Problems With Conviction · 8:24am Jun 28th, 2014
I've decided that rather than doing a simple word for word conversion of Conviction, it would be better to rewrite the majority of the story. Basically, all the events will remain the same, but hopefully the it will be less awkward to read than a straight word for word edit. This will also give me a chance to fix a bunch problems Conviction had. The purpose of this blog post is to discuss what I think were some of the issues, and ask you guys what you think I did wrong in Conviction, and should probably work on in the re-write.
1st: Prose. It varied from bad to middling. I consider myself a decent story teller, but only a mediocre writer. Usually my stories are interesting enough that they work okay despite how clunky they can be, but I think it's time for me to try and improve in this area. Slight's voice is pretty forgettable, I think, and I really don't want that. I want her to be stuck in everyone else's head the way she is in mine.
2nd: Chase's Death. It was super contrived and kinda cheesy. My plan had been for Chase to die shortly after Blackrock, but I actually struggled to facilitate that death. In the end I came up with some fairly thin reason for them to go into the council chambers, and an even thinner reason for Slight and Chase to be separated. The bit with her bleeding out in the pond was okay, but the way it started raining the moment she died was a little ridiculous. Although, I kinda like the way the rain stuck around into the next chapter as a plot point. Hm... Rain or no rain? What do you think guys?
3rd: Missing Childhood. There's a big chunk missing out of the Blackrock arc. Namely, the gap between ages four and twelve for Slight. I had originally planned on there being a chapter detailing this, but in the end I cut it because I'd shifted some of the events around and didn't have anything left to fill the gap. I think this would be a good spot to establish that Slight was a bit of a bully.
4th: Red Shirt Celestians. I tried to establish that Slight and the nightkin in general were really really freaking dangerous, basically being nightmarish killing machines to the average pony, but all I succeeded in doing was making the Celestians seem embarrassingly weak. Which brings me to the next point.
5th: The Battle For Blackrock. This was kinda terrible. I largely skipped over it, and didn't take the chance to show what nightkin other than Slight look like in a fight. Not to mention that the way the nightkin fought was poorly suited to them. I just didn't think about it hard enough.
6th: The Element of Honesty. This guy's need to change. He came across as an enraged thug, relying on his strength and toughness to defeat his enemies. He doesn't seem particularly skillful, and is nothing more than a raging superpowered child. This guy is meant to be Slight's nemesis. She killed his fiancee, he killed Chase. The two of them are supposed to hate each other with every fibre of their being, and their final battle was one of the scenes I'd had in my head from the first time I had the idea for Conviction. They'd both hurt each other in ways that they'd never recover from, and continue to do so far into the story, both going out of their way just to destroy things that the opposite cares about. Basically, for this relationship of absolute enmity to work, he needs to be a higher quality of foe.
Those are all the things that jump out at me, looking back over the story. If you had any problems with Conviction, it would be a great help for to me if you commented and let me know. Thanks in advance.
Oh, and one final question. What do you think of Conviction being from the third person limited perspective, rather than strictly Slight's first person? Are you strongly against the idea? Would it help the story?
Still interested in Penumbra.
I have not much to say for I barely can remember much. Though I know I gave it a read. -smiles- and I did love it. Hmm, do you mind, but if you still have the docs of the ponified version, may you message me them? I can form a synopsis if I reread something again.
If you don't have, may we discuss about this in messages so you can give me the short summary to the beginning and end?
1. I really don't remember much about the prose, and I can't make a judgement without the docs. I don't remember anything horrible, though.
2. It never really struck me as 'contrived' when Chase and Slight went into the council prison thing, there were legitimate traitors who deserved to be punished. The thing that DID seem contrived was the dead end that they ended up conveniently running into.
The rain was pretty cheesy, too. Maybe if it didn't start raining right when Chase dies? Perhaps earlier or later.
3. This missing chapter was something I really felt should've been included, so I'd welcome this change.
4. I don't see a problem here. When you have elite warriors like the Nightkin fighting against rank and file soldiers, there's going to be some overshadowing. If you wanted to make up for it, maybe you could just highlight the fact that the Celestians did in fact defeat the Lunarians (is that the right word for it?) in battle, thus proving their skill.
5. I was wondering about that, as it seemed like the Nightkin were more designed to be hit and run guerilla fighters with all the skills that they're trained in.
6. Sure, I guess? If you want to improve him, just make it clear why he's doing what he's doing and stuff, like how you described it here.
2240589
Is there a way for you to send me a copy of the story? I'm afraid that I didn't have the forethought to save a copy myself before it was taken down.
As for your concerns, Y1, I'm afraid I can't really comment as I have, at best, a tenuous grasp on adequate prose. What I will say about the Battle of Blackrock, however, is that it seemed too... easy for the Celestians.
The Nightkin were fighting on home territory, had equipment and rations, and could bottle-neck areas. Take the Battle of Thermopylae, for example, though it wasn't exactly "300 Spartans vs the world" the Greek forces were vastly outnumbered yet they managed to dig in and make the battle last for days.
The Nightkin could, theoretically, do the same as the hallways limit the number of ponies who could enter at a time, making numbers effectively meaningless in the short-term.
However, I can see that this method of warfare would be likely unfamiliar for the Nightkin, who seem more adapter for assassinations and guerilla warfare.
Honestly, if you want good feedback for where the story is headed, you'd have to write it out on the site to assess reactions.
I agree with you about the missing childhood and Honesty's lack of development, something needs to be done about that although I'll say that the missing childhood issue seems less pressing.
2243485
Hmm, fair enough, however it seems that there weren't any unicorns there at the time, with the forces being comprised mostly of pegasi. Add to that the fact that bows are impractical in enclosed spaces, they would be forced to deal with the Nightkin head-on. The Nightkin would've fallen eventually, sure, but I think they could have lasted a bit longer.
Out of your six points, the one that seems like the most useful fix is #5; I think if you get a chance to show the Celestials as competent, that will take care of #4 on its own. #3 would be cool, but you don't need to further establish that Slight is a bully; that's well enough done already. If you add it, make a new point with it. #6, giving him more characterization is cool, but given what just happened to him I think the existing scene works; just lampshade more that he's in full-on rage mode over the death he just discovered. (Or do I have the timeline out of order?) As he calms down, he can get cleverer and more dangerous, which gives him a free power-up for the next time she faces him again.
I don't remember having complaints about the prose quality. Be careful about edit-lock, where you keep rewriting one thing to make it better and better and never end up getting anything done. If you get a few other stories done and find your prose quality has improved on them in noticeable ways, that might be a good time to go back over it, but "my prose needs to be more better" just sounds like an opportunity to drive yourself crazy.
The difference between cheesy rain and good rain is whether the audience is invested. Changing the weather won't fix or break that. If readers weren't invested in Chase's death, find out why and fix that instead.
I am mildly in favor of first over third-limited, for the immediacy of the emotions, but pick a sample scene and try it both ways if you're on the fence.
Also, I agree with this comment: 2240589
Oh man, I just noticed Conviction was down.
Anyway, to comment on some of your points:
1: I never had any serious problems with your prose. In fact, if I try to remember back, there were several nice turns of phrase, and nothing so bad it stuck out to me enough to remember. Granted, I can nit-pick anything to death, but in most of my pleasure reading I don't even try to work those muscles.
2. This is going to sound terrible, but I was actually pleased when Chase died. Not only was she a monster, but most of the story to that point was the Fades absolutely slaughtering everyone sent into battle against them. It got pretty tiresome after a while, and I was just relieved to see that, yes, Fades can die too.
3. I wouldn't spend too much ink on this part.
4. This was, without a doubt, my biggest complaint with the original. I mean, why did Celestia even send ponies to their deaths like that? There are multiple scenes where Chase or Slight just wipe out entire squads of Celestians, and it's only due to the few Elements of Harmony that the Celestians win.
I mean, seriously, they may as well have just sent Honesty in by himself.
5. You have to keep with your perspective character. If Slight only sees part of the battle, then that's all we'll see. Composition is the art of arranging your characters so that they experience enough of the story for us, by proxy, to experience it as well. If you ever find yourself wondering why a scene didn't work out as well as you wanted, "Was my composition correct?" is one of the first questions you should ask.
6. Honesty doesn't need to be nice. We call someone "brutally honest" when they hold nothing back in telling the truth. I had no trouble with him as a character.
Hope to see Conviction up here again. If you need a set of eyes, please drop me a line (keep in mind, I am a bit busy with my deployment).