, make sure to mention that it's an au continuation/ending for chapter one.
At the time I posted it, chapter one was a one-shot. He decided to write more chapters afterwards.
--arcum42