Relapse: Where am I going? · 2:50am May 26th, 2015
I really like Spike images. He's very expressive.
TL;DR - I'm having trouble writing Relapse the way I envision because of plot holes I've dug for myself early in the story. It sucks, and I'm losing confidence in myself a tiny bit.
When I started "Sorry, but mom is having a relapse right now. Could you come back later?" I really didn't have a good idea of where to bring it, what direction to drive it towards. It was really a spur-of-the-moment fic, the kind of story that you think's a really good idea and just have to write down before you loose grip of your creativity. I thought "What if we hadn't seen the end of Flutterbat? What if Twilight's spell didn't work completely and that Fluttershy had relapses into her vampony form? Who would deal with it? How long would the problem last?" and so on and so forth and turned that into a story.
I typed up the first chapter, took one look at it and said "Wait a minute. This is a genius idea! I'm a genius! This is front page material right here! How did I not notice before?" I got so eager to publish the story that I barely edited it. I got many views. Many, and received more comments than I knew what to do with. What was the next step? Write the next chapter as fast as possible! And that's what I did, and writing was the only thing on my mind for the next week as I marathon'd chapter two, changing little of the original copy by the end. My work proved fruitful, as I got a spot on the front page feature box. And then I freaked out all over it. And it was amazing.
But now I'm at a bit of a standstill. As I recognize that I actually have a base to write to now and that I have a responsibility to fulfill to finish the story, I need to think up of a way to finish the story.
I did it in one day.
Well, easily done enough. The ending idea is pretty good too, with lots of room for character development yet keeps the short story I envisioned Relapse to be.
However...
In order for this to execute properly, I'm gonna have to try and cover my butt as I maneuver around several plot holes that I've dug for myself thus far. I have an idea of where I want to bring the story next, it just won't be very graceful, and may stumble a bit in terms of story flow. One instance of this is already present in the beginning of chapter four, where I have to expand on what happened to Fluttershy and why she turned Flutterbat in the middle of the day even though she should only be doing so at night, which I had not realized when I had wrote the first chapter. Oops. I mean, the story hasn't explained it exactly yet, but I had to at least acknowledge my mistake and help repair the damage early on so that I wasn't shoving the answer in the reader's face too late in one big bunch.
So the next chapter is going to be covering more of my butt while I try to move the plot in a direction that somewhat makes sense. What pains me the most is that I could have avoided all this trouble if I just took more time with the first chapter and thought it out more instead of getting over-excited at the prospect of success on this website (damn it greed). At this point I'm not entirely confident that Relapse is a part of the Slice of Life genre anymore, but it's not adventurous enough to be included as Adventure. I'm trying to keep a lighthearted tone, but as I move towards a growing, developing conflict thinking up jokes to be made is getting difficult. A part of me doesn't want to pull a School of Hard Knocks, but if you guys end up liking what I have planned then I'll roll with is. And I'm not saying School of Hard Knocks is a bad story, it's just that it started out as one thing and became something completely different by the end. This is not inherently a bad thing per say, but it might piss off readers that followed the story for one reason and one reason only just for said story to take a different turn some point down the line after they've become loyal and trusting to the piece of work.
I dunno. This is a author-want-versus-reader-want conflict, really, and I'm having trouble finding confidence in continuing with what I have planned or just ditching everything altogether and starting the bulk of the plot anew. Whatever happens, thank you for taking your time to read my story anyways. Writing this was worth it, and seeing all those views, likes, dislikes and favorites adds to my passion of writing. Thank you all.
Well, if all else fails, you can always pull a retcon by adjusting the first chapter as needed. A bit cheap, yes, but it can cover bases that are much more awkward when confronted later on.
Still, if you can hide the rear-covering with enough entertaining character interactions, you should be fine.