The third story has begun

I have just published the start of LEGO Equestria Girls 3, and as I type this blog post, all I can do is wait for it to be approved and see what everyone will think of it. Personally, I really hope that it gets off to a much better start than last year's story did (which got seven dislikes right on the first day, more than half of the total dislikes it has received to this day). As far as I can recall, my biggest issue was struggling with the concept of "show, don't tell", and as I reread through the prologue and first chapter for my new story, I'm fairly confident that I've since improved on that.

Even though, as mentioned in my previous blog post, I had already seen Friendship Games plenty of times when it came out in late September, I had decided to also watch it a few more times just before I started writing, about a month ago. I did this to not only help refresh my memory, but also because I simply liked it the most of the three Equestria Girls movies that have come out so far.

As for the Lego side of my crossover series, I believe I've already mentioned that, unlike the previous stories, there are currently no additional Lego movies for me to draw inspiration from, so I needed to come up with a much more original idea than I previously had. Initially, I came up with two options: another adventure across numerous themed regions, or something like a racers competition (based on the game Lego Racers that I used to play a long time ago). After I saw Friendship Games, I finally decided to go with the first option. (Though I will say that thinking of that racers idea had inspired me to find my old copy of that game and not only play for the first time in ages, but also completely beat it for the very first time ever in my entire life.)

As you might expect, the third LEGO Equestria Girls story will include many of the characters seen in Friendship Games, particularly the Shadowbolt five. Since many of them got surprisingly little characterization in the official movie, I've decided to give each of these five characters some interesting traits, as you will see as the story progresses. I won't give out any details to avoid spoilers, but keep in mind: they will be Lego minifigures, and they are not prep school students.

As for how my previous stories have turned out, I'll admit that I'm quite surprised the second story got nowhere nearly as popular as the first one. (I can't help but wonder if the main reason the first one got so popular was simply because it started at the same time as when the Lego Movie first came out.) On the other hand, according to the story statistics, it seems to have gotten a lot of attention on tvtropes, so that's nice to see. (The only thing that would make it even better would be if someone decided to make an entire separate page about the LEGO Equestria Girls fanfiction series.) In addition, I do still have plans to eventually get cover art for my stories, but it hasn't gone as well as I had hoped. I had tried by joining the Art of Fanfiction group and making a request. Someone immediately offered, I gave specifications, and... nothing else happened. This person has literally made no effort at all to follow up on my request. Honestly, some people really need to learn to not make promises that they won't even bother keeping to begin with. However, I do think I might have found someone else who could be capable of providing the kind of cover art I'm looking for, but I haven't yet contacted this person, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see if anything comes of it (once I can actually get around to trying to contact this person, of course).

Finally, I'll just say that I'm still uncertain on whether or not the third full story will be my last. I'm certainly very excited to be writing it, and since we still know very little about what the fourth Equestria Girls movie will be like, I really won't be able to make any official decisions until I actually finish the current story, later this year.

And that covers just about everything for now. I hope everyone will enjoy reading LEGO Equestria Girls 3.