Misunderstood intent · 7:03am Feb 13th, 2016
Ok... so Imma share a little something I kinda didn't want to, but heck I find myself explaining it so much I might as well.
My latest story Lost in the Darkness is being misunderstood, a lot. People tend to look at it and think it is as they called it a "crack ship" Yes, it has an odd coupling and its a pseudo romance.
However, the thing that is not seen here and this is the personal thing. Its actually based very strictly on a true story. MY story. Almost every event, line, and character within is based on a real experience and or person. I grew up with a whole hell of a lot of darkness in my life. Pain and abuse, after that I joined the military and I saw even more.
now spoiler alert here
Sombra's darkness he is constantly haunted by, that possessed him is the symbol of my own darkness, the choices I made and almost made in life. Derpy's low self esteem is my own my sister treated me like shit so much that I actually began to believe that I really was worth less than shit. The words Sombra speaks are almost line for line exactly what my grandfather told me. Everything he says in his more philosophical moments is all quotes from my grandfather. Fair Winds, is actually a good representation of my sister and the men I knew in the navy. Believe it or not Fair winds is a dimmed down version of them, My sister is actually a whole bloody lot more cruel than Fair Winds, if the character is at all unrealistic its only in the matter that he is kinder than the people he is based off of.
I would go on but I honestly should not have to explain every detail of the story, I intended for people to understand, and many did. three so far read the story and knew right away what it was about and could tell from every last word that there was a far deeper meaning to it. However it received a great deal of hate for... what was it...
a) Your use of "the" (definite) instead of "a" (indefinite) in reference to "dark gray blur"; you really ought to use "a" when Derpy (the current/previous? PoV character)
.... yeah... I know Im not good with Grammar but if I come up to you and scream "holy balls aliens just blew up the city run for your life" are you going to stop and lecture me on how I should have paused in between "blew up the city" and "run for your life" ? or are you going to run for your life because of the alien invasion?
point is the story... read the story... you can gouge out your eyes on Grammar Nazi sporks later, how is the STORY? and hopefully you will understand the meaning behind it and not just "Boooo! it says romance and no one got f***ed in the a**! your story sucks!!!"
so yes, lets recap. Hidden story within the story. If you didn't get it dont worry, it usually takes a scarred mind to understand the works of a scarred mind. If you did, then thank you. I hope you can draw inspiration and joy from this. Its not very often I get to write a true story with the characters of My Little Pony
I think it's admirable that you've made a true-to-life allegory within the poniverse and published it on this site. Takes a lot of guts. I might be able to help you understand the responses you've been getting.
There's this thing we all do from time to time where we share a personal experience with others without remembering that the only thing they have to go on is our actual words in the moment. To use a simplistic example, there's been times that my eight-year-old daughter gets on the phone with my mom in America, and tells a story about something she's experienced. Invariably, it is without any sort of context, so she's leaving out all sorts of critical details that my mom would need in order to know what she's talking about. But in her mind, she's telling a vivid, coherent story. So then I go behind her and explain to my mom what really happened, because I understand the bits that my daughter left out.
And when I say we all do this, I mean that. I think it's just human nature. I've done it plenty of times, and it takes a lot of practice to form a coherent self-contained story that does not need prior understanding in order to appreciate. So in a sense, I think your incredibly personal story is being lost on the audience because they have not experienced your story, nor have they witnessed it. The reason it's personal to you is because this is really your history. Sharing that history with others, to the point where they grasp it to the extent you do, is incredibly difficult. The main reason a handful others have "gotten" your story is likely because they have experienced similar things in their lives.
As you said... it usually takes a scarred mind to understand the works of a scarred mind. This is true to an extent. What you're referring to is preestablished context. The reader with the scarred mind doesn't have to be given as much detail and contextual exposition to understand the depth of your story, where someone else won't get it unless you do the work to establish the worldbuilding through careful exposition. As authors, we get better with this over time. Very talented authors should be able to weave a story in such a way that the full impact comes across to the reader even if they have never experienced anything like what the story is about. That's skill which I wager very few fimfiction writers possess. But we all try.
One thing I'd recommend, if you want to write stories about personal experience, is that you create original characters for your stories. When you take existing canon characters and transpose them over top of your real-life characters, they invariably do not align properly. Readers will find this jarring because they are already familiar with the canon characters, and so when you make them do and say things the canon characters wouldn't do or say, they get frustrated because their mind is telling them things are misaligned. If Fluttershy suddenly started getting competitive, readers would be confused. Things like that. So having original characters solves this nicely, and if anyone in your real life story happens to match a canon character quite well, then by all means use them in that role.
Another thing to remember is that readers read for reasons other than the reasons why writer's write. I know that's a mouthful. But it's true. Writers write because of intensely personal reasons often like what you're expressing here. There's a drive to express that which you've experienced in your life. But readers read for such different reasons. Mostly it's because they want to hear how the protagonist solves a particularly challenging problem they are faced with. We read stories because our mind subconsciously is always looking for simulated experiences to help us deal with our own lives. So when a protagonist deals with Challenge 47 in your story, the reader will file that away in the brain to pull it out when Challenge 47 shows up in their life. We tend to find this a satisfying experience to gain insight through stories. So you have to ask yourself, when you write your stories, are you doing it with your readers in mind? Are you intentionally trying to structure it in such a way that works the best for your readers and keeps them engaged? This involves planning out your plot and theme and all the other critical storytelling elements. It involves making sure your story is edited and proofread by someone other than yourself, because almost nobody can self-edit. These are all things which contribute to a story's success.
I hope this has helped somewhat.
Personally, I like your story ideas, and I hope you'll continue to write your personal experiences into your fiction. I just urge you to consider the above advice so that it can reduce the amount of frustration you have and so that more people can gain a benefit from reading your stories.
Hey dude! It will be alright! You are still awsome!