That moment when you realize your Christmas story isn't a Christmas story anymore after the fourth draft · 12:30pm Dec 17th, 2015
I've been working on Merry Christmas, Dear Twilight off and on for the last several days. I keep deciding that I'm starting it in the wrong place and go back to do a new outline. Tonight I wrote up a 1600 word long outline on the story, and realized that by the middle of it I was writing a completely different (and not at all Christmasy) story, and that while the Christmas elements of it made sense in context, the story was not the Christmas story I had previously envisioned, and had probably crossed the threshold where I should not try and tie it in to the Yuletide season. I'm not sure how interested I am in writing the story I just outlined, but I might at some point.
It is slightly frustrating to outline a story four times then realize that the story you were telling originally and the story you are telling now have almost nothing to do with each other tonally, but I think I'm going to take the original idea I had and rework it into a much shorter story that didn't develop plot cancer, and does what I want it to do in 2-3 scenes instead of the much, much longer work I had been outlining. On the upside, my outlining paid off, because I never wrote more than a thousand words of any of the aborted versions,.
I hope any Christmas stories you folks are working on are coming out more Christmasy (or Hearth's Warmingy) than mine has thus far.
If any of you haven't listened yet, It's a Pony Kind of Christmas is a surprisingly good Christmas music album, if you can get past the fact that the ponies are singing songs that are related to Christmas. The songs have all been thoroughly reworked from their original versions, and while they are recognizable for the songs they are originally, a number of them are essentially original songs set to familiar tunes. Rainbow Dash's version of Jingle Bells wherein she terrorizes Ponyville with a one-horse open sleigh, and Applejack singing Days Gone By, her own version of Auld Lang Syne, are highlights of the album.
Days Gone By (at minute 23:00 for anyone else looking for it) was really good. Great Applejack/Apple Bloom duet. Thanks for sharing this.
I like twilights we wish you a merry Christmas and pinkie pies 12 days of christmas i like the others as well they make me smile
Days Gone By is beautiful. I always recommend it when this album comes up.
I like the whole thing, mind, but that one is particularly poignant.
Also, horsewords: Yay!
Just have it like Die Hard. That just has Christmas in the background and it's the best Christmas movie ever.
I wish I could write more stories as long as your outline. Also yeah I listened to the pony Christmas album last night while putting up decorations with my mom and it was surprisingly decent. Interestingly enough almost exactly the same length as the beach boys Christmas album.
You have my full sympathies. This very issue happened with me with one of my stories. The first draft was... fine, but had some glaring issues. Editors suggest X Y Z. I write another draft. Editors suggest expanding one of the minor arcs. Fast forward a bit, I'm working on a draft, wondering why I have zero motivation to write this story, only to realize that the story I'm writing has nothing to do with the original vision of the fic.
At that point, I just scrapped the current draft, went to my backups folder (like any sane writer keeps), and started modifying off the initial draft. The story was better for it. Yes, the tangential drafts were a good story, arguably, but my heart and soul wasn't in it. Can't squeeze blood from a stone.