Behind The Story: Photo Finish and friendships

I've reached over a hundred followers! Huzzah! That's quite a feat I never thought I'd ever do.

Anyways, hello to new followers!

This is really quite surprising. I expected this story to get much fanfare as my other shorts but it didn't. It made it to the popular box, not the feature box. Surprising. I really loved this story and I gave so much time and effort. I had to hold myself back from publishing it prematurely. Good thing I didn't.

I came up with this story long, long ago. Like right after my Aria and Lemon Zest short. However, I could never really seem to mold out the story through words. I knew there would be a fallout or fight then they get together, but I couldn’t really type it in. I couldn’t even make it a summary of it. I knew what would happen but for some reason I couldn’t write it.

Flash forward to almost two years later, I did it, which is pretty weird. The first draft of this story really didn’t had any flashbacks and it only had one flashback; the scene where Photo proclaimed to be the best. But good thing I had Level Dasher pre-read it for me and it really opened my eyes. Not only it was lacking, it also left a lot of assumption on the character of Violet, Pixel, and Photo. After that, five thousand words became eight thousand. I spent all of my free time writing to perfect this. I wanted to make it as good as I had in my mind two years ago.

To be honest, I'm disappointed. I'm sad that this didn't get much views as my other works; heck, even The Misadventures of Renegades gained more attention than this. I really feel this is an amazing story but somehow its not being read by many. Is it because not many people like Photo Finish? Maybe. I noticed previous characters I wrote for had greater following so maybe that's why.

So what's next on my shorts list? I'm thinking of Flash Sentry or Octavia. Leave a comment if you want me to prioritize one from the other! 'Till next time peeps. Happy readings.

Comments

[Level Dasher]

Congrats! Time to mark off another box in that bucket list of mine yours, buddy.

In terms of why the story may not have gained traction, I think you're pretty close with the fact that not many people know much about Photo Finish. This story was about three characters that we as fans know practically nothing about. While the same could be said about Lemon Zest and the rest of the Shadowbolts, they actually had a fair number of impactful speaking lines in Friendship Games and the other shorts, and people probably really wanted to know more about them. We know barely anything about Photo, Violet, and Pixel, nor do they have much impact on the canon (except now we know that Photo Finish's pony version can make a good stalker—see Not the Mane Thing About You). I think I mentioned this term to you during the pre-read, but this may have gotten a lack of views for the same reason one of my stories got a poor review from Titanium Dragon: it's essentially an "Info Dump" story. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with that—a lot of people like to see others' takes on what characters could be like since we don't know anything about them, but some people just kind of shrug those off and don't bother. Can't win 'em all.

For your next? Hm... well, there's been quite a lot done with Flash, and not a lot done with Octavia's EqG persona (comparatively) that I know of, so take that into consideration. If you want to do something with a character a lot of people love but have little information on her EqG version (and thus you can start from closer to vinyl scratch), I'd go with Octy. If you want to read around and see what others have done, what to avoid, and where you can possibly do something a little more new (since you seem to have an affinity for coming up with random story ideas and making them work), I'd give Flash a try. It's up to you.

Good luck!

[reading is magic]

4686647
Yep, this list is mine!

I guess people aren't as interested as me when it comes to Photo Finish. Oh well, I still love this story.

Octavia huh? Well, I can go with that.

[reading is magic]

4687167
Do tell me if it's good!

[Phantom Shadow]

Having read the story, I am surprised it didn't get as much attention as it deserves. I'm gonna guess that it has to do with the characters, but who cares? I loved it!

[reading is magic]

4687644
Thank you for that. I love this story too.