Something New I'm Going to Try · 1:52am Nov 9th, 2014
If you've been following Fimfiction blog news over the last couple days, you might have noticed that
(1) JohnPerry is putting his feature box reviews on hiatus, because he's not really enjoying them anymore.
(2) RainbowBob got into a nasty car accident on the freeway. He's currently dealing with broken bones and enough pain that medication isn't really helping, and... Ugh, I just feel really bad for the guy and hope he can make a full and speedy recovery.
Well, it turns out I've been thinking about trying to do some review-blogging of my own. I've spent the last few days talking to a few folks about it, and trying to pin down what I'd want to do. Being an RCL Curator, like current review-bloggers PresentPerfect and Chris, and impendingly[1]-erstwhile review-blogger JohnPerry, I feel like it'd be good if I were providing this sort of service as well—and preferably applying my own talents to it. Since I hit a lot of people's radars for blogging about writing issues, and since I try to leave detailed and constructive criticism when I go around reading stories, I thought that might be a nice paradigm for doing some reviews.
That said, I'm going to try to kick out one slate of reviews, five stories, each Saturday. Maybe that can fill some of the gap Bob is leaving (hopefully temporarily)—though I'll be focusing on stories that I come across on my own, not stories in the Feature Box. The first slate will be up within the hour.
I'm breaking down reviews according to technical, creative, and satisfaction dimensions and providing an overall reader recommendation at the end. In that sense, this is a bit like what PresentPerfect does, but more process heavy and with some numbers floating around in places. You'll see. And I'd be interested in feedback about the idea of doing reviews as well as my take providing them. Are you guys interested in this? Do you feel like the way I'm breaking down stories is something you care about and/or would like to see? Let me know (and preferably here, rather than on the reviews themselves, whose comments I hope wind up dedicated to the reviewed stories).
Also, Horizon. You know this means you're the only one left, don't you?
[1] Everybody's a critic![2]
[2] Literally.[3]
[3] Except you, Horizon.
Sounds interesting. I look forward to it.
We've already talked about the idea and everything, but I have to add: I seriously love you for listing the contents before the break. You are a God among pony fanfic reviewers.
oh shit, get hype :D
Someone alert The City of Doors!
I definitely like the sound of this. However, I do have to wonder if it's going to have any negative impact on your writing. I've really been looking forward to more of your stories (especially BB&C, but I'll almost certainly like anything you put up), and if it does end up coming down to one or the other, I'd rather you keep working on the stories instead.
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That's also my hope. I've had a bit of a weird week settling back into Fimfiction, and I have to admit this took a lot longer to put together than I expected—about 3-5 hours for this blog post. But I'm also hoping my school situation is going to be more forgiving moving forward. I'm basically done taking classes now, and just need to do research.
BB&C is now high on my priority list; I'm really starting to want to get back on it, which hasn't been true for a while. I've got a half-complete Luna and CMC story that it'd be nice to finish before Season 5 starts, and I'm going to make a push for Three Nights again around Christmas (but with no new content). Other than that, I mostly want to get back to my two incomplete fics right now.
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"Impendingly-erstwhile"?
Clearly I need to help out with this.
I actually had offered to help Bob suffer the feature box one week.
Maybe we could pass it around while Bob is out? Have a different person do it so no one has to suffer through it constantly?
I dunno. I really should write more reviews. I actually have a few long reviews written which I've never posted because I want to edit them, and I do do little reviews of every story from every writeoff competition (or at least, I have for the last three or four, and plan to do so again this time).
I read Bob's linked post, and .. damn. Time to consider your mortality, everyone. I do hope he hasn't sustained any permanent damage, but it sounds like he'll be out for a while.
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I'm generally happy to see you back to do doing things in this domain again, so whatever they may happen to be, I look forward to them. I try to avoid doing things like clamoring for BB&C, as I've seen the effect that sort of thing can have on other creatives, but it's good to hear you're still up for it. My reader trust has not been in vain!
What ... exactly does this mean?
Ah you bastard! You blatantly nicked the idea that I had. (check the dates)
There's only one way to settle this...
quickmeme.com/img/9e/9e493c787cb6a0ce6080a579b3556945503f5123ef1c5413a49b4dec0a207140.jpg
Aha no. In all seriousness, from what I read of your first batch, it already looks like you'd be far better at reviewing these fics on a technical scale, rather like John. Perhaps I can be a tad more like Bob in being more silly and comedic about the entire thing. I'll see how it goes. Hoping to get the first lot done by tonight.
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I intentionally chose not to send "Three Nights" to EQD, because it was supposed to be a Hearth's Warming story and I really wanted it to get its chance to shine in that capacity. I didn't want to sit on it for ten months before publishing, once I finished, but I left some promotion avenues intentionally unexplored at the time.
I'm hoping I can get the thing queued up on EQD for a December 24th publication. Turns out December 24th is also a Thursday, and specifically a no-image Thursday on the main MLP sub-reddit, meaning the story can get a solid crack at some attention through Reddit too. It's already been seen there, but it will have been 10 months at that point.
After having looked at it last night, I think I may also go back and do some editing to tighten it up. I don't want to go making serious changes, though, I don't think. I love the story as it is, even if it's not perfect. (It's possible I could be talked into playing around with it, but it'd take some very convincing arguments)
To be fair, I'm not totally above generating new content. I suppose I could commission some more art off you, like a finished version of some of the other story art candidates. I'm not sure it'd make sense for me to add another chapter to the story, though, since it's honestly finished, and adding an appendix would feel a bit lame, since it'd basically just be cheat-signal-boosting. I suppose I could shoot for a small sequel, but I don't know what I'd really do.
Anyway, I just think the story deserves to get a shot at doing what it was always supposed to do—be a meditation on loneliness and the nature of family that people can look to on a night when some of them might need it.
you say that as if being part of a team of prominent reviewers means that I need to review things
man it's right there on the RCL about page
"Horizon, who is not a changeling, wandered in off the street one night and started helping us evaluate stories for the Library. Ever since then, he’s been too useful and/or scary to kick out."
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It's those cold, dead eyes. Nobody knows what he'll do if we try to make him leave.
Nobody knows what he really is.
He mostly comes at night. Mostly.
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Ooooh
That sounds uncannily like me generating new content.
and I agree the story is pretty done at this point.
Still, I'm not against that,
You can do that?