Broken Mirror Cancelled · 11:37pm Jan 6th, 2019
TLDR: Story cancelled. I lack the motivation to write, but even with the motivation I'd probably write something else rather than Broken Mirror.
I'll try to keep this (relatively) short and avoid rambling.
I originally started writing Broken Mirror last year with one real goal in mind: to become a better, more confident writer. I procrastinated on the actual writing part often while at the same time coming up with more and more ideas for scenes, characters, and arcs that just got added onto the pile. When summer came around I put in on hiatus while I studied abroad, but upon coming back just kept putting off continuing it. Eventually, the putting-off turned into an actual loathing for the story itself, a desire to just bury it and let it die, but I still told myself that I should just put my big boy britches on and start writing again. I didn't want to keep the story on life support for months and years on end, though, so I came to a conclusion-- if I couldn't work up the desire/motivation to write Broken Mirror again by the new year, I'd cancel it.
And here we are.
As the deadline I set loomed, I began to think longer and harder on Broken Mirror and what I wanted out of it and this site, and about what was preventing me from continuing it. To keep it short, it really comes down to two things: myself and my story.
The problem with the story itself is something I had a hard time understanding beyond a basic "I dislike what I've written" standpoint. I think this blogpost by B_25 helped me distill my own thoughts better. It made me think about how the story I was writing was not reflective of the goal I had for it-- to become a better writer. To be brief, Broken Mirror if continued as I had it planned would have followed three different, interlocking arcs simultaneously, with each arc involving multiple supporting characters (Twi gets some of the Mane 5; Cadance gets Vinyl, Octavia, and other music folks; and Sunset gets the Sirens and SciTwi). When I envision how many words it would take to complete all three arcs satisfactorily, I can't see it ever being below 100,000 or even 150,000 words. I set myself up for a long, difficult road. As I started considering bringing the story out of Hiatus, I always came back to how long the task would be, how difficult it would be to fit the interlocking pieces together, etc. Whenever I've thought about writing anything else, I've felt a sense of obligation to continue Broken Mirror before starting any other projects. Thus, the story has ended up being an obstacle rather than a conductor of the goal I started it with.
I've considered rewriting the whole thing in a simplified, linear fashion, but even if I do decide to do that someday this blog's point still stands-- Broken Mirror as it exists is cancelled.
As to the second problem, myself... This is where I'm worried about slipping into making excuses. I've not been in a great mental state for the past few months, or maybe even years. There is no deepset trauma or any particular catalyst, but rather a gradual descent into bad sleeping habits, lack of motivation, and low self confidence. I'll not go further into this to avoid making a sob story, but rather talk about how this effects Broken Mirror particularly. When I look at Broken Mirror, and see that as of making this blog it has 154 upvotes and 4 downvotes, my initial thought is not "A lot of people like my story, I must have something here!", it is more along the lines of "Why the fuck would so many people like this? After a few chapters they'll realize this is crap". I can reason my way out of this thinking, but the initial negativity still lingers This, along with the above-mentioned complexity of what I was setting myself up for, has always destroyed whatever motivation I could manage to scrounge up for continuing the story.
So yea. It sucks, but I'm not keeping this story on life support anymore. It's clear to me that this story, in its current form, has drifted far from its original purpose and has become infected with a lot of negative thoughts on my end. Maybe in this new year I'll start coping with myself better, start writing some other stories, and eventually build up confidence to come back for a second, more refined attempt. Or maybe not. We'll see.
Good luck with future endeavors!
I loved Broken Mirror, but if you don't have that drive, you just don't got it. I hope you keep writing though, you were good at it. Good luck for the future!
It's your decision, but I want to say that I loved your story, as well as the idea.
Hoping things in the future will go fine for you.
Well, that's unfortunate, but not unexpected at this point. You are far from the first person to run into this, and I personally had something similar happen to a story I was planning out a few years back so I get where you're coming from. It's good you're being honest with us and yourself about it, and I hope you can use this opportunity to improve in the future.
I think the advice to write one-shots is sound, and you can probably find ways to reuse some of the scene ideas you came up for with Broken Mirror as one-shots so it's not a total loss. Just make sure you take the advice to write something seriously and I'll be happy even if your original plan for Broken Mirror does sound very interesting.
The main problem was that you were setting up the arcs too close together. I made that mistake with the story I wanted to be done with by Christmas but now I have it in sections.
1 intro
2 cause.
3 minor storm
4 darkness
5 lost hope.
6 corruption and defeat
7 adventure to save starts
8 failed battle
9 lost hope
10 total defeat
11 the spark of hope
12 the battle for friends
13 calm before the storm
14 the raging climax storm
15 the choice
16 the conclusion
can't say im not sad, but I understand your reasons why. honestly I have my own problem of creating incredibly ambitious ideas that go no where, from fanfiction to D&D campaigns. if sucks and can get really intimidating to work on them when you think about how much you have left to do.
if you ever want to give this another shot as a much simpler story I'd def read it. I was always down for the premise of the story so seeing again would be a cool idea.
any way I wish you luck on your future stories and hope that things work out for you. you have talent, and I can't wait to read what ever you come out with next. :)
Such a pity. I believe this story showed great promise.
That being said, I completely understand your reasons as I have seen multiple stories end up like this.
Best of luck to you.