Shetlander rewrite: Foci · 3:34am Aug 8th, 2014
I just responded to an email from a member of WRITE, who was interested in doing a review for Shetlander 1.0. I was tickled about that, and in responding to his innocent query about what I was going to change, I found myself undergoing a process of narrowing down what I'm going to change.
First off, I want the Lovecraft gone. It's really quite silly, and it twists what could have been a worldbuilding story about Equestrians from different regions meeting into a suddenly! gorefest and Nim ex machina. Simply put, the monsters from Outside are hokey, cliché, and worst of all?
They're a cop-out. Writing thrilling action scenes is easy. Writing scenes involving more mental and emotional interaction between characters in general, and one particularly messed-up character in particular, is harder.
So: Instead of having indescribable (in less than two paragraphs and four hundred words) horrors, we have poor old Mucmarfóir front and center. No distractions with two, four, or 22/7 feet.
There is a possibility of me ponifying some Lovecraft in the future, but not this time.
I was thinking of going s/eldritch horror/caribou/ but I'm not sure that's worth more than a bit of background reference. Any more than that and we're back in Far Too Convenient Yet Incongruous Fight Scene Land again.
Secondly, I want to delve into the Shetland way of life more. Why are they so much more aggressive? Why did Mucmarfóir think he could fight his way to the Lairdship? (Other than that he's an uneducated, great fluffy neddy?) How did he find out about the new Laird? Etc.
Originally, I was going to move the bulk of the story up to Neighdinburgh, but I've decided against that. Otherwise there'd be a whole side story in which the Cutie Mark Crusaders...
...it doesn't bear thinking about.
Finally, of course, we put dear old Mucmarfóir's 'education' as the focus. I'm seriously thinking of having each Element getting a chapter with him.
That's the long; the short of it is that I intend refining the plot into two parts: redemption of a lost and confused soul, and comedy of errors.
HA! Knew passing it on to the other folks in WRITE was a good idea.
Took me forever to convince any of the fucks to read it.
However... You want my two cents on this whole rewrite business?
Write a separate story.
There's so, SO much you're planning to change, it's honestly not even the same story anymore. You're changing nearly everything in the fic, to the point that it's debatable if they're even the same characters.
Write a new fic, an alternate universe version.
As the mysterious WRITE member who wrote that message in the first place, I agree with 2352690. This would work best as a separate story.
I like the current Shetlander mostly because it's a rocking, rolling, action-packed thrill ride. And despite the lack of 'scenes involving more mental and emotional interaction,' I think the characters really shine through. The whole story gives me a bit of an Indiana Jones vibe: no, it's not high art, but who cares, it's fun!
(The contours of my review are already showing...)
A rollicking action story? Wow. I'd hadn't seen it in that light before.
Then again, as the saying goes, I can be my own worst critic. When I wrote the story, I was generally scrambling to fit the pieces I could envision together however possible; run your hand over it and you can feel the chicken wire, masking tape and half-chewed gum holding it together. (The hand sanitiser's over there.)
Let me think about it a bit more. It looks like there could be a sequel after all. I mean, what happened to Mucky in the year after that stoush? And how did he cope?