Marking the End of Year One · 6:49pm Jan 18th, 2015
A greater man than myself once said, “’Scuse me while I kiss the sky.”
Well, ‘scuse me, because I’m about to kiss wherever I’m at right now.
And where I’m at is a pretty good place. I started writing my first story in July 2013. In the months it took me to finish that story, along with two others, I kept telling myself it would be worth it if I could reach one person and make them smile. I found that one, and I am very happy for it, but I also found two hundred and fifty-one more.
I never anticipated that. I never thought that many people would want to receive a notification whenever I had something to say. Even if you don’t read the rest of this thing, I still want to say something to you all.
Thank you.
After the break, you’ll find my thoughts on some hand-picked pieces from my library. Some of them were hits, some of them were misses, but these ten stories are the ones that put me where I am now—from lessons I learned writing them, to their reception from the audience, or both.
Perhaps more pertinent to your interests, I also outline some of my plans for the next year. Enjoy the preview, and here's to a better Year Two!
A Canterlot Rebellion
The First Lesson of Love
First Night and Then Some
The first trifecta! These were the three stories I mentioned earlier, the ones I wrote before I even signed up on this site. And, objectively, they ain’t that good.
Oh, the ideas were certainly there. A Canterlot Rebellion is far and away my longest story, and it still has some of my favorite scenes. From Fluttershy singing an injured Rainbow Dash to sleep to Luna free-falling from the sky and channeling the shockwave of her impact into an attack that blasts Chrysalis through the castle gates, I like the plan I had for the story, but my skill just wasn’t good enough yet.
That’s why these three stories are still up. Not only do they pick up a favorite every now and then, but I still think about them. A year ago, I thought I set the bar pretty high for myself. Now I can see just how far I’ve come from these three. I like that feeling. I like resetting my bar every few months or so.
I’m still feeling the effect of these three as well. The idea of George Lucas-ing one of the latter two has been on my mind for the last couple of months. First Night and Then Some was the first story I wrote a sequel for, and that was the first time I noticed my improvements. More importantly, The First Lesson of Love served as the unofficial launching point for my most successful pair of stories—I Chose You and More Than Dreams.
This was a weird little one. It was intended for the Everfree Northwest competition about showing a villain in a positive light, but... I missed. There are only two characters: a newly crowned Princess Twilight and Sombra’s disembodied voice that lives in her head. In hindsight, this story really helped me hone my characterization skills. With two voices, but only one body on the page, timing and interaction between the two was a bit of a challenge. Still a personal favorite.
My greatest failure. I walked into this one with high hopes and no real plan, and I nearly ended up breaking my neck as I tried to bulldoze my way through it. It took a friend to help me move past it, and I learned a lesson about myself from this experience: I can’t keep to a schedule with multi-chapter stories. I have four stories with multiple chapters. Three were finished before I posted them, and one was not. Guess which one ended up cancelled.
Overall, from what I learned and from the friend that pulled me out of this hole I dug myself in to, I would say I gained much more than I lost with this story.
My first and thus far only foray into the Sad genre. As Clarity from Shadow helped me practice my characterization, I believe this one started teaching me how to dial in the emotion on the page.
The story was also the first time I deliberately tried to yank the rug out from under my readers. There was a bit of misdirection in the character tags, and the first thousand words—almost twenty percent of the length—were appropriately vague and specific enough to make some people think I had written a FlutterDash story.
Then I revealed the reason for the Sad tag.
The results are heavy-handed to me now, probably because I imagined my readers continuing past the twist with their cursors over the back button while I wrote it. Still, the reception to this story floored me. This was the first time people told me they cried over something I wrote, and that made Shattered Dreams the first story that really showed me what I was capable of.
On a more humorous note, this was entered in a shipping contest with no Romance tag. Still got third place. Out of eight. And two tied for second. But who's counting?
Frankly, I don’t know what to say about these two. I suppose... it makes sense? At the time I wrote these, all but three of my stories included Twilight or Rainbow in a major role. I even practiced with them in Shattered Dreams. Of course the stories in which I put them together would be great.
And these two launched into the stratosphere. Critically speaking, I Chose You is my best received story and has been accepted into The Royal Guard. Even before that, it was popular enough for the sequel to crack the feature box less than an hour after it was posted.
I remember telling Lambent Dream, my editor, that I wasn’t exactly sure how to write two female characters in a romance when I didn’t share their orientation or their gender. Ultimately, I decided to just write them as characters. They had hopes, minds, goals, everything. What they were wasn’t as important as who they were. I think the results speak for themselves.
As of this writing, each story has similar views, similar upvotes, similar numbers of bookshelves and users tracking them. I’ve seen plenty of sequels fall short of the original, so seeing such close numbers on these two makes me feel... something. Most of the people that loved I Chose You loved More than Dreams. Some even read them in reverse order and loved both of them that way.
Thank you for these stories. I still consider these two my best, and I treasure the reception they’ve gotten.
War Games Ponies Play
'Taint Natural
These two are far and away my highest rated stories, and I can honestly say I did not see that coming. With one at 5000 views, and the other ranked in the top 500 stories across the entire site, those are two feathers I never saw in my cap.
When I made my blog post announcing War Games’ extended ending, I said I was humbled by the reception it had gotten. I still am. Remember what I said about reaching one person and making them smile? I think I did that and more with these two. That’s really all I could ask for.
And now, with the retrospective done, let me give you some basic on the projects I have lined up for the next year.
That should wake you up.
And to be fair.
1. But He’s Not Hot Tags: Comedy, Everyone (possibly/probably Teen)
Twilight Sparkle is overjoyed to attend advanced classes at Shining Armor’s school. It is an institute of higher learning, a cut above where she was, and only the best and brightest are privileged enough to attend.
Until she overhears three older fillies talking about her brother.
Shining Armor is many things. He smart, athletic, and the best big brother ever. But he’s not hot. He can’t be.
Twilight endeavors to prove them wrong.
2. My Little Pirates vs. Ninjas Tags: Comedy, Adventure, Everyone
Colts battle against fillies in all-out war for control of the playground. Through traps and deception, both sides try to outwit and outmaneuver the other through the entire town of Ponyville until only one faction stands victorious.
3. The Saga of Sir Waffle Tags: Random, Everyone
Breakfast takes an adventurous turn for Sweetie Belle. And a perplexing turn for teenaged Rarity.
4. Untitled Power Ponies themed TwiDash Tags: Comedy, Romance, Mature
Deep in the bowels of Maretropolis, the Masked Matter-Horn lies bound and defeated in one of the Mane-iac’s evil labs, bait in a trap set for her friends. She waits, helpless, as the sounds of battle rage outside. Finally, Zapp emerges alone and triumphant to claim her freedom. And her love.
If Rainbow Dash can stick to the script!
5. Nothing to Do but Laugh (Working title) Tags: Romance
It’s finally happening. After two years of joking, encouraging, cajoling, pleading, plotting, planning, and just all around wondering why-the-hay-not from all their school friends, Cheerilee and Big Macintosh agree to go to prom together. There’s just one question nopony really knows the answer to.
What do they want?
6. Untitled Changeling Story Tags: Dark, Romance, Slice of Life (?)
This is the big one. Who remembers this blog post? The story I mentioned in it is slowly but surely becoming a thing. It will also easily eclipse A Canterlot Rebellion as my longest story. I’m estimating it will be fifty thousand words at completion.
The lessons I learned from Rumble in the Jungle are in full effect here: I have all twelve chapters thoroughly outlined, and I’m going to wait until I have a firm grasp on writing the final ones before I begin posting it. Any and all delays should be on my end, not yours. I still don’t have a concrete schedule for release, but I promise you it will be consistent.
As for the story itself, it is set a week after the season two finale. One changeling is alone in Canterlot, hiding among the ponies. He was not part of the battle. Queen Chrysalis had another plan for him, in case the invasion failed: revenge.
His duty has always been to protect the Hive. He would follow his brothers or sisters as they infiltrated the outside world and watch over them during their mission. If any creature discovered the truth, he silenced them. Now, after the invasion, the secret is out, and his Queen only assigned him one target. One target that will make the ponies taste the same despair of defeat the changelings did.
To avenge the Hive, Princess Celestia must die.
So there I am. That’s what I did last year, and what I plan to do this year.
To be blunt, I’m not quite sure how to end this. Ask me anything, I guess? Ask me anything and then some. This thing is longer that some of my stories, so if you made it this far, go ahead and speak up. Questons, comments, complaints, whatever.
Have at it!
I love reading author's perspectives on their own works. It's very informative, and having been there for a lot of the later ones, it's interesting to see where you've come from, and how you've changed. Since writing, and since we started partnering up.
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I feel closer to the stories than when I started. Don't know if that's from showing or telling, or just experience, but that's the biggest change I noticed looking back on my first ones. The narrator's voice isn't quite so distant.
Certainly well done. I think now's a good time to check out the rest of your stories. Congratulations, you deserve it.
You have my attention.