Reflecting on Reflections · 2:31pm May 27th, 2023
I'll cut my usual preamble and get to the blogs point. Three Steps Back is going on a semi-indefinite hiatus. This may be dissapointing to you, especially considering this is the second fic I've put on hiatus recently, but both have good reasons and they're interlinked.
Reflection is what I generally consider my best work, at least in consideration of theme, story, and reaction. Recurring Symmetry had more time, heart, and energy put in it, but for whatever reason didn't take off, despite being a personal favourite of mine. Now, I've dabbled around the Reflectionverse, which is implicitly set in S1 of FIM. Branch Shaking and Flash Of A Reflection work on the edges, filling background here and there, or giving fun character moments.
A true 'sequel' was never really planned as such. The next story was intended to be The Gala, my intent to always follow FIM episodic structure roughly with changes occuring both in/out of the narrative thanks to Twilight being radically different. As an example, Swarm Of The Century is different due to Twilight both recognising the Parasprites and already having devised a device to stop them. Of course no one said 'technical errors' can't occur. My point being, Three Steps Back was never intended as a direct sequel, more a story occuring in the vague future (post S2 opening).
Now Three Steps Back and Monday To Friday, Nine To Five both began life as competition entries, they also suffered from this. They were poorly planned and poorly written, MTFNTF explicitly was written in about 4-5 hours, posted at 1am, and didn't have secondary proofreading. Three Steps Back was originally intended to be three chapters. Taking into account the third (unpublished) chapter, we're on 6k words and not even out of act 1 yet ! It grew out of control is what I'm saying. What helped Reflection was that I'd written extensive notes outlining scenes, character beats etc. With these it was far looser, and you can tell accordingly.
I want to do right by Reflection, give its sequels/spin offs the quality they deserve, the quality you the audience deserve. Three Steps Back wasn't that. Though, there is a significant chance in the future I'll re-write it.
No, this and Pillow (and mattress) Talk really highlighted to me that I need to put more effort in. So Three Steps Back is going dark.
Now, it's not all bad news. I've three Reflectionverse fics lined up, these ones (unlike Three Steps Back) aren't being rushed. They're not for competitions, they're being allowed to percolate naturally so I can figure out whether scenes/ideas have merit. That is, rather than yeeting everything on the page and hoping it works. One of these is in fact an explicit sequel to Reflection in fact.
I need time though to ensure it's the best it can be however, and hope you're all willing to be patient.
Oh dear. I'm always sad when a story is unfinished but this is definitely a net gain!
Mega lit