On the subject of today's interlude · 12:39am Oct 26th, 2020
Surprise update! 
So I'd like to give just a little background to today's interlude, the reasoning behind it, and the placement in the chapter order. Please be aware, if you have not read Rekindled Embers, that there may be some minor spoilers ahead. I'll mark out the portion of this blog that discusses them just in case.
Interlude: The Voice Of Living Stone was originally the prologue of Rekindled Embers. That's right! This was originally slated to go even before chapter one. When my editor, Cyonix, first got his profoundly talented claws in my story, one of the first things he told me was that the prologue needed to go. "It reveals too much too early," he told me, and I agreed.
But if he was right (and oh boy was he ever!), why did I put it there to begin with?
Well, that comes down to my own insecurities. The truth is, Rekindled Embers is sometimes very difficult for me to write. Obviously I deal with a lot of heavy topics, from oppressive religious organizations to bigotry. I'm constantly terrorized that I'm not doing these topics justice. Even worse, however, is the fear that by writing about these evils I somehow perpetuate them.
Absurd, right?
But in my paranoid brain, it doesn't feel so absurd. I don't tend to like author's notes (I barely ever use them) but one of the only times I've ever broken that rule was after Chapter 3, after a particularly harrowing sermon and a punishment scene. I have a constant need to try to distance myself, personally, from the evils the bad guys in my story are committing. And that's why I wrote the prologue. It came fairly late in the writing process, and I hadn't outlined for it. The whole purpose was to take a clear moral stance from the beginning, to establish that the Diarchy was evil and cruel, and that I didn't agree with their behaviors. Entirely unnecessary, but you try explaining that to my built-in insecurities as a writer.
That being said, once I'd written the prologue, I kinda liked it. So we reworked it and figured out the best place to slot it back into the story, which is right here. And on that note, I hope you enjoy.
On a related note, I've obviously been working on future chapters, as well as a few side stories. Stay tuned for "A Word for Ponies Like You", and "Unexpected Cargo", two one-shots I've written in the Rekindled Embers world. I don't know when they'll be ready to publish, but it should be soon.
Thanks for reading!
Very. But I guess that in the past few years the absurd has shown itself to be more common than we'd otherwise like. The internet gives people who're thick as a brick and dumber than a box of rocks license to make damaging assumptions.
Not naming any names, mind, but I'm thinking them very loudly.
If you're not one for author's notes, try leaving them in the comments section. If you write them out beforehand, you should be able to reserve the top slot for yourself. Still hard to miss, and less disruptive to the narrative.
Yeah don't fret about that. You might be concerned over only a tiny vocal minority on the internet who cannot separate reality from fiction. These are not normal or healthy people. "This author writes about this so it's what they believe/ they need to be punished for it like the real world!" is dangerous and unhealthy. Even most children can separate what happens in media from the real world. Adults who carry this into their later years are very volatile to be around. I won't guess at your contemporaries, but i'd hope you're not surrounded by people like this and feel the need to constantly walk on eggshells over it. Even writing or drawing the absolutely most heinous things has no bearing on reality, or impact that needs to be shut down by law. It's the same logic as "violent video games make you violent", and the number of people i've conversed with who don't understand the parallels to that mantra and their own of "this author did this so they must be punished for real life crimes" is nuts.
Also, i'm very glad for you to have gotten the feedback to push this sort of thing back into later chapters. I'm glad you liked something you wrote that much, however it is incredibly blunt, heavy-handed, and requires more setup. It's pretty much the writer sitting us down and going, in detail, over "this is what is actually going on, this is what the story is about, etc" and ruining twists or setups that come later. It's much more impactful for the reader to be lead through and along to see the good and the bad, without outright being told "this group is evil through and through", as that leaves a strong stick in the mind of people.
One of my favorite things about your story's early chapters is that even if the Diarchy as a whole is sick and twisted, there are still very good ponies working in the midst of it. It is this way for even the most evil regimes in history (though those often have the pressing danger of death as payment for nonconformity). You have truly repugnant government, but ponies in the midst who make a young filly's dreams come true, or seek to truly do good and do better despite the troubles of their circumstance. This adds a lot of depth and realism, and it's all the better for it.
I think a lot of the beauty and genius of the first chapters is that it feels like there's a world, a version of this story with a few careful edits, that really is just a harmless action adventure story. Like you could trim lines and scenes that deal with the awful oppressive bigotry of the empire and just follow Emberglow on a fun romp. And in some ways, that fun adventure angle still does survive those first few chapters, at least as far as Emberglow is concerned. She lives in a world where she can see herself living and dying for this empire, and one of the stranger things about it? She still doesn't feel like a villain.
It's a lovely way to do a dystopia, props to you and your editor