"Treasure Hunt" is going to go through a major overhaul · 7:16pm Dec 10th, 2015
So over the past year and a half, I've kind of had an experiment going with my canon Lunaverse stories; the experiment is basically "are my stories better if I write them as I go (my preferred style) or if I plan them out ahead of time?" Basically the point of this experiment was to see if I, a) could follow a synopsis once written, and b) what kind of effect does this have on the story?
After much deliberation on the matter I've figured out what basically every 4th grader learns in elementary school English: planning out stuff ahead of time leads to a much tighter and more focused story. Keeping stuff in your head can sometimes work, but just as often it leads to problems when you run into narrative stumbling blocks that you hadn't realized needed to be resolved.
This is not to say that writing like this is impossible, or even bad - Boast Busted, Tales of Ponyville, and An Early Reunion were all written that way - just that I've reached the conclusion that I, personally, am better when I've plotted things out ahead of time.
Case and point, Treasure Hunt. I set up this scenario with three ship crews all doing their own thing, each going after three keys to a treasure. So nine keys total. Fun fact: I didn't plan out what each key was, how it was supposed to work with the treasure they find, and where they were going to get the keys and what they were supposed to be doing - not to mention how I'm supposed to be making each key-quest interesting; as well, a recurring minor complaint in the Lunaverse is that Dinky is too "perfect", so I think I want to try and inject a little more nuance into her character here (I did the same in Magic Tutor with how easily she got jealous, although Magic Tutor is another story that kind of got out from under me due to a lack of cohesive planning).
So, basically, Treasure Hunt is being officially put on hiatus until I've fully plotted it out. The same basic story - three crews of five foals looking for treasure - is going to be kept; I'll probably even wholesale copy/paste the first two chapters into the new story. But I'm going to be reducing and changing the keys and making things just work better.
Sorry, Dinky and Pipsqueak! But things will be better for the effort, I promise.
Okay, fair enough. Maybe one day I should try this whole, "Planning out ahead of time," thing. ;p
I do wonder if you should use the Brainstorming and Writers Forum's you put together yourself more. If it's at least partially thinking of keys / key givers and tests then that would be thrown to the audience.
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Yeah, that's another thing I'm going to start doing.
Nice to see that you listened to the feedback about Dinky, wish you the best of luck with it. I would wish you even more luck if you were doing "Daleks Have No Concept of Friendship!" but I'll take what I can get.
Okay Interesting, may I ask if by any chance some episodes of the CMC of the show has also come to your conclusion to chance the story? I mean season 5 was mostly about Cutie Marks when you think of it. I could help but notice the story you chose the alter is the one where Dinky would get her Cutie Mark. Considering we even have more cannon info about the Cutie Marks now it kinda opened a whole new perspective in that matter.
Though I really agree with your point of considering planning ahead, but that's more bias of reasons. I'm the kind of person that loves planning ahead and knows the true benefits of it. Heck I even have trouble thinking on the fly so to speak.
Amazing how different it is, isn't it?
I really think that doing a synopsis is one of the big reasons Chasing Smoke got done nice and fast, while The Leaf Festival is just sitting there and lagging.
Looking forward to what you'll do to add some nuance to Dinky's character though!
I feel the same way with my Andalantis story which I started without proper planning...I did have a plan...but I changed it almost everytime I wrote a new chapter so it's a mess in my head ><