Present Perfect vs. Eternal · 9:00pm Jun 8th, 2013
Note: I will be discussing the plot in depth, especially the ending, so if you think you may not want to know what happens, please keep that in mind.
First, I'd like to talk about the reading I just finished listening to. Illya Leonov has a singular talent, a deep, rich male voice with a cultured English accent, and a languid speaking pace perfect for reading stories. He reminds me of nothing so much as the narrator from Winnie the Pooh. I'll be listening to the rest of his readings next (you'll find those in my fic recs, no doubt), then moving on, most likely to his reading of Past Sins. Really, though, you need to listen to something by him; he's just phenomenal.
(Also, there's another reading by Nightfire5150!)
So, Eternal. One of the most well-loved sad fics in the fandom, written by someone who, like short skits and explosions, is known for having a rather particular writing style. (Or was, as the case may be; I think DH ragequit some time ago.) So let's start with a brief discussion of the writing. I found it held, not the fathomless impenetrability of purple prose, but merely the ornamental excesses of florid prose, which is far less a crime. Yes, this story could have been told in a fraction of its length. Yes, something might have been lost if it had. The fact is, there are an awful lot of words here, and I didn't pay attention to all of them (this may be due in part to the very soothing voice of the narrator), but I never felt like I missed anything. If I can nod off for a few minutes, thinking about how much I'd rather be writing my own fics right now, then come back and not feel lost, there's something to be said for cutting down what you've written.
And yet, what needs to be there is used well. In the vein of "what I could learn from this story", Eternal is a lesson in covering all your bases, making sure everything that happens has ample support so that its weight and impact are felt in their entirety. I was also rather impressed by the ways in which he described delivery of dialogue. Of course, he's also got a problem with close word repetition, something that, wouldn't you know it, a reading like this is the best way to suss out. I found the scene titles, assuming that's what those are, to be not just pretentious, but confusing, as Illya read them all in a block at the start of each chapter (which is where they're located, yes, but I had to look at the text to figure out what they were). And on that note, what's the purpose of splitting a chapter in two and then not calling it a new chapter? I mean, chapters 7 and 8 are about 50k words each, yes, but either commit to your verbiage or just use another number, none of this "7-1" business. That's a video game stage. :|
Now let's talk characterization. This is one of the few stories I've ever read dealing with a future mane cast where they feel not only in character, but distinctly older and wiser. It's hard to do. This story could also technically fall into the much-hated (by me) "Tyrantlestia" subgenre, for a large portion of the plot revolves around her having done something that even she describes (a little too frequently) as "evil". Well, if even there were a story where such a thing were believable, this would be it. Again, it speaks to giving events plenty of words to play out in, and to covering one's bases. If there's one character Eternal falls down on, though, it's Luna. For at least the first three chapters, she comes off as a consummate troll and continual thorn in her older sister's side. I found it impossible to reconcile this character with the strong, brave, slightly fearful Luna who helps Twilight through the rest of the story and eventually becomes the playfully enigmatic Princess of Equestria in her sister's absence. (The scene where she announces herself, near the end of the story, is one of the best political speech scenes I've ever encountered in fanfic, and my second favorite in the story. My favorite, fyi, comes in the first half of chapter 7 and features a nameless guard captain who, despite having very little to do with anything, absolutely leaps off the page; he's a triumph of characterization.) Mostly, I just forgot that Luna ever acted any other way by the end of the story, because she honestly seemed to be setting up as a villain from the outset.
Now for plot, and there are two: the inner story, about Twilight and Celestia growing apart and trying to reconcile their relationship, and the framing story, about Celestia, the Eternal Sun, and a cycle of renewal that had unfortunately been interrupted by the banishment of Nightmare Moon. (There are a number of subplots as well, and two of the most notable involve Rainbow Dash. The more compelling one was about her relationship with Scootaloo. The other was about Spitfire; more on that later.) The two stories intertwine, with the latter becoming something of a time limit for the resolution of the former. But it was that framing story that I found most interesting. Which is not to say the "main" plot (since it's the one on the label) isn't interesting by itself. Honestly, it works because the characters have so much room to breathe, and it's a well set-up and executed storyline that sadly just consists of ponies doing a lot of talking and being emotional. (This story is what I would term 2lit4fic.) It just doesn't have the same oomph as delving into dreams, fighting symbolic entities ("Nightmare of Celestia", anyone?) and trying to figure out what went wrong and how it can be fixed. Because of this, I didn't find myself really getting invested in the story until the end game, around chapter 7.
So, let's talk tone, specifically in regards to the tags. Eternal is tagged Sad/Adventure, and while the latter definitely applies, the former I'm not so sure about. (What follows is a bit of personal opinion on tagging, feel free to skip to the comedy portion.) "Sad" is not so much a genre (despite the "sadfic" appellation) as it is a warning: this story is sad. But in the argument against Sad/Comedy grouping, the logic states that while a story can contain both elements, the one that gets the tag should be the one determining the end goal. In other words, do you want your readers to cry or to laugh? They can't do both at the same time! So I was expecting some tremendous heartbreak by the end of this story, which never came to be. I mean, the whole point of the story is that Celestia lives as a mortal pony so she can experience the fullness of life alongside Twilight. That Twilight dies in the end (peacefully, of old age) is thus only a signal that Celestia fulfilled that destiny. And then she takes up a new student like Twilight asked her to do. There's nothing sad about that! And I say this as a person who cries at any emotional pony death ever. :B Always.
Not to get too far ahead of myself, I mentioned comedy. There's a good bit of it in this, mostly centered around the rest of the mane six and their escapades in not moving ever. I thought it was actually fairly ill-placed. Perhaps it's just because those scenes break up the far more interesting dream realm exploration, but I would often times find myself laughing, or rolling my eyes, and then going, "Why is that in this story?"
I've been writing this post off and on all day and I keep heading towards a segue at the end of each paragraph and then having to stop and talk about something else, so I've totally lost my train of thought. The main thing I want to get to is the epilogue. Despite Eternal taking 6 extremely long chapters to really catch my interest, the epilogue is what I would consider to be the worst part of the story. Remember how I said the framing plot was the most interesting part of the story? Well, by the end of worldchapter 8-2, I was saying to myself, "Oh man, the Epilogue is just going to tie up some loose ends and then I'll post a blog about how I really want to see a story about Celestia living as a mortal with the mane six under Luna's rule". Well, that kind of happened. In about five paragraphs, we get a run-through of what Celestia's life must have been like. This is the most egregious case of glossing over, of telling and not showing, that I think I have ever seen in a fic. The severity of my beef with the epilogue may stem from the care with which the author treated the rest of the story. Not getting that same level of detail here, at the spot where I most want it, I felt cheated. The rest of the epilogue then takes up Celestia's new student; honestly, that's what it should have focused on, if you ask me. As it is, again we don't really get enough detail, or enough showing to make the impact rise above, "Well, good, she's fulfilled her promise." Radiant Dawn (worst OC name ever) is also not a particularly compelling character, for all that we have less than nine thousand words to get to know her in. In all, I'd say the epilogue feels rushed, which is the last thing I ever thought I would say about this story.
2.5/5: It's just okay,
Once it gets good, Eternal is good, but when you get down to it, 15 chapters of FoE got nothing on fucking 3/4 of this thing, and the epilogue erased any good feelings I had built up towards the story.
This makes me happy. I was highly damning of this story when it came up on Chris's blog, both for the lack of overall direction at almost every stage and a terminal case of being nice to the point of dreariness.
Problem one feels like a writer who has a bunch of ideas for stories and can't put twenty of them aside so he can focus on just one. Instead, we have plots, framing devices, subplots, and relationships that could each have been a story in and of themselves, and each is significantly weaker for being so dilute. I'd have liked to see the opening reach resolution without the main plot ever kicking off, because, frankly, it was the far more interesting piece out of the two.
The other is that you need to be harsh to your characters, but DH just doesn't seem capable of it. Spending over one hundred thousand words setting up a tragedy and then bailing on it is just downright fucking rude.
-Scott
So many epilogues in this fandom fall flat.
1132780
Do you think it's because people don't understand what an epilogue is? Or at least, don't have a plan for theirs? I've noticed that a lot of people call their last chapter an epilogue just because it's last. I can't make a claim to being an authority (having only a single epilogue ever that many bitched was too short) but it seems to me that if you just call the last bit "epilogue" you've missed the whole point of what one is.
Sure they can. Is that not the point of tragicomedies?
1132765
From comments the author has made I could almost assume most of the story's excess was just him taking Twilestia and wanting to pace it as slowly as possible.
1132787
I agree.
What I see a lot is that authors have the end of the story, then they have the things they want to get across or show in the epilogue. But they have no idea what to do with all the stuff that happened between the two, so they summarize, which is a mistake. Because sometimes these things are too important to summarize and need detailing, other times they are better left as mere allusions or implications rather than addressed directly.
It Takes a Village and The Dread Chitin were both stories I found fantastic but that suffered from summary overload in their epilogues. It sounds like Eternal has the same issue.
I was following this story as it was first being published, but I gave up on it midway through when I realized I was forcing myself to read each new update. That's never a good sign.
...Sorry, but for some reason I have absolutely no idea what you're saying here. Fifteen chapters of FO:E? Which chapters? How are you comparing it to 3/4 of Eternal?
1132807 I'd go a step further and suggest that the two problems are largely the same. If you ave so much stuff to wrap up, I would have a deep suspicion that the story simply has too many branches to begin with. Over-explanation is fairly rampant, even in some of the better authors, so epilogue abuse seems like fairly natural side effect.
I say that having written an epilogue that was longer than any individual chapter of it's parent story, but then I had a very specific idea what I was doing with it and got some very good feedback. Musta done something right.
1132827
He means that for him FO:E took 15 chapters to get to a part he enjoyed reading while Eternal took 3/4 of it's length to get there.
I fell asleep so many times trying to get through those first six chapters.
Regarding the first three chapters of Luna, DH noted this a long time ago on his blog. He noticed that it read like a completely different story. The explanation was that it was meant to be a love triangle of some sort I think.
1132765
Yes, that's it. He bailed on the tragedy. That's why this doesn't need a sad tag.
1132799
In the same span of time, yes, which is to say over the course of one story reading, but at the end? It's one or the other.
1132807
Shit. I forgot to include the entire "This was randomly a Twilestia fic" argument. :| Because there's no shipping tag, it took me entirely by surprise. I would hold this up as a good example of how to do it. Oh, except that I wouldn't, because it hits too close to a double "I've always loved you that way". :| Fuck TwiLestia, worst ship.
1132827
As in "how long it took for me to start enjoying the story". I mean, that's a lot of chapters, and potentially a lot more words, but it's only a third of the story in FoE's case vs. 3/4 to 7/8 in Eternal's.
1133021
And she ends up calling Twilight "sister". Ew.
I have attempted six separate times to read Eternal, and each time, I nodded off before the end of the first chapter. You seem to have a greater tolerance for his deluge of superfluous words than I.
1133106
Now and again, I was even impressed by some word usage. A good narrator, a drive to review the entire thing, and listening during a relaxing bath help, no doubt. :V Don't bother with it, though, you're not missing any huge payoff.
1133114
The sad thing is, I like Twilestia and I have no desire to try to read it again.
1133137
It's really not worth it, even if you do. (There is one entire scene of actual shipping stuff, it happens in the dream sequence, and it's referenced again and again as, "WHOA, well, at least we know we don't really want to be like that, right?")
I also tried and failed to read Eternal.
You should try Merely a Mare, if you haven't yet. From what I've heard of people comparing MaM to Eternal, they're remarkably similar but make completely opposite mistakes. It's also the other Twilestia fic that Vim refuses to read.
1135937
I suddenly want to write a Twilestia fic that Vimbert would refuse to read. Or at least hate through and through.
1136529
Your safest bet would be to involve Rarity heavily. Like, have the story from Rarity's perspective, scheming to set the two up. Actually, he might like that, because of characters shipping characters. Hmmm... Well, just make sure there's Rarity.
1136876
Celestia was actually Rarity all along!
1137606
You're good at this.
1137740
Ooh, or what if she's shipping Twilight with Celestia because she has a Twilestia fetish and wants to get off while they're doing it?
Wait, no, that wouldn't work, he doesn't read clopfics. <.<
1137794
That's what >implying is for
1132765>>1133028 It makes no sense to say DH set up a tragedy then bailed on it. Every adventure story should look like it's heading for tragedy. If it doesn't, the writer did something wrong. DH wrote the story he planned to write. The epilogue is short because it's an epilogue and not part of the story being told. It would be grotesquely out of proportion if he'd lengthened it the way pp is asking for.
Different folks have different tastes. If you aren't enthralled by the repetitive tea parties at the start of chapter 2, you're probably not going to appreciate this story.
Just finished reading this myself. I'm not entirely sure what to say about it. I'm not sure if I genuinely like it (it wouldn't surprise me since my preference to story length is longer than yours) or if I'm just trying to convince myself that it was interesting. I do think that it could be a case study in what to do or what not to do in how to write emotional characterization, but I'm not sure how I can learn from it. But yeah, I guess I could have done with a bit more action to balance out the navel gazing.
1132856
You know, the idea of writing an epilogue longer than the individual chapters of its accompanying story had occurred to me as well. How did it work out when you did it?
1750811 I've yet to release the rewritten version, but first time around it was quite a success. Basically, the story was about Rarity ad her interactions with Luna. Who Luna was, how she acted, how she felt, and what her pains were was a really big factor of the story, especially regarding her influence on Rarity. Thus, I kept the focus on Rarity and only implied things about Luna where it was appropriate to their interaction. Come the epilogue, however, I threw all that away and basically used the epilogue to say everything about Luna that I wanted to say. Since it was all relevant to Luna's characterisation in the rest of the story, and since it did tie up some of the threads left unanswered, it still felt like part of the story and not me soap-boxing.
I think it helped that three of the five scenes were the best in the whole thing, so it might only have worked because I had such a rock-solid grip on how I was characterising Luna, especially when it came to having 'the talk' with Celestia. A few people admitted some moist optical sensors there.
Maybe I'll finish the re-draft soon and dhthomp will be able to give you a better answer to that question :)
-M
1750845
I wasn't aware that you had a story that big to your name. I think I looked over your page once before and it didn't have many stories on it. I'm not sure how interested I am in this story of yours now.
1750893 Shades of Grey. 103k + unreleased epilogue.
1750899
Alright. It's on my list, and if I remember I'll let you know what I thought of it. I can't promise that my critique will be cutting and tough like yours, but I'm sure that need has been fulfilled by other people.