TThe Bonds of Love
MLP: FiM
Romance
Sad
Slice of Life
Heartache is not so easily overcome. Indeed, many can quickly heal and move on. But for many others, healing is a long, arduous journey that never seems to end. Luckily, the path to healing is easiest when those you love stand by your side.
Suicide / Self Harm
Other
Starlight Glimmer
Gallus
Silverstream
Young Six
Summer Script · 309k words · 97 5 · 3.2k views

The Writing of The Bonds of Love Progress Update 4 · 3:20am Nov 29th, 2021

Hello, everyone! As you’ve likely surmised from the title, here is yet another Blog Post concerning my current progress with the “Writing of…” for T.B.O.L.

I’ve recently finished both re-editing and discussing Ch.8(Tension) and Ch.9(Fear), two of my absolute favorite chapters of the story and probably the ones I'm most proud of, second only to the next two. Speaking of, I'll naturally be discussing Ch.10(Home) and Ch.11(Closure) next, and upon completing them, I’ll once again update you all via another Blog Post.

I’m sorry it’s still taking me so long to complete this thing. Believe me, I’d love nothing more than to finally move on from The Bonds of Love and start working on something new, but, well? A promise is a promise, and I’d rather not break mine.

If it’s any consolation, here are the current estimations for how long I plan to talk about each chapter:

T.B.O.L.’s pre-planning stage and development cycle: 3090 words.

Ch.1(Transition): 4,891 words.

Ch.2(Reprieve): 4,414 words.

Ch.3(Expression): 6,322 words.

Ch.4(Optimism): 4,056 words.

Ch.5(Normality): 5,448 words.

Ch.6(Stagnation): 7,084 words.

Ch.7(Pride): 4,791 words.

Ch.8(Tension): 4,775 words.

Ch.9(Fear): 12,036 words.

Various, additional tidbits: 2,893

And I know that, aside from Ch.9(Fear), none of these word counts are even close to the word counts of the chapters themselves—let alone the 30k+ behemoth that was Ch. 15(Family, Part Two)—but discussing the chapters is a far different writing process than actually writing the chapters. Not necessarily harder, just…? More tedious than anything else.

So far, Ch.4(Optimism) was the easiest for me to discuss, needing just shy of a week to complete and properly edit. Ch.6(Stagnation), meanwhile, took me the entire dang month of September because, well? Reasons… Honestly, I didn’t even realize Ch.9(Fear)’s discussion had as high as a word count as it did until I checked it for this Post. But hey! At least you guys will have plenty to read about in that one especially.

I suspect I’ll also have plenty to talk about regarding the next set of chapters…

Anywho, that’s about all I had to say. That’s my current progress on the “Writing of…” and once again, nothing has changed for me IRL since the last update.

Sooo…? I guess the only thing I’ve left to do is share yet another brief excerpt of the “Writing of…” as a taste of what’s to come. And since I just got done discussing the main Smolder chapters of T.B.O.L., how about I provide a snippet related to her?

Like I mentioned last time, any of these excerpts I show you will naturally be included in the final version of the “Writing of…” and might also be subject to change should I edit them.

And since I don’t want to quite spoil what I talked about in Ch.8(Tension) and Ch.9(Fear), the following is instead an excerpt concerning the final scene of Ch.5(Normality) where Gallus invites Smolder to Sandbar’s for a movie night.

So, Smolder…
Up until this point, Smolder had been giving Gallus the silent treatment, and it was not painting her in a positive light. Now, that was clearly intentional, but I knew it wouldn’t be good for Smolder to only be treating Gallus that way, for both story’s and realism’s sake.
Smolder is Gallus’ friend, after all, and though things were still rocky between them at this point, she realistically wouldn’t be that furious with him, especially since by now her anger had boiled over into everything else that came in Ch.9(Fear).
And on a more a meta level, I knew most of you, the audience, were likely miffed at Smolder, much like how Silver and Yona were. She wasn’t treating Gallus fairly, and while she had her reasons, those reasons weren’t yet revealed. So I slipped in this scene, as well as the one in Ch.7(Pride), to show Smolder in a better light. That although she was still upset, she’s not nearly as hostile toward Gallus as she was earlier and she actually does want to spend time with him and the others. Not to mention the whole book hoard of hers being a clear indicator something else was going on with her…
I mean, think about how terrible it would have been if Smolder never had any scenes between her still being angry at Gallus in Ch.2(Reprieve) and the revelations we receive in Ch.9(Fear). It would have felt really cheap, not showing Smolder trying to work through her own paranoia and be friendly toward Gallus again—doubly so considering Silverstream was trying to overcome her own paranoia; why couldn’t Smolder do the same?
Plus, it would have seriously damaged Ch.9(Fear) as a whole because all of Smolder’s fears would have felt like an excuse to justify her silent treatment and anger rather than a reason to explain it. And considering the subject matter of Ch.9(Fear), you can bet your A** I did not want to screw up.
It’s like Gallus said himself: He and Smolder are still friends. Things may be awkward, and neither of them handled the situation and their emotions particularly well, but they are still friends. They are still family. And they do still love each other.
Not romantically though; there was no way I would even joke about that notion.

And there ya go; I hope you all enjoyed the newest excerpt. I know it’s a tad short, but I can’t be spoiling you guys too much now. Trust me though, you’ll definitely have a lot to read about when it comes to Smolder. Especially since, of that 12,036 words for Ch.9(Fear)’s discussion, 3,334 words are specifically about her and why I did what I did with her subplot.