New Potential Story. · 12:16pm Mar 14th, 2013
Once again I thank those of you who read blogs posted by authors such as myself; with journals being almost ignored on sites like DeviantArt, FurAffinity and SoFurry, it's nice to know that somewhere someone actually takes time to read these.
Alright, enough of that, let's talk stories.
As you may or may not be aware, I have a great love for the Changelings as they stand at the end of the wedding assault; there is so much potential there that can be used. At that point (which I would like to point out is where I would prefer to break from the purposed canon held by the comics) we know virtually nothing. What they eat (other than Love, if anything at all that is) the way their culture works, how they view other species... All we truly know is that they're an insectoid race of equines which feed on love and travel in swarms with the ability to change into anypony they wish.
It is a convenient plot device, as other authors have attested rather successfully.
Now, not wishing to take any of the hype that Changing Times collected for granted, I wish to say that, yes, I am incredibly happy that it became so popular so quickly, possibly owing to its first chapter's rather monstrous length. To tell the truth, it was an experiment, and hopefully motivation; I wanted to show others what can be done with a single chapter, and hopefully urge 500-1k word chapter authors to strive just that little bit more and give the fandom stories which we can all read and be proud of. While I am unsure if I have succeeded, I would like to say that the experiment has evolved to a stage where I, myself, am unsure where it will take me; it's a ride I look forward to eagerly, and I hope you all do too.
With what I have planned in the next chapter, it'll at least be somewhat fun.
Scarlet Tears has been put on the shelf for now; I have no intention of stopping with Crimsondrop's tale, it's just going to be given a quiet seat to the side while I work on Changing Times, sparing it what little time I can. Crimsondrop is, so far, my treasure OC; I put a lot of thought into her, even going so far as to create her on Second Life as a personal Avatar.
Now, this new story.
It will be another Changeling story, but somewhat different from how I have written Changing Times. It may have chapters of as... imposing a length, may not; that's just the way I write, going where the story takes me. Always I have set times and events, but the majority of the story is in flow and flux. It will have little bits inspired from other stories already here, and I'm fully expecting to have 'Past Sins Clone' yelled at me several times as it is revealed; I would just like to say that it's fine. I don't mind. Really.
Hell, I'd consider it an accomplishment.
My depiction of Changelings will stay more or less the same, though their back-story will be mainly forsaken in favor of more 'of the moment' content I still prefer to depict them as the desperate race of scavengers whose land was ravaged by magical backlash from Nightmare Moon's original conflict with Celestia.
Another thing to pull to the foreground is the Princesses. In Changeling stories, Celestia is oft portrayed as a powerful tyrant or hateful monarch who detests Changelings and, again quite often, lashes out at them vengefully. I hate that. It's very out of character for one who preaches the very essence of Friendship is Magic, Love, Tolerance, and Harmony. Forgiveness is very much her way, she would rather have allies to befriend than enemies to mourn, and that's the way I intend to portray her. Always.
Yes, she has power. Lots of power. I intend to always depict her as the calm and quiet ruler of a nation, but beneath that I love the idea of her sitting on the full and furious power of Solar Flare, power enough to make Equestria shake to its very core.
Luna, conversely, is still recovering the power she had stripped from her by the Elements of Harmony; and while she has power to move the moon and stars, she lacks the truly overwhelming power of her sister, and as such she makes up for it with a fiery and imposing personality. Inside she's as gentle as her sister, but on the outside she appears as one to not cross.
Anyway, I digress.
The new story will be, hopefully, funnier. Yes, sad stuff happens. That's life. Sad stuff happens all the time.
Sunshine and rainbows may be nice, but they become boring quickly. Not everything goes exactly to plan. Sometimes the best thought plans lead to the worst outcomes.
Just a little something to think on.
I hope you all look forward to it, I know I do.
Again, I would like to thank you all for reading through this lengthy -and most likely tedious- blog post.
-Silent Quill.
I do enjoy your take on changelings quite a bit. I have always seen them as this idea with so much potential. I will tend to pick up anything that has to do with them. On the subject of story length, while I certainly agree that longer, fuller chapters are to be desired, I would like to point out that it usually takes me on the order of three hours to write a single 1000 word chapter. It's not that I don't want to write long chapters, it's just that I don't write fast enough to make it feasible. I do agree that people should certainly strive to go above and beyond that, though. I eagerly await whatever you write next.
917844
Three hours is pretty good for 1000 words. Hell, the first chapter of Changing Times took me just over a week.
Yup, a week.
If I sat and wrote little chapters to a bigger story, using the interim between chapters as a way to skip ahead time in which little happened or such other pointlessness, it would probably not take long to write an entire story. Hell, Scarlet Tears' chapters only take one or two days to do, but I have schoolwork, my tinkering in artwork and now Changing Times to fill that spare time.
While I say write what you want to write, I also like to think that if more authors took a little extra time here or there to pad out their stories, find places where extra story can be written into the work...
Hell, I re-wrote The Phony's main (second) chapter twice.
I dunno, maybe I'm just being greedy; I like to read as much as I love to write, so it's somewhat of a selfish dream to think that I manage to inspire others in such a way.
If anything, I worry that I only intimidated you all, and that I find most disconcerting.
917864 Fair point, my biggest problem is the lack of time to write in general. I don't like to leave things unfinished, so I tend to write for longer periods than I probably should. I completely agree on the substance point. I always try not to summarize when I write. I think my first 1000 word story spans about 15 min. Give or take. I guess it really comes down to, some people will put a huge amount of work and detail into one chapter, and other people will put that into several smaller chapters. I think as long as you continue to write the way you write, it doesn't really matter how many times you have to hit the next chapter button. That being said, I think a minimum of 1000 words per chapter is a goal to strive for.
I do like your idea site about the Princesses and the changelings.
Looking forward to the new story.
I really like your "fake it 'til you make it" interpretation of Luna. But three hours for a thousand words? I personally write at closer to a thousand words per hour, although that doesn't count brainstorming time and the like.
The only way you'd have "Past Sins Clone" yelled at you is if Chrysalis suddenly becomes a young pony and Twilight starts raising her as a surrogate daughter.
Though I already knew that it pleases me to see you saying straight out that you will not cast Celestia as a genocidal tyrant and to do so is run contrary to her character.
It IS rather nice when people here actually respond to journal posts.
It's been my opinion that Celestia as a changeling-hating sun tyrant is a necessary and integral part of changeling mythology. Of course, myth rarely matches reality.