Revisions complete! Will post in a few days. Chapter 18 written. · 4:28am Feb 15th, 2014
Whew! So, after several weeks of combing through the entire story, I've seen what works and what needed some changes. Most of these problems were in the most recent chapters and were regarding unneeded filler. I can honestly agree that it dragged out the pacing of the story, so I've gone through and removed much of it, particularly in chapters 14 & 15. Keep in mind that I have not changed the direction of the story. But this should help out with the its pacing issues.
Now, this hasn't stopped me from writing new material. I have also been working on chapter 18, which I had just finished last night after wrapping up editing the previous chapters. While I can post it, I think I should wait to finish the next two chapters, since I'd rather not let the story feel like it's inching out slowly, especially with the building action. Even I feel that the story has felt slow in recent chapters, but I am very pleased in the direction that it is going now. These upcoming chapters will have much more of an adventure feel to them, and the full gravity of GLaDOS' plan will come down at the end of these next few chapters (probably in chapter 20)
I have not reposted the updated chapters yet, but I will make another blog post when I do, and I will edit the description to indicate this. I just want to go through these chapters one more time to make sure they're good.
If you are reading this, please provide feedback on what you think of these changes. I aim to make this story as amazing as I possibly can, which is quite a challenge when you are a novice writer undertaking a novel-length sequel to a highly-regarded classic.
Changes:
Chapter 03: The Practical Purpose of Portals - Cut out and summarized Chell's explanation of how portal guns work.
Chapter 06: Cryptic Answers - Very minor change. Kept Rover's punishment unknown to be revealed in the next chapter.
Chapter 09: Foreseen Consequences - Rewrote Celestia's letter to Twilight.
Chapter 11: A Forgotten Memory - Removed scene in hospital. It dragged out and slowed pacing.
Chapter 13: The Apology - Trimmed Celestia's conversation with Chell.
Chapter 14: Duel of the White Alicorns - Cut out 2,000 words of filler dialog. Now around 11,000 words
Chapter 15: A Gathering of Friends (New name, or something along those lines) - Cut out almost 3,000 words of filler. Changed Cutie Mark Crusaders to not go with group since they made things more cumbersome. Now 6,300 words.
Chapter 16: A Mortal Bargain - Added a very important scene to justify Celestia's decision. Cut out more dialog. Added 2,000 words, cut 2,000 words
Chapter 17: Now Little Celly is in Here Too - Edited Cutie Mark Crusaders out.
Good work, mate. I'm looking forward to it.