• Member Since 5th Mar, 2012
  • offline last seen Dec 23rd, 2023

Kwakerjak


A thirtysomething Brony from Pennsylvania with a library degree. I also have a Patreon.

More Blog Posts556

  • 292 weeks
    Update (Without excuses this time!)

    Guess what? I'm done writing the next chapter of Manifesto.

    I just need to give my prereaders a day or two to look over it, and then it'll go up.

    Until then, here's Despacito being played on a guzheng.

    8 comments · 752 views
  • 303 weeks
    Hey, everyone.

    I've somehow gotten out of the habit of posting updates. Oops.

    Anyway, you've no doubt noticed that I don't post as often as I once did in the past. This is largely because improvements in my life situation mean I have the wherewithal to engage in hobbies other than writing fanfiction.

    Read More

    5 comments · 834 views
  • 326 weeks
    Update.

    Goodness, it's been a while, hasn't it? You're probably wondering why my pace has slowed down on Manifesto. Well, there are several reasons, but the most relevant one is that I find myself rewriting large swaths of this chapter as I zero in on the best plan for Sunset to take. I'm basically going back and forth between two ideas that can't really be combined into a single one, and for

    Read More

    3 comments · 761 views
  • 339 weeks
    New Story Incoming

    In case you missed my last blog post, I'm taking a break from the adventures of Celestia and Daring Do to write the next Petriculture story. At this point it looks like it'll be fairly short -- about two chapters long -- and I recently finished up the first chapter, which will be posted once my prereaders give it a final once-over.

    4 comments · 644 views
  • 343 weeks
    Update

    Okay, so here's what's going on with me.

    Read More

    4 comments · 863 views
Nov
6th
2014

The End? · 12:55am Nov 6th, 2014

This blog post deals with the end of the story Flash Fog, which means that if I used spoiler tags over every potential spoiler it would just be an ugly wall of black text. I'm going to do my best to avoid excessive detail, but to be on the safe side, you may want to give this blog post a pass if you haven't finished the story and you actually care about spoilers.

Alright, folks, I've been reading over the responses to the ending, and I figured that I might as well make a blog post instead of responding to a few repeated points in the comments section. I noticed that some of you had a few qualms with my approach. I'd like to respond to three points in particular (quotations are paraphrased):

1. "You never actually showed the fog dissipating."

I literally smacked my forehead when I read this, because I had planned on having Apple Bloom look at the fog dissipating over the Everfree Forest before she turned her head and saw that the mountaintops were now mostly clear (meaning that the wind had blown all of it over the mountain range). Boneheaded forgetfulness on my part; this part will almost certainly be rewritten to include the imagery I already had in mind for the dissipating fog. I'll be sure to inform you in a later blog post if/when this change is made.

2. "What about Lyra and Bon-Bon?"

Honestly, it hadn't occurred to me that their subplot, being primarily a form of comic relief, needed any sort of resolution, though upon reconsideration, I can see why that might be desired. At the moment, I have a few vague ideas of how to modify the epilogue to include the fate of SPHERE without it feeling like a blob of exposition that was shoehorned into the conversation between Pencil Pusher and Fluttershy for its own sake, so there's a good chance that this will revisited as well. Again, if changes are made, I'll make another blog post.

3. "Abrupt."

This one's a bit trickier. I suppose I can understand why the some of my readers thought that the rescue of the CMC would be more drawn-out and complicated. At this point, all I'm willing to say is that I had planned for their rescue to go off without a hitch since the earliest stages of this story---soon after I realized just how complicated the rest of the story would be, in fact. I don't want to go into a lot of details, mostly because I don't want to shove my personal interpretation of the story down my readers' throats, but I made this decision for thematic reasons, as opposed to any intuition that I needed to "wrap up" the story as quickly as possible. (I was going to write a sentence explaining things further here, but everything I came up with sounded way too pretentious and/or rather blatantly contradicted my stated desire to not shove my interpretation down your throats.) This aspect of the ending will almost certainly not be rewritten, but I hope that those of you who disagree with my decision will at least be able to take some enjoyment from the story as a whole.

Report Kwakerjak · 627 views · Story: Flash Fog ·
Comments ( 22 )

I'm glad to hear you have plans to expand on the epilogue to cover some of our questions. That said, I'm also interested to know if you have any plans for what comes next?

For myself when a sub-plot is given so much screen time and then dropped without a resolution as simple as a passing comment it annoys me that it was even included in the story.

Point three gets some of its teeth from point two. So much time was spent on sub-plots that when nothing came of them and the story ended it seemed more abrupt than it actually was.

I must admit I skipped most of the Lyra/BonBon subplot because I just didn't find it interesting/entertaining. But it took up so much space, as Posted mentions, that not closing it off feels awkward. Otherwise.. yeah, the abruptness is partially that, partially the fact that you seem to have forgot about the dissipation. All we saw was Apple Bloom fearing she was freezing to death... and then the rescue.

The dissipation could use with more coverage than just AB too, if you ask me. Something like a pegasus reporting to Fluttershy that the fog is going away, or something more concrete too. Gives it more visibility.

2576272 - Thunderlane did report to Fluttershy that the fog was going away. I just forgot to actually show it, too.

D48

I hadn't noticed number 1, but I can definitely see where that is coming from and I agree that you probably should insert a bit about that into the story.

For 2 and 3 on the other hand, I honestly feel like there is so much there that it makes more sense to leave it hanging and continue it in another story. The rescue felt fine to me given everything that lead up to it so I am personally with you on that, but there is a ton of other stuff to play with and I would like to see you give it the time it deserves instead of a short wrap up so long as you have the time and energy to pick up another project.

2576284
:rainbowlaugh:
Might I ask, do you have editors? I get the feeling that this should have been noted by them, if you do. I can kinda understand your side - you know the story, you know what's happening... if you forget to show something, you don't realize it. An editor however should :P

I'm fine with waiting until the "true end" myself.

As one of the commenters who brought up the Lyra/Bonbon point, I would like to clarify, in case I made it seem otherwise, that I didn't expect some massive character change, like retiring SPHERE or some such thing. But considering that their sub-plot was pretty influential (they're ultimately the reason the Crusaders were out there in the first place), they deserve at least a minor denouement. Maybe something like, "Oh well, the humans weren't there this time, and we kind of messed things up with those foals. But never mind that, *NEXT* time it'll work out!"

Alternately, maybe a brief confrontation where the other townsponies tell them, "You were wrong about these 'hyu-mans' being in the fog, so we don't believe you anymore and are quitting SPHERE. Good bye." "Well...buck."

I'm sure you can figure out a better way than my examples, though I'm fine with you stealing borrowing them if you decide to. The bottom line is that, in my opinion, merely being comic relief doesn't mean a sub-plot can be simply dropped. It still needs some kind of closure, even if that closure amounts to: "And in the end, nothing changed."

I quite liked the rescue of the Crusaders. You used it to demonstrate how much Fluttershy had learned about leadership by having her apply it, and to great effect.

I think the problem might be that Flash Fog had gone on for so long that some people just couldn't conceive of it ever stopping, and thus any ending would've felt abrupt to them. That, or it was so good, they just didn't want it to end. I know I felt that way about the Petriculture Cycle.

Of course, that's just my read on it.

I do agree with 1. The fact that you forget to show the fog is kind of jarring when reading.

As for 2 though... personally I just saw the whole SPHERE thing as a jumping pad to get to other, actually important, parts of the plot. As the readers we all knew the fog had nothing to do with humans and whether I personally didn't care about that point be resolved, or that I came up on my own with what I figured to be logical conclusions to their plot. Maybe they've realize the fog wasn't caused by humans or more likely they've think the humans were scared off and either way in the end it wouldn't change either of their personal opinions on the matter.

And finally 3... I was fine with the plot being wrapped up as 'quick' as it was. There had already been enough set backs and complications for the cast to overcome during the course of the story. We had seen how dangerous the fog was to be inside for long periods of time and the final few chapters showed us how screwed Apple Bloom and Scootaloo were at that point, so I was fine with the fact that it didn't take too much trouble to rescue them.

I almost mentioned the fog in a comment, but thought maybe that was deliberate. The real point of the story seemed to be Fluttershy's growth, which we see resolved in the epilogue, as well as her taking charge of the rescue. The epilogue implies the fog was dealt with, so in the end it didn't bother me that much.
I kinda wondered how Lyra and Bon Bon felt when they realized their bickering about humans nearly got three kids killed though.

2576293 - I have about a dozen, half of whom show up on a regular basis as I'm writing. Using GDoc's chat function, I get instant feedback and I can discuss their concerns with them at length.

i thought the ending was perfectly fine, although the fog dissipating being confirmed definitely would be nice

I think all the issues and problems were resolved, I just wanted to hear one more delicious Bon Bon/Lyra argument about humans, and hear them each explain how everything that happened proves their theories on humans were correct all along.

Right, my only gripe with the story was the fog bit, mostly. Personally I would've liked to see a blurb talking about how the fog successfully dissipated in the forest and that their fears of it rehardening after leaving the forest were unfounded in the end. You know, a bit of wrap up about that. *nods sagely* :moustache:

Yeah... The story honestly feels like it's missing an entire chapter.

The climax. :facehoof:

First rule of story telling: Don't talk about storytelling. aka... show, don't tell.
Second rule of story telling: Don't talk about storytelling. show it, don't tell it!

I suspect the perceived abruptness of the ending is mostly due to reading it one chapter at a time, as they were written and released. At some point it would be interesting to re-read the whole story at once and see if it still feels as abrupt.

Hey man, I loved Flash Fog overall, so I'm only commenting out of my love of the story.

First, thanks for engaging with your readers and answering many questions, both on your blog and on chapter comments.

I have to say that, even a year ago, I was tired of the CMC subplot, but I read your posts and decided to hold out until the end. Now that it's over, I still feel that the CMC subplot really didn't add much to the overall story. I understand that it served to provide danger and urgency to the last few chapters, but for me, overall, it didn't mesh organically with the major conflicts of the plot: getting rid of the fog safely, Pencil Pusher's attraction to Fluttershy, or Fluttershy's guilt over her fog certification. Yes, you can say the CMC plot was a subpart of the first conflict (the fog itself)... but it still felt very tacked on over the last 2 years. I would have preferred some kind of climax with Hard Hitter or Greg as the antagonists, focused on the third plot leg. The fog dissipating as it did after a successful plan is fine.

I think my major problem with the CMC ending is that Pencil Pusher, who was at least a secondary protagonist in the story (arguably the main character, but maybe not), played absolutely no part in the climax of the story. By making the CMC plotline the most dramatically important threat, and leaving Pencil Pusher out of any part in its resolution, it kind of makes the epilogue weird from a story telling perspective. I as a reader find myself asking "yeah, he did a lot of vitally important stuff regarding the fog, but where was he when lives were in immediate danger?" Now from a "realism" perspective, what he did was commendable and should be recognized, but from a story/drama perspective, not being present at the climatic scene is pretty damaging to a character. When he's asking Fluttershy out, and I do appreciate that he got a chance from her, I still can't help thinking "where were you when the danger was highest?"

I just read the entire story front to back over the last few days and I liked it. Didn't think the ending was all that abrupt and it was only reading this that I realized that you didn't show the fog dissipating 'on screen' as it were. The story pointed out that the plan was working and would take time, then other stuff happened that didn't interfere with that. So I assumed it all went as planned. Anyway, I thought you wrapped things up fairly well.

As for the SPHERE part, I always saw it as a comedic sideline and wasn't expecting any real resolution to it. Sort of a 'the future is them continuing to do this' sort of thing. Might be fun to see the first meeting with the huge group of volunteers. But the story doesn't need it. They spent all of their screen time bickering about the humans based on no evidence whatsoever and they will continue to bicker about it based on no evidence whatsoever for the foreseeable future.

As for the rescue, I thought that the CMC part of the end actually could have been trimmed a bit. Specifics? Beats me, but if you had dragged it out or added complications I would have wanted things to wrap up a lot faster. So yeah, my two cents on the subjects from my perspective of not touching the story until it was finished and reading it all at a run.

I personally thought the way the Crusaders subplot ended was the best resolution to that subplot. That's not what I found abrupt; it was that the other two main plots, the Lyra and bonbon plot and the fluttershy the fog expert plot, seem to completely drop off.

I had expected the lifting of the fog to be seen from the perspective of all three plots: The fog heroes, the child rescuers, and the Moulder and Scully of the fog, Who leave the question open ended as to whether there were ever actually any humans there in the first place.

I started reading Flash Fog when there were few enough chapters that none of them were 'hidden'. Due to events in my real life, I was unable to follow the updates as they happend for quite a few months. So, recently, I started reading it again from the beginning – I hoped to reach the end of what was written before you finished it, but you were two days ahead.

I have enjoyed Flash Fog greatly in its entirety. (I.e. all of the subplots.)

I am not going to qualify that with a "but..."

***

#1.

In "September 2 – 12:30" Thunderlane and Fluttershy discussed the possibility of excaped clouds reverting briefly. I think this would be good to address in any revisions of the fog's dissipation.

#2.

Maybe this is felt because the last thing I remember of their actions was a name-calling fight in the middle of the fog. (Okay, so maybe it was for comedic purposes...) Unless their friendship includes this often, I'm not sure the epilogue would be the best place to put the aftermath of that, lest you add another part to it.

I don't think you need to state that there weren't any Humans in the fog for us figure that out, at least.

#3.

I think we can all agree that there is only one flaw with your ending: You had one.
Obligatory complimentary joke aside... (Sorry, I felt I had to say that.)

Having read all the chapters in one go (not one sitting, though), the beginning of the end seems to start when you begin tying up loose ends instead of making more. (Have fun reading the last sentance; I'm still not entirely sure if it obeys grammer and time-warping rules.) This would be about the last dozen chapters to me.

Maybe the feeling of an abrupt ending comes from the fact that you were wrapping everything up at the same time? Showing us the fog is dissappearing with Apple Blooms POV removes the possibility of wondering "Well the Crusaders are okay, but what about the fog?" and then showing us that it is finally over when, for example, Fluttershy gets a chance to relax for real (mentally).

***
(edited paragraph:)
I'm not entirely sure why I've just plastered my thoughts and opinions in the comments of your blog post, as you've not really asked any questions. Just take the following into account, I suppose.

I advise skipping the part where you take anything I say with a grain of salt, and going straight to a Salt Lick. My only qualification is all the experience in writing a number fiction fragments that have been seen by the eyes of very few poeple, including myself.

That said, it's worth saying again: I really enjoyed the story. I find the openness of the ending quite enjoable, too, aside from the fact that It almost begs to continue into a romantic comedy...

I'm just going to point out that with how long Lyra and Bonbon got screen time arguing, it does feel like SOMETHING needed done with that, but at the same time, there was absolutely no reason for there to actually be a human. As a compromise ,maybe have a scene where the Crusaders hear their trap go off, so they run to it shouting "we caught a human!" only to find that Lyra and Bonbon stuck in it, and in response to hearing that there is a human caught in the trap, start accusing each other of being a human in disguise? It wouldn't resolve things, but it would provide a more poetic endcap to the whole human issue being a completely silly and nonsensical idea.

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