"Banquet" and Pacing · 9:54pm Mar 5th, 2015
Before I get into the meat of this blog, does anyone know any good, and I mean really good, stories that are mildly obscure. I’m talking about stories that aren’t on Fallout: Equestria level of fame. Maybe around Project: Sunflower. I just need something else to read.
Anyways, “Banquet” has brought up a problem in my writing that I subconsciously knew about but haven’t really acknowledged. I pace things too quickly. Maybe you’ve noticed in my writing that conversations flow in and out and roll onto the next thing. It always bugs me when I compare my work to a work of a more experienced writer and find out my scenes tend to run faster than theirs. I’ve pinpointed it to pacing. I’m glad I’ve pinpointed this problem early, because there’s a lot of things I want to do in Daughters of Poseidon that will require me to slow down.
I want everyone reading this to know that I’m writing this story for my own benefit. It’s satisfying seeing the number of likes go up on my story. That tells me that I’m doing something right. But I’m still doing it for my own sake. It means writing for a couple hours a day, picking apart what I wrote, and seeing what I can improve. They say that you become an expert writer after you’ve written over a million words. This is my path to get to that point, and then see where I go from there. That’s also why I write these blog posts, just to document my writing process as I go on.
Now for the chapter details of “Banquet.” I said I need to work on my pacing, and this is the chapter I found that out from. To me, it feels like the story took a laxative and this chapter is the result. It sounds nastier than it really is. One of the problems I had was I didn’t have a solid plan going into this chapter. I knew what I needed to do, and I did that, but it sacrificed pacing for it. And to be honest, I was tired all week, so that may add to pacing issues.
What did I want to do in this chapter? Introduce the rest of the major cast that the ponies will be dealing with on a regular basis. Yep, we’ve met everyone that’ll be sticking with us for the story. The problem is that it felt logical to bring the ponies into the palace and introduce the rest of the cast. The chapter works, barring the pacing, and it’s a cooldown from Ubara. And that’s my problem. This chapter works, but deep down inside, I want to spread out everything it does.
Anyways, we have our characters. Obviously, we got King Bakkos and Captain Homer. In my head, one’s a fruit and the other’s a tool. We’ll be getting more of that characterization later on, but that’s the big point that should be noted from them. Also, they have an interesting power relationship. I hinted at it in the chapter, and will be fleshing it out further, soon.
Then we get the ladies. In order of appearance, we have Phoebe, Anastasia, and Tatiana. I don’t want to get too far into spoiler territory, so I’ll leave their names as they are for now. Don’t worry, they’ll get their chances to shine.
And we got more of that Daring Do/Lyra action, the straight mare versus the mare who can’t keep her mouth shut. Do I overdo? Maybe, but I like them more for whatever crazy stuff they do.
Again, this chapter is mostly to introduce the rest of the cast the ponies will be dealing with. It’s not the strongest chapter in the story, being weak in character development, at least compared to the coming chapter, and having some pacing issues. Should I get an editor? Maybe, but they tend to drop off the face of the earth for me.
Now for the weekly media consumption digest. I finished reading Project: Sunflower. It was good, but its ending’s pacing was rushed compared to the rest of the story. I finished watching the second half of the only season of Panty, Stocking, and Garnerbelt. It was great, being an amazing American raunchy cartoon made in Japan. However, the last episode didn’t leave me clamoring for more seasons. The finale’s only fault was that it crossed the line from stupidly awesome to just a little too stupid. After that, I watched the entirety of Kill la Kill in a span of a couple days. It was awesome. It did stupidly ridiculous right. It’s definitely in my list of top anime.
Again, I need something new to read.
And thus this blog post ends. Tune in next week when Lyra will suck up her pride and the world will get bigger.
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Definitely a story that deserve more views. http://www.fimfiction.net/story/131333/the-diamond-exchang
Warren Hutch's Windfall and Earth and Sky are both pretty good.
You want to try a HiE story that's really good and apparently no one has read? I suggest The Grey Arbiter.