One New Story, Two Abandoned Stories, and General Updatery · 2:24am Mar 5th, 2015
As you've already seen if you've got my short story collection favorited, 110% has just been published as the latest chapter of Bantam Tales. It's actually been ready to go for a while; there were only a few, relatively minor, changes and additions I wanted to make to it after it won first place in the All In minific writeoff.
The reason I hadn't put it up sooner is because I wanted to put up the story from the minific round before that (Six, for those of you who read it in the Just Over the Horizon event) up first, to keep everything in chronological order. However, after wrestling with Six on and off for so long, I think it's time to admit that I'm nowhere close to having a story I'm ready to publish--the "magically remembering everything at the end" is just too much of a cop-out for me to feel good about, and so far I haven't been able to intersperse that information through the story in a way that keeps the story's impact intact. Despite the title, I haven't actually abandoned it, but I have basically called uncle on it. In any case, I think that if I ever get it fully cleaned-up, it will be as a piece of original fiction--having the reader know that a certain mythical species actually exists in the world is a useful shortcut for the story, but the more I've worked with the fic, the more I've come to realize that it could work with relatively little tweaking outside of the Equestrian setting.
That leaves only one Writeoff story that isn't somewhere on this site: The Arena, from the Behind Closed Doors event. Just to make it official, I don't have any intention of ever bringing that one over. Don't get me wrong, I think I did a good job telling the story... but the consensus from the event was that it wasn't my story, on a fundamental level. That's not something I'm comfortable putting on FiMFic under my name. Both it and Six are still on the writeoff site under my name, of course (to see them, go to the Scoreboard page, then click "Chris"), but that's where they're liable to stay.
Other than that, I've done very little writing recently. It's mostly a time thing, frankly; I've got some ideas, but between my job and some classes I'm taking, my free time isn't what I'd like it to be (infinite) and tends not to come in the larger chunks that I've found I'm most productive in, writing-wise. Still, if I can get some time, I'd like to do some more writing! To sum up: hold tight, but don't hold your breath.
Oh, and go read 110%.
I still think "The Arena" deserves to be properly published. A lot of the negative response seemed to come from a feeling of being bait-and-switched; being able to add an appropriate author's note obviates that concern, and without it, your story does have a unique and effective twist on the original. It does exactly what fanfic (or certain kinds of canonical adaptations, for that matter) is perfectly suited for doing, and works well in its own right. It's less wholly derivative than such enjoyable ponifications as this or this, both of which I enjoyed and neither of which I realized was based on something else when I first saw it. Oh well, I suspect I won't change your mind, and "The Arena" is still quite accessible.
I didn't get to read most of the entries for All In, but I noticed the response to "110%" and I'm very glad that I decided to check it out. After all, it's about Best Pony being Best, and Twilight being adorkable. It's rare to see a situation where Rainbow can plausibly be described as "wise". I'll have to add "Bantam Tales" to my write-off reread shelf.
You can reorder chapters in a story, y'know. :B
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I know, but I won't. Publishing chapters (stories) out of order ain't natural, I tells ya.
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Glad you enjoyed The Arena, but as you guessed, that's not going to change my mind. I just can't feel comfortable about a story that inspires a bunch of fanfic authors to question whether it's plagiarism. In my experience, fanfic authors are some of the least likely people to toss that charge around without cause, and it's also one of the most serious things an author can be suspected of.
I mean, most everyone agreed that it wasn't plagiarism, in the end, but the fact that the question had to be debated in the first place tells me that this is cutting it way too close for my comfort.