Going forward with Don't Go To Sleep and why I've been so hesitant · 3:39am Nov 12th, 2012
Let me take you back to months ago. May to be precise. On the way to church (of all places to get inspiration for a horror story), I suddenly got the idea for a horror story related to Twilight and having terrible nightmares that seem to come true in real life. As the day went on, I put more into my idea and eventually came up with what I thought would make a solid story. As time went on, I changed a major thing about the story from my original idea because I decided it would make a more suspenseful and entertaining story. With my story concept now decided on I had a spring in my step and talked about how excited I was to work on the story. It took me over two months to finally show anything for the constant talking about this horror story, but I finally posted the first chapter and Brony_Fife made me a kick ass cover image to go with it. I wasn't expecting a big reaction for it and even today it only has 300 views, but I was happy with what I got and that people found the story creepy. Heck, the first comment was from a guy who said the story looked too creepy for him. I put the story up on Fanfiction.net and it got a pretty similar reaction and view count. Overall, even if it didn't get much of a big reaction, I was happy with the first impressions the story made for people.
So now it begs the questions: Why haven't I updated it since then? If I was so excited about the story and happy with the reaction to the first chapter, why didn't I continue writing about it? The reason isn't because of the storyline. I have the majority of that planned out already. It isn't the dream sequences. I already know everpony that's going to die and how they're going to meet their end. So what is it? The answer, is the ending.
Putting it simply, I'm nervous that the end of the story will end up disappointing people instead of making them love the ending. Every time I think over the ending in my head part of me thinks it's solid and the people will like it, but the other part of me thinks people will hate it. To tell you the truth, I'm nervous that I'll end up making this big creepy story for people and end up not giving it a good ending, which the whole story is supposed to be leading up to. I'm pretty critical of horror related things myself since I like the genre so much and the ending is one of, if not, THE most important thing in making or breaking a story. Pretty much, I'm scared that my ending won't be good enough.
So that brings me to now. I've been putting off DGTS for months and months trying to decide on what I should do. I've been thinking up different endings but every time I end up seeing more potential for dislike in them than I do for my current one. A part of me said maybe I should just scrap the story to avoid disappointing people with the ending, but I quickly realized that doing that would only accomplish disappointing people who want to see the story end, including myself.
At the end of the day, I just got to man up and go forward. I've waited long enough. If people like the ending, then awesome. I will have been worrying for nothing. If they don't, then we'll chalk this down as a learning experience and try to do better next time around. So starting today, I'm giving DGTS attention again. I'll begin work on Chapter Two this week. Hopefully you guys will like what you read and don't end up wanting to hit me with a stick for taking so damn long.
Here, have a free season 3 gif to end on:
Well I'm already disappointed because I was looking forward to reading it during the Halloween season!
Not that I, like want you to feel bad about it or anything. It is important to ensure that something in which we have invested our time and you have invested much more comes to a satisfying conclusion. Well, it'll be less potent with Halloween over, but I will still look forward to whatever you have planned.