A serious blog post about Starworks (for once) · 1:08pm Jul 13th, 2012

Hey guys, I know your time is valuable so I'll cut to the chase and start with the tl;dr version.

I started writing with the aim of trying to become genuinely good at it, with an eye to maybe writing original short fiction at some point in the future. As such, I am rather goal-orientated about it and would very much like to be good enough to get onto EqD. I know EqD's standards are contentious amongst some folk but, from what I've seen, it is surprisingly professional and I am happy to take their criticism.

I submitted Starworks to EqD a little while back, just to see if anything might come of it, and the short version of the feedback is 'close, but no cigar; fix a few things and resubmit'

This brings me to the reason I'm writing this blog, and the reason why I think it will effect you, the reader. I'm going to go back and make Starworks better.

That's the tl;dr.

If you're going "Pfft, is that all he was worrying about? I don't even care" and are happy for me to go back and improve the writing, then congratulations, class is dismissed, go read other things and I'll see you on the next chapter release. If you want a little more detail then keep reading.

I didn't want to do it, especially given the episodic nature of fanfiction, because it's not what you want from me. You guys have already read chapter 1, you don't care if I make it better, you want the next chapter! And that's completely understandable. But ... they are flawed, and really it's my own stupid fault for releasing the chapters without getting them proofed to a higher standard.

So, how does this affect you? Well, not that much, honestly. The big take away points are as follows:

-- I will not be altering anything of plot significance. If you have read and enjoyed a chapter that is being edited, you can ignore the changes and you won't notice anything besides a few minor style changes in subsequent chapters.

-- Starworks 3 is very nearly ready for proofing. I will release that first, and then go back and re-edit the older ones. The impact on the release schedule of subsequent chapters will be a drop in the ocean compared to the long waits between chapters anyway.

And really that's all there is to it. I don't want to annoy anyone, and I'm sorry if this makes anyone upset for whatever reason. I really want to get good at writing and when the problems are so easy to fix it seems stupid to not try. Starworks, right now, can be a bit of a chore to read, rather than fun and engaging and evocative and all those other lovely things.

I am so, incredibly grateful to everyone who was prepared to look past the flaws and track it. I never expected it to get anything like the positive reception it got. I just hope that you'll bear with me for a little bit and support me making it even better for people who aren't as forgiving of it's weaknesses as you have been.

I rationalised away things like 'Oh, the first chapter's boring, but that's ok. I need to set things up' and 'I'm not happy with how I've written RD's introduction, but whatever I just need to release the chapter.' That's not good, and I shouldn't have gotten away with it. In future, I won't do that.

If you have anything you want to say in response to re-editing, please please please tell me in the comments. This is your story too, and I promise I will listen if people have objections.

Again, if you're going "Pfft, is that all he was worrying about? I don't even care" and are happy for me to go back and improve the writing, then congratulations, yadda yadda, I'll see you on the next chapter release.

For everyone that's still reading, I'm going to lay out, in detail, everything that will be changing in at least the first two chapters (the road to fixing chapter 2 is more complex and needs a little more thought)

Proposed changes
- The italicised intros are invasive enough to be noticed, but not interesting enough to be hooks. I will probably change them to first person, use proper parataxis rather than the poor man's version I've used here, and make them more emotionally engaging. As it stands, I am trying to do two opposing things at once with them and it's destroying their potential effectiveness.

- I will be altering the sequence of paragraphs in the prologue. I shouldn't have let myself start with a description dump. The descriptive paragraphs are not being removed, I liked them and so did a lot of you, so don't worry; my style isn't changing or being watered down. I'm just going to start with Trixie and then flow the description into her 'walking home section' more like I did at the start of chapter 1. The images will be the same, but we'll start on a character and then move onto the descriptions, rather than the other way around which can seem very heavy.

- I will kill the weird line alignments from the prologue's italic section. That was before I realised Fimfic didn't support them all and you may have noticed I stopped doing it so much in the more recent ones anyway. I will set out a proper scheme for what lines are centered and what lines are not, and I will stick to it.

- I keep using sentence fragments where it adds nothing to the style and just reads awkwardly. I will go and fix them.

- I will use semicolons properly instead of treating them like some bizarre kind of comma; equally I will stop using comma splices instead of semicolons.

- I will be adding whitespace around ellipsis ... just like I should have been doing all along

- I will care about line lengths for things like the teleportation interlude-in-no-grammar-land in chapter 1. It looks kinda weird and I should be aware of the visual impact of my lines more.

- I will also be changing a few weird lines and things that are so small and specific that you wouldn't notice if I just changed them on their own.

So, it's not really that big of a deal when you list it like this, but it should make my story a much more enjoyable experience and give you guys a much better experience with the future chapters

Thanks again for your support and feedback and I hope you'll all stay with me as the story runs its course. I am having so much fun writing this for you guys and the feedback and comments make it all worthwhile. Each and every one of you brought a smile to me when you decided to click that star button in the top right of the story, and I wanna repay you with the best writing that I can do.

That's all from me for now, thanks for reading.

- Sanctae

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