At the End Commentary: Chapter 25 · 4:28am Jun 4th, 2013
This entry contains spoilers for its corresponding chapter of At the End. Be warned...
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I hated this chapter with a passion. Have you ever wanted to do something with all your heart, but never been able to? Compound that by a thousand, because I had this entire chapter scripted, but I couldn't write anything for the love of god.
What I wanted to do with this chapter was provide several brief segments about each pony and their interaction with the Crafter. I needed to accomplish a lot within a very short amount of time. I couldn't write longer scenes like normal, so I was confined with the short, sweet ones that you see in chapter 25. Making these sections so short provided one distinct advantage: I could write what I needed quickly, not need to build the setting as much as I normally do (it was consistently the same between all segments), and cut away when I needed to.
So why was it difficult? I had the biggest goddamn writers block ever. I knew exactly what should have happened. I knew who was doing what. I knew what minor jokes I needed, but my brain seized up and proceeded to froth at the mouth the moment I thought about writing. It was my worst experience with writers block ever.
It's where I elaborated on his language even more than before, after I made an anal probe joke. You so silly Pinkie. Twilight outlines what he does:
“No, no, no,” Twilight shook her head for emphasis. “They’re graphemes. Logograms.” Applejack stared blankly back at her, who only facehoofed. One such curse of being too smart was having to explain what she considered to be small details to those who had absolutely no idea what she was talking about.
“Words are phonograms, meaning each letter of a word is a single sound. ‘O’ and ‘F’ make ‘OF’. Alone, they are just sounds, but together, they’re words. What he is writing is a logograph. Each symbol doesn’t represent a sound, but a word or a group of words.”
He writes with pictures, no words. Although he has a concept of gender, he doesn't write males and females any differently; he writes them as homonyms.
Otherwise, the rest of the chapters was an experiment on humor, which I am terrible at, and building on how the Mane Six react to him. Twilight and Pinkie embrace him fully, Rarity and Fluttershy are cautiously optimistic, and A and Rainbow Dash were very suspicious. AJ has a steadfast belief in her morals and sense of right and wrong, and Rainbow Dash considers him a threat due to what happened to Fluttershy. It was among the first steps to get them along. I had to start somewhere, so I kept the episodic feel of the chapter.
That left me plenty of time to practice episodic storytelling and my humor. Pinkie was blessedly cooperating, once I got over that goddamn writers block. The anal probe joke, Crafter babies, Rarity and her shirt, and the Crafter hiding from Pinkie. I am terrible with humor. I am boring in real life, so this was my practice. The episodic storytelling was practice for a future story I have planned.
I think that's about it. School's over, I finally moved out, and now I am back to writing. Let's get this party started.
Next chapter will be up after editing.
Woo!
Good to hear from you.
Tbh, I know where you are with writer's block. My first fic has been on hiatus for almost a year, despite me having it fully planned out. I just can't get it down on paper.
Good luck!
Is it safe to assume that the addition of actual horses (and mules) to Minecraft will have no impact on this story?
1123638
Correct. In fact, I may have an explanation for that.
Weird question: Can the Crafter climb two-block-high walls? I mean, players can't for gameplay reasons, but looking at the actual model he could probably grab onto the top edge and haul himself up.
1126119
Yeah, I don't see why not. He's a pretty strong guy.
I find it funny that a guy who can build great works of wonder, fight endless hordes of mobs but then be afraid of pinkie pie