CMC PRINCESSES – Discontinued · 8:01pm Oct 21st, 2015
To those of you who have read chapters two and three of Cutie Mark Crusaders: PRINCESSES, and/or have seen comments asking for more, I am sorry.
Somewhat.
When I started PRINCESSES, I knew that I wasn't holding myself to any standards for quality; I just wanted to get the idea out. Continuing the story seemed like a good idea, considering the reception, the ideas that it had spawned for me, and that I figured that if I didn't hold myself to standards higher than what I already had, I could write the story at a reasonable pace. Throughout the next two chapters, I generated a document just for ideas, characterization, and a few notes on the timing of events.
And then I started feeling bad. The one-shot wasn't written to go anywhere, and there I was, trying to drag it along. The following ideas would have improved in quality as time progressed – since I was failing miserably at not holding myself to standards – and I didn't want to start shoehorning them into a story with such low quality and jokes so bad that I'm genuinely surprised that nobody directly called them out. That isn't to say that I don't like the one-shot, or that I think nobody else should. I have, however, unpublished the latter two chapters (leaving the original one-shot), and will not be continuing the story. I'm sure someone will find this disappointing, but I know that if I were to continue, everybody would be losing, because I can't make up for the start of the story with following chapters.
I might start from scratch with the idea of the CMC becoming alicorns, though since I would be taking far less from the show at that point, I figured that if I do, I should leave the original one-shot up as a stand-alone story. One of the reasons that made not holding myself to standards so appealing is that I could sit down for an hour or less and actually write something consistently. I don't really have the time to do much more than that at the moment, so work would either be slow, or nonexistent because I decide not to write it for this reason.
Sad to hear that you're shelving the idea, at least for now. Here's hoping whatever you do next lines up better with what you want to do.
On the one hand, I completely understand your stance with regards to holding your self to high standards. I cannot fault you for that.
However, that being said, I want more!
3508603
My currently tight budget of time is by far the most to blame for this. If/when I have more to spend, it's possible that this will become a thing, as well as the idea of making a decent story out of the original idea. For now I'm just sticking to mulling it over and pre/proofreading.
3508681
I completely understand the time budget thing. I also understand the concept of 'wasn't written to go anywhere'. I've got folders full of that stuff just begging me to flesh it out to something large and grand... and I haven' been able to yet. The magic inspiration fairy has failed to show up with my weekly allotment yet again. (stupid fairy!)
Anyway, you came up with an interesting setup, and I like how you were pacing it. So I hope you continue. Chapter one caught my eye, so I'm hoping there's more in the future. (If you need a pre-reader for any of it, lemmie know.)
Good luck!
3508839
Thanks, heh. Fixed.
I dunno which of my blog posts you have read, but absolutely no real effort was invested:
Setup? Swap cutie marks with wings and horns.
Pacing? Find the next scene to write as soon as the puddle of ideas runs dry for the one I'm on.
As far as writing more... the hardest part of that would likely be turning a vague idea into an outline-ish thing that I can follow.
...
I suppose that is what prereaders help with. Gosh, I even do this stuff for other writers and I can't get it straight in my mind sometimes.
3508927
Lemmie re-word my original comments: u rite gud. Me amused. rite moar!
*hands SirNotAppearingInThisFic membership card*
Welcome to the club. I think we all know how that goes.
Thats cool and all... But you should still leave the other chapters up for posterity.
... or at the very least send me a copy so I can read them!
3508944
3509373
3486963
I suppose I can leave the links here for anyone who is motivated enough to click through.
Chapter 2: Rule of Three
Chapter 3: Alicorn ≠ Princess
Edit: Testing with another browser suggests that Fimfiction isn't happy with the lack of a password, so unless I clear it up, the password will be "12345".
3514816
Seems you've got a password on those chapters.
3514845
ignore - I found the password you mentioned before.
(OK, so I'm not so bright at times...)
I've read chapters 2+3. I can't help address your lack of time, but I can comment on what I've read and give you my thoughts on it.
You said, "The one-shot wasn't written to go anywhere, and there I was, trying to drag it along." And I don't see that. In the three chapters you've written not much has happened, but important things have happened, and I see lots of places you can go with this story.
Let me point out what I see so far:
* You've established that no one has as clue as to why this happened - this is going to most likely be the main plot of the story unless it's a macguffin for something stranger that's going on elsewhere - which is always possible. Maybe it's Trixie coming after Twilight again in a very round about way. There are options here.
* Most ponies are already concerned as to what terrors the CMC will be able to cause now - Celestia's and Luna's concern is valid: no training maybe the most dangerous thing of all! So, show us how dangerous that can be.
* The rest of the CMC's family are concerned - why/how/now what? All valid points, and the best part can be that while Applejack, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash are all concerned, they may not be concerned the same way, and as such, may all react in different (and possibly conflicting) ways in trying to deal with these concerns.
* Are they princesses? This could be a very important plot point depending upon how you want to use it. For example, are there going to be ponies out there that automatically consider them princesses just because they are alicorns? How do they react and what types of troubles does that cause? (In the back of my head, I can see some ponies declaring the CMC 'their' princesses and somehow causing political strife for Celestia and Luna. This could be especially funny if the CMC aren't even actively involved with this and are more swept up in the thing.)
* The CMC will need extra schooling - which the CMC are not completely thrilled with - can you said "recipe for boredom"? That then that leads to "boredom causes disasters". Not to mention the fact that this gives you entire chapters of fun while we learn just how powerful these three little fillies cum alicorns are and how bad they might be at controlling those powers.
* The CMC must go back to Cheerilee's school. Oh, this just has excitement written all over it. My first question is how do Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon deal with this? How about the rest of the school as they fawn over the CMC alicorns? How much disruptions/headaches, if any, does this cause for Cheerilee? (Personally, I can see Cheerilee doing a lot of heavy drinking before this is all over.)
* We've also learned that Big Mac may be jealous of Apple Bloom. I can easily see a show down between the two of them. Yay for sibling rivalry! And now I'm scared for the apple trees in the orchard. Also, I think this may cause Applejack to hit the family's cider stash a bit harder than normal.
So, no. I don't think you're 'dragging it along' I think you just need a break and to decide if you really want to continue or not once you do get time to work on it. But personally, I see a lot of directions you can go with all this.
OK, I've probably pushed you more than enough on this, so I'm going to drop the subject now. I'll wish you the best of luck and I'll just hope there will be more chapters coming in the future. If you want a pre-reader for future stuff it looks like you a couple of volunteers.
Good luck!
3515492
You're fine – I wish I had more of comments like this. Sometimes I want my stories to be reviewed so that I have more material with which to improve, but it'd be a joke for someone to review CMC:P.
I have decided for certain that I will not be writing any more chapters for this story, however, I likely will wish to pursue the idea with a fresh foundation.
The three chapters have effectively been my running down the hallway opening nearly every door I come across. In this analogy, I also have no idea which ones I'm going to go through in the end. With this, I've been able to explore a lot of options, though I would rather start the story with a much better idea of the end goal in mind – driving it with characters works, but I still hadn't come up with any satisfactory answer as to why they had become alicorns, perhaps because the point of the story was that they had ascended for little reason other than that there was a light show.
Amusingly enough, I have definitely spent more time discussing and analyzing this story than I have spent writing or attempting to write it at this point.
All that aside, I do like the idea of continuing the idea, either by taking it seriously when I get some more time, or by taking it even less seriously, somehow, as mentioned in my next blog post, which is linked to in my first comment in this thread – though there might be a few related ideas that I haven't posted there, either, at this point.