073 Status update: Of Lilies and Chestnuts · 10:40pm Jan 11th, 2016
073 Status update: Of Lilies and Chestnuts
Hello, Canterlot Elite enthusiasts! Would you like to know what I’ve been doing for the past four-or-so months and see some (relatively) new content at the same time? Yes, no, maybe so? Then check out below the break!
If you recall my last blog about Of Lilies and Chestnuts, you probably remember me prattling something about working on a revised version for the said story. It is my pleasure to announce that the deed is done!
Wait! Don’t go anywhere! It hasn’t been uploaded to the site just yet. While the majority of the work is behind me I still need to give them words another final glance (one can never give too many final glances, right?) and apply proper formatting code for italics or whatever. So just for your information, if you’re likely to be in the middle of (re)reading the story sometime this week, I recommend downloading the chapters before the weekend because I plan on uploading the new ones in their place then. I may even temporarily revoke the submission for a few days for the sake of convenience during this little maintenance, so don’t panic if all of a sudden you won’t get your daily dose of Tramplevanian chestnuts.
Let’s talk about the changes that await you in the revised version of the story. Most of the time it's smoothing, finding better wording, trimming the needless parts, utilizing full stops in dialogues that are not succeeded by speech verbs, changing the order to get better flow in the narrative, being extra careful around ellipses, that sort of things. However, sometimes it's straight changing something.
The following excerpts are the two takes on the same scene from the second chapter. You may remember this one—Chestnut was just toured around the 88 Rimway Avenue and shown to her room where Fancy Pants and Fleur are helping her unpack her NuTsiE’s StuFF box. The first excerpt comes from the original version (the one currently visible on Fimfiction) while the second is from the revised one.
Fleur was trying to make the best of a bad game. Although she didn’t want Chestnut for a daughter, Fleur helped to unpack Chestnut’s things, slowly trying to warm up to the idea of spending a whole week in her company.
The small box Chestnut had brought from the Orphanarium was full of stuff: a vinyl and a poster of Gemtrance, her favorite band, which neither Fleur nor Fancy Pants knew of, naturally, but were soon informed that it was the bestest band ever; one Daring Do and the Rainbow Rupture novel; several comic books; and a slightly worn-out griffon mascot. It wasn’t much, but the filly’s stare told them that she treasured it all. There was also a black figurine of a batpony. When Fancy Pants inquired about it, Chestnut nervously changed the topic, and Fleur decided not to pursue it further. Honestly, Fleur didn’t actually care.
Let’s see the revised version now.
Aware that Fancy Pants was watching her every move, Fleur was trying to make the best of a bad game. She even managed to help the filly unpack her things. The NuTsiE’s StuFF box was, unsurprisingly, full of ‘stuff’.
“One poster, I think?” Fleur said, pulling up a long roll. “Oh, Gemtrance. What’s a Gemtrance?”
“They’re my favorite band. Surely you’ve heard of them,” Chestnut replied, but the unicorns were clueless. “Oh, come on! They’re the. Bestest. Band. Ever!” she shouted, waving her hooves around. “I also have one of their albums, see? It’s not the latest one, but it’s still great.”
Fancy Pants put the record aside. “I wonder if the old gramophone is still working. Perhaps we should give it a try later? I’m curious to hear what the younger generation is listening to nowadays,” he said with genuine interest. “My, what do we have here? Daring Do and the Rainbow Rupture?”
Chestnut nodded. “I got it from Doc Hugs so I could practice my reading. It’s harder than these”—she took out an issue of the Power Ponies comic—“but I’m already almost halfway through.” She turned to Fleur. “Do you like Daring Do?”
“No, sorry. I wouldn’t consider myself a fan,” the mare replied indifferently.
Fancy Pants examined a black figurine of a batpony which he found tucked in a piece of cloth.
“Now this is a work of art! Polished onyx, I believe, but it doesn’t look Equestrian. Where did you get that?”
Chestnut chuckled nervously. “What, this little thing? It’s a—uhm, it’s just a trinket from the old country. It looks like a real deal, but it’s probably fake,” she said, then grabbed the figurine and carried it to a bedside cabinet. “Hey, you guys want to see something cool?” She darted back to the box and presented the couple with a slightly worn-out plushy. “That’s Garibaldi the Griffon. Do you want to know how I got him? Well, there was that one time when Doc Hugs invited a history teacher, and she was also a griffon, and she was old, and…”
Fleur stopped paying attention. She didn’t care about the figurine, the toy, or the batpony herself, and she did not feel wrong about it.
As you can see, this is a change that went beyond rearranging and/or changing the words so that the sentences would read smoother. This is a classic example of how “tell” evolved into “show” because quite honestly, the original felt like lazy writing. I believe the revised version is more interesting to read while still being, in essence, a scene listing the things that were in the box. There’s a couple more instances which got similar treatment. For example, the scene from the third chapter, the talk Fleur and Rarity have over coffee in Les Deux Maregots, that scene now should feel like an actual talk between two friends, and not “the author’s way of telling the audience those characters had a talk over coffee”. Another example would be Fancy Pants and Chestnut solving the crossword in Chapter 5. Simply solving for solving is all good, but wouldn’t be nice to get the crossword’s solution at the end? Yes, it would!
In the case presented above, the introduced changes netted ~220 words more. How does it translate for the total word count of the revised version? The original has close to 37k words, the revised—about 44k scattered across the same number of chapters. That means—that’s right, folks!—the new take on Of Lilies and Chestnut is about twenty percent longer.
I hope you'll find the changes I've made enjoyable and fully justified, and that you'll take this opportunity to rediscover the story and relive the struggles of the characters you know, love, and have been rooting for ever since they came to you back in 2013.
tl;dr:
- the new version of Of Lilies and Chestnuts is coming soon to a Fimfiction near you;
- if you still have that gdoc link I gave some of you after the last blog, feel free to check the entire new story there;
- if you're super eager to check out the changes RIGHT NAO, let me know and I'll PM you the link;
- if patience is your virtue, then sit back and wait as I'm uploading the thing;
- I'll make another blog post informing you about the new version going live when the maintenance is complete.
Should you have any questions, do let me know!
See you!
~Prane
So...
The overall story hasn't actually changed. The same events happen, and the outcomes are more or less the same. But the story goes more in depth into the characters and the action? It's still the same story?
Have I understood that right?
3680258
Yup! I can confirm that it's still the same story with the same chain of events and characters, only delivered a tad better.
It's sort of reminds me of my way of writing in a way. That I too try to find a balance between showing and telling though conversations. I'm interested in how the layout of the story will look once you're done redoing it.
And remember the immortal quote from the beginning of my favorite book of all time, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, "What is the use of a book without pictures or conversations?"
Looking forward to re-reading the whole thing.
Cutest. Batpony. Ever.
great.
just great.
now I've got another story I'm going to have to read just because you can't resist making a great story better!
p.s. hurry up, please.
3680322
Then I look forward to the update.
Well, I for one look forward to voraciously reading what seems to be a massively improved story!
3680700
It is indeed improved, and I hope you'll be sated!
3680526
I'm working as fast as I can! Tonight I'll be triple-checking the third chapter.
Huzzah!
3681418
Huzzah indeed!
Yay! You've actually found a way to make the story even better!
It's been a while since I read Lillies and Chestnuts. I can't wait to read this improved version.
3685692
I hope to publish it in a week or so, so stay tuned!
Well, it's good you have enough discipline and drive that you would want to improve upon your original story.
Truth is, I was hoping for a sequel to this story, where Chestnut takes on the snobs of Canterlot's private schools.
Is the password to access the story only temporary?
3686397
Yes, since I can't update every chapter at once I temporarily locked the story while I'm working on it. Sorry for the inconvenience, Chestnut & Co. will be back in a week or so. :)
I stopped getting updates on this for some reason. G--doc fail I guess... plus I didn't bookmark it.
3699783
Don't worry, if all goes well I'll have the story up and running again by Monday!
3700057 You gave me an interesting fail when I was updating my e-reader, that's what made me check. It told me I needed a password to update it on my reader (I do an update check every 2 months or so in case a fic finished and got marked complete that I missed)