Rolling With the Punches · 4:00pm Apr 12th, 2015
Alternative Title: No Plan Survives First Contact With the Enemy
So, here's the deal with Chapter One. When I originally set out the plan for this story nearly a year ago, I was going to do it in a manner reminiscent of The Hunger Games: three acts consisting of nine chapters each, with an interlude chapter between each act, along with a prologue and an epilogue. This chapter was originally going to have five scenes, each with its own title in my notes:
1) Waking Up
2) Visit From Royalty
3) In a Mirror, Darkly
4) Meeting With the Element Bearers
5) Touring Canterlot Castle
In the month or so since the prologue was published and met with a far more positive response than I was expecting, I have managed to complete the first four scenes (more or less) to my satisfaction. The last scene, however, has become a confused mess that bloated the chapter to marathon-proportions. Seriously: as it stands now, the last scene is equal in length to the previous four scenes combined, with no end in sight.
Ordinarily, I would just nuke the scene from orbit, forget about it, and move on. However, it's not that simple. There are some things that happen in this scene (really a series of scenes) that are important to the plot later on.
So in order to keep things from dragging out so long that everyone loses interest in the story, I've decided to split the tour and its aftermath into a separate chapter and publish the four semi-decent scenes that are already written. Once it's up (and once I spend some time editing Chapter 8 of The Lone Rider for my good friend BikerPon3), I'm going to go back and make some revisions to the prologue. Hopefully, this will allow me to clear my head and do a better job on the castle tour part.
Thank you in advance for your understanding.
It sounds to me like you made the best choice given the circumstances Jimbo. So I say good on you for being so smart and honest about it.
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Incidentally, the working title for this new chapter is "Castle Tourgasm," for reasons that will become clear when it is published.
2977806 Okay that sounds interesting Jimbo. I have to say that I kinda know what you're saying too. When I first started writing Echos it wasn't a herd story at all, it went in that direction after a bit. So yes no plan ever survives contact, none that I can speak of.