Ghost Lights project post-mortem, and some new things coming... · 3:59am Sep 20th, 2015
Dear Princess Celestia,
During this massive 40-week long project, I learned that... 
No, seriously. I did learn things, a lot of them.
It's been a couple months since I finished Ghost Lights, my first novel-length story. With the passage of time, the fervor and excitement has died down, the EqD posting is long past, view numbers are stabilizing out to the expected residual attention, and it looks like there won't be anything groundbreaking upcoming on the fronts of either publicity or major revision. This one's complete as a project of major commitment and it's about that time again to move on to something new.
So the big question coming out of this is, what did we learn? What went right, and what should I have done differently? This project was very interesting and very instructive because it's a mixed bag of both.
First, let's review what succeeded. 51-to-1 upvote ratio (as of this moment) and all the positive and supportive (and helpful) commentary says a couple of things: 1. that I'm truly fortunate to have such an awesome fanbase that I love writing for, and 2. a lot of things succeeded in the eyes of readers. I'm very proud of that. It honestly thrills me that so many people enjoyed this story. Where I think this thing really got it right most of all was reader engagement with the characters. As someone pointed out, it's a story about two ponies sent to the middle of nowhere and cut off from contact with greater Equestria for six long months that should be extremely boring... but people still read it and stuck with it and liked it anyway. Looking back, I guess I knew that character exploration was really all I had, so I had to put everything into making that solid and the effort paid off. That said, I will put this forward: I didn't always know what I was doing. I winged a lot of the story as it came up. I was just lucky that Sunburst is a character I can do that with, because writing her is easy for me: she is me in many ways. Not in biographical facts, of course, but in essence, is what I mean. It also helps that the setting of the Seawall is drawn directly from a real place, San Clemente Island, that I was lucky enough to visit for three incredible days. Sunburst's longing for the place reflects my own; I still have two very large abalone shells I found there. I have them set out where I can see them every day. Sometimes it's hard to think about that island without getting upset that I'll probably never be able to go there again.
'Write what you know', they say, and I think that's the biggest success I had with this story. That's the core that makes it good. It's very personal.
Moving on, what could have been done better? In one word... pre-reading! I did all of my own pre-reading and editing on each chapter. No one else but me saw the text until publication time. That taught me a lot about how to pre-read and edit quickly and effectively, and I learned a lot about grammar, but one person alone can never catch everything and they can never give a story all the polish it should have, if for no other reason than everyone has quirks. There are things that sound perfectly fine to me that don't sound fine for many readers, and without a diverse set of editorial eyes on the project, rough spots get through. It's definitely a thing to do better on, and I have: on the next project I have coming up (more on that later), I got a good number of pre-readers and editors to help. The story radically expanded from its original form and the text seriously reads like ten times better for it (thank you again, all of you!). So yeah, get your story pre-read and get independent editing suggestions.
In terms of structuring the story, there was also the issue that, as I mentioned, a lot of the time I was just winging it when I was writing, especially when I was closing in on the end and I'd run out of pre-buffered chapters to post. I had an abstract idea of where I kinda wanted to go, but a lot of the specifics only came up when I was actually writing each chapter for each week. I should have done two things differently. I should have had the story completely written at least as a first draft before I started posting chapters, and I should have planned the entire thing out in terms of specifics that would have to happen in each chapter and scene.
This has been an issue of long consideration for me, actually, since even before I started this project. I'm a computer science and programming kind of person, with a lot of background in planning and structuring things to arrive at a purposeful result. I've often wondered how this can best be done in the process of storywriting, or if it can really be done there at all, with some of it having to be intuitive and artistic rather than procedural. I've worried that it would just end with a soulless dry narrative more than an engaging and moving story. What I've realized, though, is that the parts I did plan out turned out at least just as well as anything I improvised or made up, and that the planned and thought-out elements are stronger. I did some searching, and recently I've come across something that seems very promising: the snowflake method for writing a novel. I'm going to try it out on my next large project that I've got in mind and see how it does. I've got some of the earlier steps already in progress, and it seems exciting so far. I didn't use it for the story I have coming out soon, but then, that one was short enough, simple enough, and clear enough as a whole concept that I didn't need something like that. So next time.
Finally, a big difference from now on is going to be in the tools I use. In all the stories I wrote up through Ghost Lights, my first drafts were all written in HTML while I read what I wrote in a web browser. It had the advantage that I used nothing but WordPad and I had the story always available in plaintext. The method worked for its time. However, it's sort of a primitive system and not as conducive to collaboration as something like Google Docs, so from here on out (including the project I have coming out shortly), I wrote in MS Word instead. I'm liking the change. I think it's making the process faster and simpler, and revision, archiving, and getting feedback are much easier. Basically, workflow is important. Keep looking for ways to make it better. Spend the time writing, not coding or juggling backups or doing extra administrative busywork you could get around.
So that's what I learned.
Oh, and what's this new project? Well, the title is Black Lotus, and it deals with about 12,000 words on reality (or the lack thereof). It has Twilight and Luna and tea and dreams and some very interesting conversation. You'll see. After three drafts and a lot of revision, I have a final version completed and sent off to Equestria Daily for their consideration, so I can try to coordinate a posting there with final publication here (fingers crossed that I can get the timing right!).
Looking forward to sharing that with you all, when the time comes.
Until then, thanks again to all of you who took the time reading Ghost Lights. It means a lot to me. 
Really cool, I'm excited to see that new story.
Looking forward to the final version of Black Lotus! Good luck with the EQD submission.
3408352 Thanks. Your pre-reading comments were very instrumental in shaping how Black Lotus as a whole turned out, transforming from a 6,000 or so word essay in didactic form to a much stronger 12,000 word actual story, so I owe a lot to you on this one.
And you'll be happy to know that, yes, I eliminated the word 'damned' in the final draft, since you're right, that's not really show-canon Twilight.
3406563 I'll be excited when posting day comes and I can show you and everyone else! Really looking forward to it.
Hey! I said that! Or at least I was one of the readers who said that.
Can't wait for the new story. I always enjoy philosophical ones. And one with two best ponies should be great!
So I'm obviously years late here, but have you been to, or thought about, Channel Islands National Park? It doesn't include San Clemente Island, of course, but it does have at least parts of five others. I've never been but it looks amazing: beaches, scenery, camping, and hiking galore. Especially if you're a camping type, you might be able to experience some of that peaceful isolation there.