Applebloom: Finally rolling another one out! - (an explanation) · 12:11am Sep 16th, 2015
I don't take criticism well.
That isn't to say that I tend to rail against criticism, or that I dislike getting criticism. I don't bitch and moan and exclaim that my stories are perfect or that I'm the be all and end all of authors. Far from it.
My problem is quite the opposite. I think I put too MUCH stock in criticism and the critics that give it.
So to those who aren't aware, A month or two back, this chapter was actually pretty much ready. I had pretty much completed the chapter and was ready to release it. But on the day that I was about to put it up, I was informed that my story had been reviewed by a fellow named Prak in the twenty-third installment of his review blog series "Badfic Slaughterhouse."
While the name is very alarming, he's actually a very fair reviewer, and he doesn't just review really bad stuff. Indeed, he actually did seem to be mostly enjoying this story (despite a number of niggling issues), which I admit to being quite pleased about. That said, he did bring attention to, not only a number of things that I already knew about (My prose, for example, is simultaneously basic and inelegant, and yet overly verbose, and I use 'he said, she said, etc' far too much), one of the most alarming things he mentioned was that basically the story was getting boring.
Paraphrasing his words, the last two chapters, (which account for roughly 25% of the story's length,) have accomplished startlingly little. He went on to say that if the story didn't pick up in the next chapter, he would probably stop reading.
My response was basically a great bit "Well, shit." Because as you've just read, this chapter is the tail end of all the interpersonal conflicts that arose in the last few chapters. Not much action or moving forward beyond ironing out a number of the various characters interpersonal relationships. And if you're not into that, I can see how you might get bored.
So that suddenly made me incredibly paranoid. This fellow is finding the latest parts of my story boring. How many other people feel this way? What should I do about it? CAN anything be done?
I started rereading the chapter. Over and over and over again, wondering how I could change it to 'move the story forward' more in an interesting manner. I had already brought up a bunch of interpersonal conflicts and various groups of characters, all with their respective, simultaneous scenes and conflicts. I couldn't just drop them, could I? If I could, how would I do so? And if I did, wouldn't I just be putting off the resolution until later? I would have to come back to the slow, interpersonal relationships later if I just suddenly had Shockwave attack the castle or something? And if I did just drop a Decepticon on the castle, then how would I balance all the various groups of characters (Applejack in the Cell, The Elements and Luna and Shining, The CMC and Cheerilee, Applebloom and Twilight and the Princess, etc) in the midst of all that chaos when I was already having trouble trying to balance and plan out their simultaneous scenes in a moment of calm?
It bothered me that I had apparently alienated Prak so quickly, though to be fair, he's right in his assessment that the last two chapters were particularly long (I suppose that's what happens when you start trying to balance a cast of well over 20 characters). I seem to have, quite recently, developed a habit of getting more long winded than I used to be. I look at older chapters and I say "wow, I wrote a chapter that was ONLY 4000 words?! How did I do that?!" It makes me question the current state of my writing. How much unnecessary filler is lurking in my prose? Did I actually used to be more streamlined and I've lost my ability to trim the fat? Am I focusing too much on unnecessary details?
It's true that I really like to have all my bases covered. You see, when I write, I don't see what I'm writing as words. When I write, I picture vivid, dynamic action scenes in my head. I picture a movie or a cartoon playing out on a screen in my head. And when I write, what I'm doing is my very best to try and transcribe what I'm seeing "onscreen" into words. I try to do so down to the very smallest details and all the emotions that would, normally, be over in instants if you were viewing them visually. A telling facial tick. A seemingly insignificant detail that actually reveals something very important about a situation or somebody's character. These are things that, were it a movie or a cartoon, you could take in and process in an instant. But in prose, it can take twenty, thirty, forty words to accurately describe. It can take whole paragraphs, even.
My desire to have all my bases covered and write believable interpersonal relationships, however, seems to have dragged the story's length out and also made the story grind to a serious halt for some of my readers. And looking back on the last few chapters, I can see where those people are coming from. Personally I find character interaction and people working things out together to be interesting and fascinating, but I can see how other people would disagree.
When I went to edit it and change it so that more happened in the chapter, though, I couldn't shake that position.
I mean, yeah, I could have just said "they all met up and worked their shit out, now let's have them fight some Decepticons!" but that, to me, is copping out, lazy, and straight-up boring. It's like they say: It isn't the destination, it's the journey. What happened isn't necessarily as interesting as HOW it happened.
So when I went to edit the chapter, it largely ended up vastly unchanged. That caught me in a logic loop though. I was sitting there saying to myself "I think this is good. I like what's happening."
Then I would reply to myself "Yes, but your readers don't like it and don't think it's good. They want the story to move forward quicker."
And then I would say "But if I skip all this or trim it down too much, I'll be skipping over parts I feel are necessary"
Then I would go "Who cares what you think is necessary, you have to give the people what they want"
And then I would say "Would people really want me to just drop all this stuff and leave it hanging? Or to finish it lazily just to get to the next setpiece?"
Then I would go "Obviously they aren't liking the way it's going now, so yes, you should cater to that."
Rinse and repeat. For weeks.
I suppose what bothered me the most, as I said, was that Prak was willing to give up on the story after only two chapters of "slowdown." Admittedly long chapters, but still, only two chapters. I knew there was going to be a third slow chapter, addressing the current interpersonal issues, but the thing is, I knew (being the author) that chapters 11 and 12 were going to be almost 100% PULSE POUNDING ACTION™
I finally came to the conclusion that the best way to try and satisfy both me and my readers was to leave chapter 10 as it was, and release both chapters 10 and 11 at the same time. That way I could finish up all the various interpersonal conflicts in chapter 10, and immediately give my readers Chapter 11 where they would have all the action and moving forward that they needed.
...of course, that ended up extending the wait time. A LOT. Because chapter 11, while being nearly 100% PULSE POUNDING ACTION™, is still a doozy of a chapter. This, combined with the endless fretting and mulling over chapter 10, its length, its content, and so on, led to a serious wait time between chapters 9 and 10 (and 11).
So that's what's taken me so long. A mixture of doubt in my own abilities, getting incredibly worked up over criticism, desperately trying to rewrite chapter 10, only to fail and eventually decide that my original intentions worked best, then writing chapter 11. It's been a long and arduous process, trying to figure out how to make this all work. I'm still not 100% convinced it does, and I'm sure I'll be mulling over what I've written and how it could have been done better for a long time yet. But this is what we've got now. This is what we've got to work with and now we're finally ready to resume moving forward.
I still find Prak's criticism incredibly valid but while I respect him and find him very intelligent on the matter, I do better to remember that he is only one person. I'm certainly going to keep his criticisms in mind for future chapters (and let me tell you, the coming chapters aren't going to be nearly as mired in interpersonal conflict as these past few were) but for now, I'm afraid what's done is done. I can only hope that Prak was able to get through chapter 10 to the PULSE POUNDING ACTION™ that is Chapter 11, and that I haven't lost his readership, or any of yours.
One last thing. Another valid criticism Prak brought up was that this story isn't exactly much of a comedy. He's incredibly right. When I first started writing this story, I had a very different vision for how things would go down. It was basically going to be a campy action-comedy and literally none of the interpersonal relationship issues, self-doubt, and things like that were going to be present. It was going to be all action and wacky gags and shit. That basically didn't ended up on the kibosh when, as I was trying to write it in such a way, I noticed that none of the characters were acting at all believably or responding to stimuli in ways that seemed plausible. People were shrugging off earth-shattering revelations, attacks on their person by loved ones, and the general anxiety of the unknown with surprising ease. It got to the point that I simply couldn't continue in such a manner and believe my own writing. Thus, the story went from a wacky action comedy, to an action story that was also something of a character study into Applebloom, forced to grow up faster than she ever could have guessed she would, and coming into herself in an extraordinary way. A central theme of the story has come to be "finding yourself." Not exactly the sort of material that lends itself to hilarity.
Thankfully, the solution to this one is easy. I've decided to remove the comedy tag. Not going to add a dark or sad tag because I feel the story, in general, is still largely an action story and frankly, while Applebloom still has a few dark places to go, I have a feeling she's going to come out of it okay. 
In other news, We're officially halfway through the story now. Hopefully, with my new schedule, I'll be able to get the second half out faster than the first half, and it will flow better and faster than the last one did.
Anyway, I hope I didn't lose too many of you. I hope you all enjoyed chapters 10 and 11, and know that I'm working on chapter 12.
Thanks for reading my long winded explanation of what's been going on. Next time: Applebloom Turns the Tide.
Note: When I say I'll "immediately" be posting chapter 11, I apparently mean "In a short while." I seem to have jumped the gun and overestimated the readiness of the chapter. Isn't that just like me?
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When I think "this story is developing slowly," the solution is usually not "MORE PULSE-POUNDING ACTION!™" In fact, one of the examples that immediately pops to mind of a great story that got bogged down with chapter after chapter of meaningless verbiage is "The Irony of Applejack", in which the problem (for me) was endless endless fight scenes that did nothing to move the plot or develop any characters. Characters just pounded away at each other in lavishly-described battle and ended up right where they'd started at the beginning of the fight.
When trying to determine if a chapter is "slow" one should simply compare the world state at the beginning of the chapter and at the end of it and ask yourself what's changed between them. Did a character learn something, or end up in a different place, or gain an important item, or something like that? If so, something happened. The mechanism by which it happened doesn't matter much.
Personally, the things I'm really interested in in a story like this are exploring the "mystery" behind Apple Bloom's circumstances and seeing how the various characters come to terms with the revelations they're exposed to. A well-described fight scene can be fun, and it makes sense that there would be fighting once Decepticons show up, but for me the fight scene is in service of those larger questions.
3395897 Totally agree with you on The Irony of Applejack.
As for this story, I think the biggest potential problem with A: TARO is unneeded detail overload, which does have the potential to turn away readers if it gets out of hand. As of right now, I wouldn't think A: TARO has reached that point yet, but everyone has their own limits, so some people probably already have stopped reading. Not that it matters, though, since the story's still going strong with plenty of readers.
3395796 You're assuming I'm going to get through forty eight pages of editing in a few hours?
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I'm sorry. I got a bit overzealous and I guess I just assumed since I linked it to you yesterday, since you're always very prompt and quick about editing, that you'd have it done. I forgot that yesterday you mentioned you wouldn't be able to even get to it until today. That was totally my bad.
3395945
Hah, that feel is mutual. Only life comes into play derailing people like that.
3395989 It's alright to be nervous because you wrote this story in the first place to share your idea with everyone. And while I do agree that everyone has their own personal detail tolerance level, it's neccessary at times otherwise things would just devolve into action for the sake of action. So don't worry too much and just continue doing as you are.
3395989 S'alright, Dusty. No worries. Truthfully, there's nothing you could say or do that would offend me (my fics on the other hand...)
Thing is, all the editing probably could be done if I managed to get you-know-who to cooperate. But she's young and full of her own ideas, and has a short attention span, and has homework she needs to be doing right now. So... yeah. Still, I'll try my best to get her in on it.
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I'm just glad we're square.
Take your time with it and work when works best for you, dude. This is on me. I shouldn't have posted this chapter and said "YEAH THE NEXT ONE IS COMING IMMEDIATELY/LATER TODAY" when I didn't have confirmation from you that you were finished. This is totally my bad. Work on it when you have a chance.
The point of this whole fanfiction endeavor, as I see it, is to have fun. Being happy with how things are turning out with your story, that's all that should matter.
Well, dang. Now I feel bad. The last thing I want to do is put anyone off writing, and it sucks that my feedback cut deeply enough to make you question yourself to that degree. I'm glad you worked through it, though.
One little point, though. You seem to have misinterpreted something.
My exact words were:
That's meant to describe sentences like these examples from chapter 2:
"Applebloom gawked."
"Yoketron chuckled."
"Yoketron smiled sadly."
"Applebloom’s mind spun."
"The old robot chuckled."
"The old robot smiled."
When a dialogue scene is dominated by basic descriptions like that, it can make a scene feel lifeless. That issue is less prevalent in later chapters, so you've actually improved quite a lot in that regard since you started.
As for using "said" frequently as a dialogue tag—which you appear (and disregard this if I'm wrong) to have thought I meant—I encourage doing so because I find uncommon dialogue verbs to be distracting. Of course, that's a completely subjective issue, but it's worth reading the different opinions on the topic if you haven't already.
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It's alright. Like you said, I worked through it. And, in the time that I was fretting over chapter ten, I managed to write up a chapter of another story I'd been neglecting, so there's that as well.
I'm actually quite surprised that that's what you meant by "noun-verb" sentence construction, as I was adding those things to try and break up all the various "he said she said" stuff. I was under the impression you were basically implying that I hadn't added enough. I'm glad you've clarified that.
It's an interesting point to bring up, though. I've seen people debate the merits of using "said" over using alternate words and how often one or the other should be used. Nobody really seems to come to a consensus on that front. There are a lot of people who advocate using said over other words, claiming it clutters the prose when you use alternate phrases, and many who claim that using "said" too much makes the prose lifeless and dull. I'm actually surprised to hear you say that using alternate words makes it lifeless. Still, I suppose as long as I'm improving on that front, I guess I have less to worry about in that respect than in others. I'll certainly keep it in mind, though. :)
I thought this latest chapter was pretty great — a good deal of action and some serious interpersonal stuff that didn't drag out indefinitely or hinge on anypony holding the idiot ball awkwardly with one hoof.
So I think you got this.
I'm surprised that you were in such a state of conflict with yourself. I say that the way you've been writing this is great as it is. I thought of it as the action would come when it came. I really enjoyed the whole thing about the Diamond Dog in the neighbor cell. I don't think I saw that coming.
I get way too tired of finding fics where characters just basically go through the script.
Making a short lived 'I'm freaking out about something that just happened' and then shortly after 'I'm still kind of freaked out, but okay, moving on' sort of writing. I'm usually only reading those ones because of the premise, and then cringing at both the writing, and my mistake of reading it. 
The point that I possibly wasted that paragraph trying to make is: I really enjoy your discriptive writing. I can't think of many fics that have the discriptions so vivid and immersive as what you have made.
If you ever think you should cut that out, just don't...with the exceptions of excess fluff that don't need to be there to convey the emotions and such of course. 
Yes, quite. It's of course important to sorta plan out what needs to be said and done before getting to the next bit of action though, lest you languish into rambling on and on. Get what needs to be said and done, however many chapters that has to be, then move the story along from the internal development to the external development.
Another thing to look out for is overexposition: Either entire chapters that wind up being expository or doing too much of it at the end of a chapter. While I wouldn't say that a chapter should be episodic, it should sort of be considered an episode with its own relative climb, climax, and then by the end a dip in the action levels before doing the same thing the next chapter. It's very annoying when an author introduces something new, sets it up, and then ultimately the chapter ends before actually getting to see it truly interact with the main story. Those of us reading as chapters are released have to wait days, weeks, or even months to see what is going to happen after all.
Your ending of the latest chapter is probably about perfect: It wraps up the interpersonal stuff, and we know that the decepticons are attacking and why, but we've not actually seen anything of it. It sets the scene for the embarkation into the next arc well without any feeling of anything being unresolved. It's very satisfying while generating anticipation, and it doesn't hurt that the next chapter is announced to have been drafted and only needs editing.
Some might even say that such a picture is worth a thousand words!
Dusty. Write the story you want to be written and seen. Not everyone's going to like it. There's a ton of people who are more concerned with perfect technical writing than anything else on this site, when I'm more of the mind that as long as it's readable and I like the content, then I'm having fun. I may be biased due to my last ex being an English Major, but frankly it's the latter that matters most, that you have a good story. Which you do! If someone doesn't like part of it, that's on them. There are stories that are well-done that I simply can't get into. If you start putting too much focus into technical writing, you'll lose your current style, and that is not necessarily an upgrade. Something of value would likely be lost.
Be you. Write robo-horsewords. Pick apart criticism for the parts that both matter to you and aren't a huge change in the writer that is part of you, and then work on those. Some people won't respect that, I know I've had to argue with plenty of people who demand that 100% of their criticism be adopted immediately and treated like divine proclamation or else they'll attack you with all their friends. And then there's plenty of reasonable people who just want to help you out or make observations. You can't please everyone, so just throw it out there and let it ride, knowing you did the best you could without compromising your own unique qualities.
Never get down on yourself about your writing! That's the quickest way to lose faith in your work and to lose the sense of direction you had, especially if you start making about-faces to meet the demands of criticism. Be natural and have fun!
It is a mistake to try to be all things to all people.
The gist I get, reading your story, is that it's a coming-of-age type of thing. Prak clearly wants to read a story about explosions. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. He isn't your target audience. Don't act like he is.
3395945 If you liked the idea of "The Irony of Applejack" but found the battle scenes wearying, like I did, then I definitely recommend going on to check out the sequel "A Warm Hearth". There's no fighting in it, just character development and plot and all those good things. :)
3396896 Where do you get that "Prak clearly wants to read a story about explosions"? In his review he praised the pacing up to chapter 7, and IIRC chapter 7 is where the first explosion (ie fight scene) shows up.
I see a lot of words and I give you this hug.
*hug!*
I was perfectly happy to read about the interpersonal stuff. While I look forward to the bad-assery, I can wait on it as this was important to the story. I just wish you hadn't had the self doubt so it had come out sooner.
I am just going to say, you are never going to lose me in this story. I read quite a lot on this site so I don't notice if a story has not been updated in a while so that is not a problem for me. That being said, the stories that I follow can be placed in three categories "stories that i want to know when gets updated but don't want to read right now" (50%), "stories that I read the day when they come ut" (35%), and "stories that I get really excited about and read immediately" (15%). You are in the last category so there is little you can do to make me bored of this story.
Whilst reading this I got worried you was going to change the course of the story. then you said that you knew that Prak waa just one person but that you would keep his kriticism in mind. All in all I think you made the right choices with this story, focusing just as much at the characters interaction as the action scenes and taking to kriticism whitout obliging to it. Write your story the way you feel like it shuld be written.
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I'll just leave now.
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I must agree with a few others: I actually PREFER the slow character study route, I WANT to see how the characters react to everything without it being a quick and simply thing. I DON'T want everything to rushed through (I do that enough with my own fics >.<) and I CERTAINLY don't want anything interesting or important removed or changed or ignored.
I LIKE how you're writing this and I LIKE that its nice and lengthy : 3
However, I will say this: not all criticism should be listened to, especially if it conflicts with your plans, but if it improves how characters act or the plot develops, or if the criticism is a specific problem (dropping the story after two chapters of downtime is not one of these and is kinda lazy), then you should lsiten to these problems. for example, a valid critiscism would be having a character act in a way they wouldn't, rushing through events too quickly or, say, having a character get away with saying or doing soemthing they totally should not (basically, don't do ANYTHING the author of Naruto or Bleach does)
also, I myself do count comedy as a tag if characters do make jokes and there is still humour in it, but that's just me.