Chapter 13 and Upcoming Rewrite (Important)

So,

It's been a while since I've posted a new chapter, and there's a reason for that. Chapter 12, the last one I posted, took a while mainly because my motivation for working on this story dropped too far. Chapter 13, however, has been taking so long because of indecision more than procrastination. Essentially, I don't know how I want the story to continue from here.

This made me realize several things. With my current plan for the future of the series, I've found myself in a corner. I've just made too many mistakes in the previous chapters to have things continue the way I intend them to. For that matter, I've made plenty of mistakes that, while they don't directly hinder the story's progression, are still mistakes and should be fixed.

Therefore, I've decided to completely rewrite the story of Midnight Shadow.

I'm releasing chapter 13 in an 'unfinished' state, mainly to let more people know about this rewrite. If you still don't fully understand why I'm rewriting this, then you should know that I have another draft of the same chapter with three times the length and a completely different tone and series of events. I've been, at least for the most part, making this story up as I go, and while it worked out better than I may have originally expected, it's still not a good way to write a story like this one.

I'll post another story for the rewrite. I'm unsure whether or not I'll delete the original, but it'll at least stay up until I post the new one. I'm not putting the rewrite up right away, as I've really only just now made the decision to do so, but as soon as I feel it's ready it'll be up. If you're still interested in following this story, I'd recommend keeping an eye out for it.

Now, this ends the important part of the blog post. The rest of it will be me listing off all of the mistakes I feel like I made with the first story, and that I hope to fix in the new one, as well as a few other details about the rewrite.

First of all, I really should've gone into this story with a better idea of exactly where I wanted to take it. If you look back at what I've written so far, you can tell that it shifts in tone and direction quite a bit. While there were still some core plot points that stayed solid throughout, many plot threads either went nowhere or were introduced too early. This is most likely caused by my method of writing up to this point, which was basically 'making it up as I go.' In the rewrite, I'm going to at least try to keep the story focused, and with a clear direction and purpose.

Second, I could've done a much better job with the characters. Most of them have little to no characterization whatsoever, even the ones who have already been playing major roles in the story. Midnight Shadow himself, while I've definitely given him more of a personality, still seems like an underdeveloped character to me. I especially don't think I handled the Mane 6 and their roles in the story very well. I'll definitely try to make my characters more dynamic and layered, and have them live up to their potential as characters.

Third, the pacing in the overall story is completely off. This is probably another consequence of my writing method, but it still needs to be mentioned. The worst case of pacing I can think of was with the Gala story arc. It happened too soon, had forced progression, and the end ultimately didn't live up to what everything else was leading to. I'm sure someone with more writing experience could point out every problem with my pacing, but I'm mainly concerned with the most noticeable and biggest problems.

Finally, I really need to take more time to review the chapters before I publish them. Sure, I go over them a few times before, but that simply isn't enough to polish out all the major issues. I need to take more time to review the chapters before release, to ensure that there aren't any problems I need to address, any changes I want to make, or any details I wish to add.

Overall, while I know my story isn't the worst thing out there, it's far from the best, and many of the mistakes could've been fixed if I just took the time to fix them. That's why I ultimately decided to rewrite the story.

Now, the actual story itself, as in the sequence of events, might not change all too much in reference to major plot points and pieces of lore. For example, Midnight Shadow will still be born without his front right leg, and he'll still make his own out of springs and gears, and he'll still end up meeting Twilight before she moves to Ponyville. However, how these plot points are executed will be changed, and several minor details will likely change as well. I also plan to keep (more or less) the same cast of original characters, except with more fleshed-out personalities and motivations. Finally, for the overall tone, I'm probably going to opt for a darker one, similar to the more recent chapters, rather than the lighter one present in chapters like "How to Catch a Bread Thief" from earlier in the story. Now, it's not going to be that dark, but it's still going to be darker than the actual show itself, and will likely have the same rating and warning tags.

I'm still glad I tried to write the story the first time, despite all of the mistakes. I learned a lot by doing it, and I still managed to make something less than horrible. I just need to take the foundation that is the current story, strengthen it, and then start building on top of it. I hope you understand, and will continue to read my story when I start releasing the rewritten version. Until then, I hope you can be patient as I make sure I'm writing this story well.