In Retrospect: Thoughts on "Crash Down" Now That It Is Almost Done · 3:14am Aug 18th, 2015
The following is my own critique of the most recent story arc of The Conquering of Love. It will contain very slight spoilers for the two as-of-yet unreleased chapters, but nothing truly spoileriffic. While this blog has to do with The Conquering of Love, it is more about my own look back on the story's evolution from initial thoughts to execution. As such, I have not tagged the story in this blog post, but I will be linking it in the author's notes at the end of the next chapter when it releases later this week.
Being hard on yourself is all part of the creative process. If you think you poop gold and fart rainbows, you'll never improve. I'm under no illusion that I am perfect, and this past book of TCoL is perhaps the biggest reminder of that since the story started.
From TCoL's beginnings, each story arc has focused on the character whose dream we were inside of, but Crash Down has been less about Rainbow Dash and more about Linnai, in my opinion. I had to play a delicate balance since I wanted to build Linnai's character while also introducing Rainbow Dash to the storyline. I decided to draw parallels between them. They are both confused about things, and both feel pressure from their own perceived failures. They are also both not very solidly comfortable with their emotions. That goes doubly for Linnai since she has only just started to feel love and form friendships.
However, if you look back at previous books, it's been very different. Book one, literally called "Twilight Sparkle", introduced us to Twilight as a character in this world and presented her with the challenges that she would be facing throughout the entire story. In book two, Fluttershy's dream had a lot of time spent with Flutters. It was easy to do since the character count was still fairly low. The entire book was built around Fluttershy's own fears, and the climax of the story was her conquering them. In book three, we saw a wild world where the Cutie Mark Crusaders had to face their insecurities about their cutie marks, pls prove themselves as worthy to join Twilight and Fluttershy on their journey. We were also first introduced to Linnai and Mulcibar here. In book four, we found Luna, afflicted by the shadow of Nightmare Moon, and we learned about her past and how it related to the changelings. Book four really tied so much together, I felt that it was really powerful. It also gave us Mulcibar's awakening to love, and the beginning of his pursuit of Fluttershy.
So then we come to book five. We're presented with Linnai finding herself inside of a fantasy world that Rainbow Dash had created for herself. It seems interesting at first, but I quickly found myself hitting a major speedbump... namely, the depth and time scale of the world. This dream had been going for an internal time of three years, and that became daunting to find a balance for. I wanted to find ways to express to the reader that a lot had happened, but I did not have the time to go into full detail. I realized that I could very well write an entirely separate fanfic documenting the adventures of Rainbow Dash in this world. I had to pick and choose pivotal moments that were important to the present day and give those points flashbacks and mentions, such as Rainbow Dash losing her wing to Chrysalis.
In the end, the first half of Crash Down feels really off focus to me. A bit of focus is regained when Rainbow Dash awakens and has her flashback moments, seeing her failures and facing her fear of letting her friends down. The whole point of this is the lesson that you can't always succeed 100% of the time, but it feels so watered down to me. There's a scene in the upcoming chapter where I think a bit of dialogue cements it better, but it still feels a tad aimless.
Let's take a second now to look at what the initial plan for Crash Down was, too. Crash Down went through a couple of phases in my mind. The initial plan was very vague: Rainbow's dream is moving super fast so a lot of time has passed, there will be a changeling invasion in her dream, and when her friends enter her dream, they will be in big trouble. Rainbow Dash will then sacrifice herself, shattering her own dream in order to save the others so they can continue their journey. That's where the title "Crash Down" comes from. Rainbow Dash was going to self-destruct. I decided against that idea after a while, though, and moved on to idea number two.
Idea number two was the first time I came up with dream type number three: the observational dream. In an observational dream, the dreamer isn't actually involved in the dream world at all, but instead they are watching it, sort of like an author to their own story. In this idea, I envisioned a world where all the inhabitants of the world were happy, and everypony was at peace. The cause of the world peace was all due to a being they called the watcher, an omnipotent being who protected the world. Indeed, flashes of rainbow light would constantly save ponies from disaster and thwart evil plans before they could even get off the ground. Our heroes, after being in the world for a bit, would realize that the godlike being who was protecting the world was Rainbow Dash, and they would have to find a way to make her appear. However, as soon as she appears, changelings would also warp in to hunt her down and kill her, and she would once again sacrifice herself to save her friends. However, this time, I decided that instead of shattering her own dream, she would find a way to trap the changelings inside her dream. She wouldn't be dying/getting woken up. She would be serving as a trap for chaqngelings. This is ultimately where the idea for the Reset Swarm came from. Dash would contain the reset swarm by locking herself in a constant high-speed battle with the swarm, preventing them from being able to go elsewhere. When I finally settled on the idea that the reset swarm would be affecting all the dreams at the same time, though, this idea made no sense, and the whole dream world concept was scrapped for the one that ultimately got used.
My biggest gripes with Crash Down:
1. Underuse of assets. For example, the anti-pony protesters from early on, and the introduction of their leader. I never do anything else with them. In the end, they were just a piece of flavor that was never savored. There's plenty of things like that in Crash Down, and it's all due to the fact that there's just too much stuff. To go into it all would make Crash Down super long.
2. Absence of Pinkie Pie. Pinkie shows up in chapter 7, but she feels sort of shoehorned in. I felt like I had to include her in the main storyline rather than do something like have them meet up with her after the conflict is over, so she appears suddenly, and for seemingly no other reason than to be there. I suppose it's not too late to change this, but as it stands, it seems pretty good. It could get a slight tweak before I release.
3. Rushed conflict. The final conflict in Chapter 7 feels rushed. Again, not too late to change it. Maybe I will.
4. Back to things that are prior to chapter 7, the whole time skipping, going back and forth thing that I was doing for the first few chapters... I said it back when I was doing it, and I will say it again, that was awful. I'm never doing anything like that again.
At least Book six is going to be more straightforward and, shall we say, in you face. Not a lot of intricate stuff coming, just tight storyline and conflicts. I already have all that figured out. I'm more worried about book SEVEN because that's going to be really interesting.
Also, I think everyone is going to SQUEE at what I have in store for Intermezzo 3. Here's a hint: A character that I was unsure if I could put in, even as a cameo, shall have her moment. :)
I think I'll leave it at that.
For some reason, it seems that only few events have actually happened here, compared to books 2 and 3. Probably because they happened fast? Or, there were many characters, so each of them didn't have much time to do things?..
Linnai had some time, enough to understand this dream world.
Hope that maybe Vitra stays long enough for them to talk/monologue
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It's the speed, really. I hadn't thought about that, but really... so little has happened because things CAN'T happen alongside it, even slowly.
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I'll also say that Vitra's origins and lineage will come to light.