Things that Happen Every 24 Hours in the Land of Small, Colorful Ponies · 5:26am Feb 25th, 2014
Hello Stalkers,
A few months ago I had quietly submitted The Delightful Dragon of Ep to the fellows over at Equestria Daily. A week has passed since I received a refusal, albeit the closest I've ever gotten to being accepted. During this week, I have been mulling over the reasons given for rejecting the story, and I sit on the proverbial fence. Essentially, all of the problems are in the first chapter: it's boring, tells you things that you already know, and is full of lavender unicorn syndrome. While I agree that the final point is a problem, one that I have started to rectify, I am having a fundamental disagreement with everything else. The pre-reader's assessment was correct, I'm not contradicting the facts as they stand, but I think that he missed something vitally important to why I wrote the first chapter as I did. Instead, he suggests that I do one of two things, scrap it or rewrite the whole chapter in the style of the following chapters. I will do neither of these things, so I suppose none of my work will ever be featured on Equestria Daily.
I agree that the very first paragraph is a "solid block of of telling the reader mostly things they already know" but consider how I gave that information. Look at the first paragraph of my story, then look at the first paragraph of L. Frank Baum's original Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The similarities are not a coincidence. Now, before I will accept any "but imitation isn't a good enough reason for being boring" or "you're just being lazy and a wuss 'cuz they denied your fic" altercations, let me point out how the narrator gradually changes over the course of the next few chapters. I like to believe that I am showing my readers what is happening in this strange land and how Rarity thinks of it. I won't get into specifics, but the crux of the story is embedded in that theme of gradual change. It would be nice to say that I'm being terribly clever about all of this, but the truth of the matter is I'm only following professional standards pioneered by far better authors before me. Everything I do is an amalgamation of far too many hours spent reading far too many pages of many different types of stories and authors.
Which brings me to the meat of my current predicament. I have this overwhelming feeling that it is the collective opinion of this fandom that fanfiction is tantamount to amateur, mediocre writing at best and indecipherable gibberish at worst. I am here to say that this is not the case. There is no reason whatsoever that fanfiction cannot be elevated and written at a professional level while still preserving the creative freedom we enjoy currently. The culture of celebrating the mediocre at the behest of "originality", under the pretense of innovation, that this fandom has historically favored, ultimately led to the arbitrary standards that showcase sites, such as Equestria Daily, have been forced to adopt. Due to the repeated abuse of "creative freedom" we have limited ourselves culturally. Paying homage to a previous author and using that homage as a tool to shape the mood of a story is not tolerated by the "critics" because of how much it resembles laziness. I fear that many good practices are being culled from our fanfiction writers because they are striving to attain the approbation of a group of individuals who have been forced to create a set of unsustainable criterion for judging what is "good" and what is "bad". The budding author's nigh insatiable need for recognition is driving his story, not the vision of the story itself. At this point, we begin to see the dominant trends of cookie-cutter fics, variations on a theme, half-hearted continuations of previously successful stories, and the blatant attempts at shock value by basing entire plots on controversial and edgy topics.
Am I upset about my story being rejected? Of course I am. However, I don't necessarily fault the pre-reader or the site in general. I am beginning to see a much bigger problem. Attitude is everything and as time goes by, I feel that the attitude of this fandom as well as my own has been changing, and not for the better. While I would love to be able to showcase my work to a greater audience, I can't bring myself to destroy something I have created in order for it to fit a particular mold. The Delightful Dragon of Ep may sit in obscurity for the remainder of my time here. It may only become famous posthumously. But it is no worse fate than any number of other authors with good ideas and better skills. My only solace is in knowing that, at the very least, I did my best.
--Laich
Not sure how ED works, but you could rewrite the first chapter to gain approval then replace all the text with the original after it cleared.
1872168 That would be incredibly underhanded and dishonest. Even more dishonest than modifying the chapter to begin with.
1872173 true, but I know a lot of authors who've done it on there just to get something published. Most of the times it's trolls that do it just to irk the mods. Anyway. Its a suggestion.
1872392 The fact that it is a common practice of trolls, and that you knew it was, makes me wonder why you suggested it in the first place. Do you think EqD deserves to be trolled? It's this kind of behavior that has given rise to the unsustainable "standards" that apparantly equate to "fame". If this is what it takes to be "famous" then I never want to be.
I have to agree with your "meat of your current predicament". Budding authors need to learn to love their craft and to find that desire to improve, rather than try to jump through that "popularity hoops" to draw attention to their fic. This will only serve to dim an otherwise promising new talent in our fandom's literary field. They'll become more concerned about having followers and comments than they will about writing the story itself. And those that do manage to get popular might find themselves in the position where they are writing from the pressing demands of that popularity rather than following where they truly want to go with their story.
Gaining popularity should be a struggle, earned through the literary merit of the writer and their story. For some authors it is, for others, not. And this won't change, because fundamentally the readers are not looking for literary merit. They are just looking to spend some time without being faced with a challenging read. They don't know about literary devices. They don't see the nuances within the writing. Nor should they. That's not the demographic you'll find en masse in this fandom. Because heck, back when even the best of writers were just children, they fell into this demographic as well.
The only way we can try to rectify this is through exploring the worthwhile fics and authors. Recommend them to others. Tell those you recommend the author to why they should read their stories. Help people realize that literary merit has a poignancy that is beyond the simple pleasures of the cookie-cutter and popularity surfing fics that we see pop out.
There are fics of literary merit, and authors who write them. They deserve to be discovered and talked about, and I'm aiming to do that whenever I can.
1872885 I know of these little practices because I am always subjected to them through trolls on various websites I moderate. It isn't pretty at times, and others are just downright unbearable. I'm sorry if I came off as possibly being one of those trolls. Sometimes it's harder to read and understand a tone if it isn't in story mode. LOL Anyway, I wish you luck on your endeavors.
Hmm. I agree with this. In my own opinion, I feel that trying to conform to popularity would ruin any decent aspects of something. Especially in your case, where you feel that it is undoubtingly wrong to change the first chapter. Why write something if you don't like it or believe, just to gain this "popularity". This can be shown in so many places too, aside from writing. Take high school as an example, why change yourself to have some ellegid popularity if you feel that you are not being you. In both situations, if you conform, you will surely lose some of what you previously had, whether it be friends, likes, or followers.like you said, writers gradually change, and in doing so, they become better. You won't get better quality if you conform, you lose it. They say you were lazy and copied, but isn't conforming exactly what they said you were doing? Being lazy, instead of working hard to gradually become better. I greatly admire you for this.