Pony Dreams Shall Live · 9:50pm Jun 10th, 2015
After much debate, both internally and with people whose opinion I trust, I have decided that Pony Dreams is going to be continued.
Now, if you're in the Twiluna chat, you've heard most of this, but I want to give that statement some context. Pony Dreams was a stepping stone for me. It was, basically, my first serious attempt at writing both fanfiction and a long-form story. I learned a lot from the experiences Pony Dreams gave me. It was my baby, but as I grew as an author and moved onto other projects, Pony Dreams got left behind before it got finished. Updates to it got further and further between. And while I improved, I cannot objectively say that the story did too.
I started to get depressed whenever I looked at it. I felt sad because I had all these plans and what I thought were cool ideas and they just didn't come through. So I put off updating and worked on other things. I got better, but still when I would be reminded that Pony Dreams needed an update, I had this war of emotions going on inside me. On one hand, I feel a lot of nostalgia for Pony Dreams, but on the other hand, it shows its age and I didn't look forward to the herculean effort it would require to rewrite the thing to meet my current standards.
So, I have left it to rot, until now. Pony Dreams will continue, but I am not going to torture myself by trying to mimic my old style or pacing. There are also some specific weaknesses in the fic that need addressing and the only way I feel I can do that, is to just slough into it and lift them up to my standards. Really, I think I'll be the only one that'll notice that much of a change.
One thing that WILL be fairly obvious to everyone though, is that I will splitting chapter 10 into three parts. Each one will focus on one of the three interweaving narratives: Twilight and Luna's search for Celestia's spirit in the Dreaming, Fancypants and Fleur's quest to harness chaos power, and Delusion's mission to regain himself and destroy Equestria. While I like the construction of jumping back and forth through these perspectives, I feel they have grown to the point that it has become confusing. Especially when you factor in things like flashbacks and switching between the dream and waking worlds. So each narrative is getting its own mini-chapter. I'm also not going to wait until they are all done to release them and instead I intend to release them as soon as the editor has had a chance to shape them up.
It's my intent to bring these narratives up to speed and address issues with characterization and motivation. I want to give each of them the focus they deserve as well take the time to fill in any holes and otherwise just make the story stronger. Keeping them split may last into chapter 11 or even beyond, depending on how they develop as I rework my original ideas. But eventually, they should remerge as the story approaches it's final climax. I'm crossing my fingers that I can use this as an opportunity to re-light some interest in Pony Dreams as well as bring in new readers.
Stay Classy
-Fuzzy
Oboi. Looks like there's a thing I need to read.
Glad to hear it's continuing!
Yay! What always baffled me was WTF Fancy and Fleur-de-lis were doing and how it tied into the Tuna. I remember thinking they were just too OP. Been so long, maybe I just need to give it a re-read.