I'm sorry · 12:34am Oct 25th, 2015
To my faithful readers, I just want to say that I'm sorry for what I've written. Lately, I haven't had as much time as I wanted. College and work have both been stressful and it's been harder to get sleep. So I don't spend as much time on chapters as I want. This latest chapter shows me that apparently that's affected my writing.
I have to apologize. When I was writing it, I did as I always did before. I wrote what I felt was fitting and I had as much fun as I could while doing it. However, I must have put myself over others and that's not something I intended to ever do. I was selfish and that was wrong of me. What I made was a train wreck and now I have to clean it up.
So I ask of you, should I just delete it? I've...never deleted a chapter before. I've never screwed up as a writer so much like this that I'm ashamed of it. If you all want it, I'll take it down right now. Of course, I'll be going on a hiatus to figure out how things are going to work out now. That and to clear my head, so it might be a long while before another chapter comes forth. I really don't want to post more garbage.
So tell me if I should delete it and do something else.
Give it time and thought. I'd say just edit it instead of outright deleting it. Discuss with your detractors about how it can be fixed and do so. Don't beat yourself up, this happens to everyone
If you're not happy with it, then there's nothing wrong with taking it down for revision or rewriting. It's certainly good to listen to feedback and take it into consideration, but remember that it's your story.
It did seem a bit less tight then previous chapters, admittedly, but I'd hardly say it was offensively bad or anything.
Wasn't that bad... at least in my opinion. Sleep it over read it again and fix what you think needs fixing. Deleting seems so ... drastic.
Deletion is final; give it new life, fix some things that might need to be fixed, but don't delete it.
it wasn't that bad I thought is was ok but think it over before you do anything you might regret.
Dont delete it. Think about how you can improve and then rewrite it. I haven't actually read It but as an author I think that the author should always listen to his gut and not just follow his readers suggestions. If there are like 100 comments saying this sucks well then you made a mistake and you can fix it or you might have had a problem with execution.
What I'm basically saying is don't beat yoursel too much over it. Just do what needs to be done nothing more or less.
Well you see it isn't a bad chapter. It is funny and entertaining, it is just so, so out of line with the rest of the story. dont scrap it just label it non cannon and do a rewrite it is still fun.
Leave it as it and just call it a non canon chapter.
3494762 I like this guy's Idea.
The only problem I see with the chapter is that Celestia seems OP, and that we for some odd reason go back to Luna for filler, It would probably make more sense to have the scene switch instead go to see how the orc preparations are going. And instead of having Celestia belittle Nightmare Sigrid instead have her calmly talk her down, Celestia isn't impaired and I don't think it would take a few weeks and an infatuation with a dragon to break her royal composure. Yes her internal thoughts can be a bit out there, but her outward composure would be well controlled. The only way she would allow it to slip would be if it was part of a plan, or something close to her heart.
If I were you I'd take it down, you can always put it back up when it has been rewritten, and the longer you leave it up, the more confusing it will be when you release it for real.
Alternatively, you could tag it as a 'non-canon joke chapter,' so that people won't think it is canon, then remove it when you have the real chapter.
Don't beat yourself up about it too badly. It is fanfiction after all, it isn't as if we are paying you, or you owe your readers anything. If it isn't coming to you just take a few steps back and focus on the core of what made the story interesting. An incredibly fascinating take on supernatural stockholm syndrome that alternates between cute as you read it, and horrifying when you think about it. One dud chapter isn't going to kill it, as long as you acknowledge the mistake, correct it, and learn from it.
If you are finding yourself so short on time, don't force yourself to churn out chapters. Plan ahead for when you will have time and outline ideas and give them time to percolate through your mind. That should help you weed out anything that on a second look you no longer believe is up to snuff.
As for the current chapter, if you really can't stand to look at it, you could try to find some parts you do like and keep them for a new chapter. But as a warning, don't get caught up in re-writing an ongoing story, it is very rare for that to end well and is often the death knell of the story.
I would not make a decision on this until you make a decision on how you want to move forwards. If you are keeping the broad strokes mostly the same you can edit it with an author's note explaining what happened because the comments will be mostly accurate. On the other hand, if you decide you want to make a radical change like having the orcs pick that moment to crash the party then it would make sense to either delete the chapter or flag it as non-canon because the comments on it will have nothing to do with the new chapter. Either way, I would just add a note or something at the top of the chapter to explain what happened for now and focus on more important things like your life and what you actually want to do with the story.
You don't need to delete or de-canonize the entire chapter; parts of it were well done and fit quite fine with the story's tone.
It's just that... how to put this?
It feels as though a number of plot points were brought very suddenly to the foreground that were not properly foreshadowed and seem to make the present narrative unnecessarily complicated.
Instead of putting the entire chapter on the chopping block, perhaps you could simply adjust or remove those... less streamlined plot points so that things run smoother and characterization is better maintained.
And for transparency's sake, I'm currently working off the assumption that this blog is primarily focued on the following series of events:
*Cake arrives.
*Celestia suffers momentary cake-based insanity.
*Random boulder materializes for the express purpose of destroying said cake.
*Celestia suffers cake-based emotional breakdown at the exact moment Luna suffers Celestia-based emotional breakdown.
*Dual breakdowns summon Deus Ex Materna to (apparently) wipe away villainous plot threads with liberal application of whoopass.
Looking back, I think I can see the "how" behind that particular trainwreck, but I'm having trouble puzzling out the why: what purpose does all this serve in the story that can't be fulfilled without it?