On I Don't Want To Write This, or "How Aragón Still Manages To Mess Up Everything He Touches" · 6:07pm Feb 18th, 2015
So! The story is out of the box, which means I’ll ramble about it a little bit. Meta information, mostly—things that you can’t know just by reading at the story, but that I think are interesting for the readers.
It’s also a great chance for me to ramble for over 2,000 words in a blog without anybody telling me I shouldn’t, and you can be damn sure I won’t let that pass.
Oh, by the way! My salute to all my new followers: Hi. ‘Sup. Good? Good. I hope you realize I’m mainly a comedy writer, because if you followed me because you liked that drama thingy and feel like reading more dramatic stories, then… Yeeeeah. I, uh, might not be the best user to follow then.
Okay, elephant in the room first: I like to make my blogs funny, and this is about a story that deals with Dash being sad because her father died. So I have two options here: ignore that detail and write my usual kind of blog (as in, full of very stupid jokes) or try to pay some respect to the story and write, like, a serious blog and all that.
Yeah, doing the first option, sorry. On the other hand, I guess I’ll tone it down a little—not that hard, since I’ll be talking about a story, so it’ll be more informative than downright surreal (as often my blogs are, apparently).
(Well, most people actually label them as “weird.” “Surreal” is just the fancy word for that.)
(Okay yes, they actually say the blogs are, and quoting here: “f*cking dumber than that time you tried to lick a giraffe. What is wrong with you.” But we’re not talking about that.)
Hm. Failed step one already. Well, that’s cool I guess.
And, you know, partially I’m sorry but – I can’t stress this enough – I’m a comedy writer. Comedy. I’m used to people telling me my stories made them laugh. I mean, don’t get me wrong – I’m no stranger to noncomedy fics, and what was my most depressing fic till now is in EQD, to boot. But I don’t think those are “sad” as much as they’re “contemplative.”
It’s a big difference, and you might call me a wuss for this, but… Holy crap, dudes. I log in, I see a couple comments, and both of them are people telling me my story made them think of their dead loved ones, and possibly cry.
Woah.
So yeah, as I’m as mature as a seven year old boy who plays online FPS’s, my first reaction is to immediately type “I’M SO SORRY” in the comments and then delete the story. Probably while crying hysterically.
Of course, that’s the moment when I stop myself because I just remembered that wait, this is kind of a sad-ish story. That guy is telling me he liked the fic. And that other one said I did a good job, right after – oh shit I reminded him of his grandfather why did I do this.
So yeah, you shouldn’t really expect any drama from this guy any time near. I’m not closing myself to the possibility, of course – I don’t really know what I’ll write next, that kind of thing just happens – but I think I’m more comfortable with comedy. Dunno, it seems like making folks happy (or at least making them chuckle) is more fulfilling than getting them melancholic.
Which is, and I know it quite well, absolute bullsh*t. I’ve read sad-ish stories myself, I’ve gotten kind of sad about it, and I’ve loved it. I know that the folks who commented on it were happy with it. This is not anybody’s fault or anything, it’s just me being a wuss.
Hahaha. Wuss. I seriously love that word. Like, I get it’s kind of an insult, but I love it because I can’t help but hear a very fat baby talking every time I see it. Wuss. Hahahahah. Such a fat baby.
Why such a wuss (snort) reaction to the readers telling me they liked the story? Well, this is going to make me look bad, but – yeah, the comments were way too heavy for a story with such a background.
I mean, more than one reader asked me why I had written that story. Perhaps I was feeling sad or angry for some reason? A personal experience similar to the one shown in the story? Me wanting to try new things?
Far sillier.
Far, far sillier. Seriously, don’t ever assume anything related to me is serious, because by all accounts I’m just a very eloquent clown fish in a Pixar ripoff movie.
You see, I was browsing Tumblr at 3:00 am or so, because I have insomnia. And MrNumbers, being Australian, was online. So I was just skyping with him, talking some stupid silliness or something, when I noticed a sad fic had appeared on my dash.
It was a really short “story,” and it was mostly a character writing a letter to a dead loved one. It was bad. It was very, very bad. So I said “man, I could do something better than this.”
Numbers replied shortly. “You think?”
“Yeah, dude. I just need a plot. Something simple, and just the voicing. Easy-peasy. I can’t believe how much they messed it up in this fic I’m reading.”
“Plot? Isn’t it about a character writing a letter to another?”
“Well, yeah, but you can’t just write a thousand words of ‘I’m sad’. I need something more. And the character is gonna be Dash.”
“Why?”
“She’s the best one for what I have in mind.”
So immediately after writing this reply, I opened a MSWord doc, and I started writing. Just like that. No big revelation, no artistic struggle, no conveying my feelings to the page.
Even I am disappointed by that, holy crap.
I mean, I even did what I usually don’t do, and wrote while listening to a song. Just one song, on repeat. I memorized the lyrics because of this story.
Which song? You might ask. Numbers guessed something by Mountain Goats (cool group, awesome lyrics, very contemplative/sad). Selbi said My Chemical Romance (kind of emo, punk-rock-whatever, more angrysad than sadsad).
Both are wrong. Blank Space, by Taylor Swift. It doesn’t even relate to the story, I just thought it was fitting. Hey, that’s a neat melody. “AND YOU! LOVE! THE-GAME!” Neato. Let’s write this.
Then I get comments of people who were, apparently, touched by that story, and God that’ embarrassing.
Like, I’m sure this has to be a letdown to at least a reader. Way to drop expectations here. At first I had a “Post Scriptum” chapter in mind (that’s why the chapter is named “Missive,” by the way). In that chapter, I would show Dash sending her dad another letter, around three weeks or so later, and it would show she was better.
But then I realized that the story was more powerful without that P.S. so I let it go. Also, the story got popular, and I accidentally tagged it “complete”, so any addition would be seen as me milking the cow. Seeing how people seemed to like the story how it is, I chose the elegant solution and just let the story run its course as it is.
Also, funny story here: at first I was going to name the chapter “The Letter”. But the very same day I uploaded the story, RobCakeran (Author of MLD) was topping the featured box. And his story had only one chapter, titled “The Letter”.
So I thought “Well, that’s a bummer”. I think Missive is better, however, seeing how it includes the word “Miss” in there. Also “ive” which can be read as “I’ve” and if you mix the two and ignore grammar, you have “I’ve missed [you]” which is cool I guess.
Mostly the MLD author thing, tho.
Oh, and by the way – while Octavia Harmony did a good job as a proofreader (as always), I gotta give MrNumbers a big shoutout for this story, because the initial draft was 6,5k words long.
You might notice that the actual story, as it is now, is 4k (plus one!) word. The reason for this is that, well, seeing how I had written the entire thing while skyping with MrNumbers, he said he would take a peek at it.
So I show him (the story was more or less written in one go, with a single pause to sleep, as I’d been awake for over 40 hours) and his answer was clear and simple: “It’s in character, it’s well voiced, it’s realistic, and it’s the most boring thing I’ve read in a long time. Cut two thirds of the rambling, get it to 3,500 words, and then come back.”
Paraphrasing that line. He also slapped me hard in the face and called me a fat penguin. That was f*cking weird. But yeah. Even Octavia Harmony (who, by this point, is so jaded of editing all my stories that he seriously doesn’t give a f*ck anymore, in the best of ways – I can show him a story in which a character uses two pigs as nunchucks, and he won’t even bat an eye) told me that, dude, this time you got way overboard with the rambling.
Cue me sighing, and then letting the story wait for a couple days. In case you wonder why, I did that to avoid being frustrated and to refresh my brain – never try to edit something you wrote mere hours ago, because you will miss stuff.
So a couple days later, I go back to the story, and I start cutting parts of it. Initially, Rainbow Dash tried to avoid the stuff she’s embarrassed about, so she would suddenly start talking about Twilight and so. Which I think is what she would actually do (she doesn’t like admitting she’s lame), but as Number said, fiction is real life, but more interesting.
And oh God cutting parts of the story was painful. It got to the point where Numbers (who knew what I was going through and was really cheery about it, the assbutt) referred to the act as “killing my little babies”, a term I soon adopted myself.
Of course, killing those babies implied rewriting huge parts of the babies too. That was a weird sentence. Anyway, yeah, there’s a huge part at the start of the story that’s completely rewritten – initially, Dash goes to a park and breaks a stick and kicks some rocks, and ponders about that, and there’s a little echo with AJ’s advice going on through the story.
Following Numbers’ advice was probably the best choice here, as the final result, as it is now, is leagues better than the original. So again, big shout out to Numbers for this one.
We’ve learned two things here! First: always listen to your editors. Second: apparently, I’m a fat penguin. (I mean, he nailed the rest of what he said, so chances are this is also true).
Octavia Harmony also did a good job, of course, but by the time he came and fixed all the grammar mistakes Numbers was already tearing me a new one. He chose to leave the beating to the Australian. He’s too busy building robots or whatever.
(No, seriously. He does that. Artificial limbs with lego and stuff like that. How cool is that?)
I think that’s about everything I can say about the story. It’s not tagged “Sad”, by the way, because I don’t like the tag (I see it as an order, not as a genre) and, because of the background story of this fanfic, I saw it more like a Slice of Life exercise on voicing Rainbow Dash. I seriously didn't expect it to be popular, and outright told my friends that it wouldn't get featured (as it's not a comedy, and I'm sure 99% of the guys here follow me for those). I lost the bet, because apparently I can never win, even if I win. Dang it.
Not complaining about it, though. You'll first catch me death than complaining about popularity. That'd be too dumb, even for me.
In fact, and Numbers commented on this early on, as I was still writing the fic – while the story reads as a letter, it’s a very weird letter. I immediately realized that I could make it more realistic (in the formatting sense), but that it would make the story more awkward to read. I chose to avoid that.
Hence the lack of obtrusive grammar mistakes in the most emotional moments, crossed out sentences, and so and so. Dash as a narrator first, letter second. That was the rule.
(Also, seeing how some fellas didn’t get it – yes, Dash is an unreliable narrator. She mentions more than once that she doesn’t remember certain events, and that she wasn’t paying attention to others. She doesn’t outright lie, but that aside you can’t get more unreliable than that).
Ah! One last thingy that’s been annoying me: more than one person showed surprise at me being able to write something serious. That is perfectly normal, because I’m pretty dumb and anything I write is going to end up being silly as hell. I can’t stress that hard enough.
However, some seemed to show surprise at the idea of a comedy writer being good at drama, which amused me. Fellas, comedy is harder than drama. I mean, yes, anyone can write a funny joke, but I’m talking about comedy here. That’s something that not only makes you laugh, but that catches your interest. I don’t know if my stories are at that level yet, but think about it for a second.
Jokes are not the most important part of a comedy. The most important part is how and when to tell them. Comedies are about rhythm, pacing, tone, and knowing how to make the reader expect one thing (then subverting it). Many comedies also need strong characters and a little bit of dimension to be more than a simple forgettable chuckle festival.
All of that is what you use to write drama. You only change one emotion for the other. But yeah, if you see a comedy writer, don’t assume he’s going for the easy route – comedy is a very easy way to get popular in this website, as it appeals to a bigger mass of people, but that doesn’t cheapen the genre.
A good comedy is hard to write. Respect your comedy writes, fellas.
I would also ask you to respect me, but I tried to write a serious blog post and I ended talking about fat penguins and how I rewrote some tiny babies. Yeah. Better not to include me in that cool “comedy writers” group, just in case. I respect those guys too much.
Also, and even though it’s pretty stupid – sorry if that story made you sad! Think that a fat penguin wrote it, and that Dash got better at the end (the story, in fact, ends with Dash moving from anger to grief, which means that she’s slowly getting over the hard news. And she shows remorse and realizes just how messed up everything she did is, which actually is a very good sign, because at least she’s thinking again).
See ya!
This blog gave your story enough heat to make it back into the box.
Stupid penguin. You do ruin everything.
What did you call me?
2808066
Dude, I got from 40 followers to over 100 in the span of one day, the story I've written on a whim got over 1500 upvotes in three days (my best rated story by then had, like, 200 likes or so) and it was my birthday. It was, like, surreal to me.
So I got excited, and I milked the cow like a dweeb. However, my personal interpretation of Night Light was born from there, so hey! Not that bad!
But yeah I totally milked the cow there, I admit it. It was fun as hell, however, so I would have done the same now. DONE! is funnier to write than to read.
I hate you for writing that story, just so you know! It was far too realistic, well-written and made me cry!
I follow you for comedy, not shit like this!
2808065 You build artitifical limbs in your spare time?
2808548 Not anymore. Nowadays I work with Science Olympiad builds, so nothing like that. Still engineering stuff, though.
However, considering that we both read miniature, technicolor horse stories in our spare time, is what I do seriously the weirdest thing?
2808688 You're the one who labeled it weird. I mentally labeled it as interesting and wanting to know more.
I kind of did a double take when I realized that one was me...
Even if it was just to prove you could write something like that (and even if you were looping Taylor Swift) it was still powerful and I'm glad you did it. I needed some catharsis and the fact it came with a side of ponies made it way more bearable. Seriously, you're awesome, Aragon...
Aragon,
There's no need to apologise for or justify how and why you wrote the story. Yes, it made me feel sad but then I am a slightly neurotic and over emotional individual (Numbers will vouch for this) and will pretty much cry at the mere whiff of sadness.
The thing that matters here is that you felt compelled enough to write something and kill your babies to make it better in the process. A thing that some of wish we could achieve instead of just talk about.
Not quite sure what the point of my comment is but rambling is my forte (again, Numbers will vouch for this)
Unicorns, kittens and cookies....
Tally ho
Well now I feel silly!
And a bit unoriginal since multiple other people said exactly the same thing I did.
I still don't believe you when you say you're stupid though. Anybody who can write 2,000 words off the top of their head as a relevant response to a couple of comments is pretty freaking smart in my book.
If it makes you feel any better, I'd been meaning to follow you for a while, I just kept getting distracted by mildly shiny things.
You write good stories once an editor's been through with a machete so rusted that it breaks immediately after chopping up a small patch of roses. I mean seriously, how rusted does a machete have to be for it to break like that?
(I mean, I've never actually seen an unedited story so I might not notice any errors.)
I'd like to think your stories are at that point, unless I'm simply that easily engrossed.
They're a little like a story-time octopus that entangles you in tentacles and pulls you down for an entertaining read, or a train where you've taken along for the ride.
Preferably without the orphans though; I can't stand the sound of children crying.
2812530
The question depends on how hard the tough the roses are. I've heard that Themaskedferret broke her machete after the first swing.
Machete chopping aside, Aragon's a pretty good writer.