A bit of musing, for a potential future purpose. · 11:20pm Apr 18th, 2016
Can a blog's title be any more vague?
So I recently received my hardcover copy of Through the Well of Pirene, and that got me thinking more than usual about wanting to try and publish one of my stories. The problem is, my stories tend to not be all that long. Other than my compilation of Thirty Minute Ponies stories (at about 75k words altogether) and Sugarcoat Interferes in Everything (currently at 45k with a lot more to go, but it's also more of a compilation thing), my longest story is Small Scale at 30k, which is coincidentally the one I'd probably lean towards if I wanted to get something published.
Here's where you guys come in! Small Scale is possibly my favorite thing I've written in a long while, but I know that it's far far far from perfect. So here's two questions for people:
1) Which parts in the story could use more detail? Not just elaborating a bit more on things, but like, what do people think could really stand to be added to make it a better, cleaner experience? In my burst of inspiration and fervor to get chapters out, I know I missed out on expounding upon things that could have used some more effort. I know that there were plenty of comments on it on the story itself, but I figure this could be a good place to gather people's ideas for what parts of the story need more work. That way, if I do decide to go back and revise things, I'll know what to aim for first.
2) If I were to fix the story up a bit more and look into getting physical copies made, is there any interest out there in them? I wouldn't want to spend the money to try and get them published if people wouldn't be interested.
I'm a little too tired to think clearly on this matter but if it were me, I'd be a little more world building. As for printing, it sounds interesting but even if you did it, I doubt I'd be able to get a copy. So basically I'm not the one to ask about this.
Easily the parts you can improve is showing Spike's feelings as the babying is happening, and her feelings as well. Expand the scenes and add more detail all over. There are also areas where you tell us things when you can convert them to show us what's happening. And, yes, if you did all of that, I'd buy one. ^^
I've used Lulu before if you need help. Very nice service.
The shaman as a villain kind of disappointed me while reading it, I was hoping for it to just be a case of dragons holding onto grudges and fears for longer than they need to simply because they don't really understand the scale on which the shorter-lived ponies act.
I don't know if that would be too big of a change, though, or whether you want to go in that direction.
If you were to publish, I'd say go into more detail about the missing egg of dragoness like where it went in the first place a decade ago and whether Spike actually is in fact her son or not as that was very vagued and hinted at being a possibility. Kinda like a glimpse of the past to show it all ala Kung-fu Panda 2 when we found that Po's father and species were still alive at the end. It would definitely answer the big question there for sure if you wrote actually happened to it. Another thing, Celestia and Bahamut's relationship at the end. We need more detail there as it makes it seem like they're an item but doesn't specify how. Are they dating, married, just really good friends, ect.?
I'd be interested in a copy for sure.
I'd would totally buy!
I would also like some detail about how Celestia and Luna knew the mighty king dragon dude (sorry that I can't remember his name xD)
3879489
I agree with this comment. I'm not sure if the shaman really needs to be some devious mastermind keeping everyone afraid with a fake egg-stealing ring. Not sure how else you can justify Celia's egg going missing in that case, though.
As for my own thing... well, what I said in the comments of the story itself still stands true. Especially after "Gauntlet of Fire" did so much to expand on dragons in Equestria. It's fine for dragonkind to have their own stories and the bit with Bahamut is pretty cool (though maybe now you'd want to replace him with Dragonlord Torch? I dunno, the Dragon God Bahamut still works), but Celia having dragon-sized furniture in her cave, a dragon-sized stroller for Spike, and dragon-made action figures kinda takes it too far.
It's like I said before: There's a difference between "Dragons and Ponies aren't so different" and "Dragons live just like big scaly ponies". Ponykind doesn't know much about dragons for a reason.
Now, I'm not sure about buying a physical copy... but I dunno. I might be interested in seeing what changes about the story now that the show canon has expanded a bit.
As a few others have stated, the Shaman was really what bugged me. I was really hoping that the story wasn't going to go into the brainwashing and the "ponies are horrible, dragons superior" field. A way I can recommend would have been to rather have the Shaman play a smaller role, having him prove that Spike wasn't brainwashed and maybe even going so far as to chastising the dragoness for retaining this grudge on the ponies. He understands why, but she shouldn't believe that it is true of all ponies. Have this extend into her having to maintain her part of the promise to return him to the ponies, but feeling conflicted still, trying to stall for time in hope that Spike will stay with her rather than the ponies. Meanwhile, Twilight and company travel to the town mentioned previously, which would not be abandoned, and find it to be one that fears the dragons above, though they have a competetition to prove who the bravest of them all is by taking something from the dragons. The reigning champion being the one stole the dragoness' egg all those years ago. I'll just be rambling on if I continue, but I just think it could have gone a much better direction than something so... I can't think of a better word than simplistic.
Honestly, I didn't have much problem with the shaman but I did have one question. What about the other eggs? We know that Spike hatched from an egg given to Twilight, most likely one of the eggs that they shaman sold. Note the plural in that sentence. EggS as in more than one egg was sold. So where are all the rest?
Well I got to thinking about that and I came up with this little head cannon. What if the ponies that the shaman sold the eggs to weren't all that legal and all that jazz. I mean we're talk practically unborn babies here, I doubt that there's any sort of legal business that buys dragon eggs for any reason. Dragon eggshells maybe of they have any sort of magical properties and such but not unhatched baby dragons.
Anyways, what if these ponies were busted by the Royal Guard because of their illegal activities, including buying unhatched dragon eggs, and what they had was taken into custody by Celestia. But because of reason, like not knowing where they came from exactly, they had to keep these eggs and possibly hatched dragons as best they could. This is where Spike's egg would come in (though why she would make hatching an egg a test is completely up to you) and considering the similarities between Spike and Celia what if he was her egg?
At the end of the story, what if Celestia suggested Celia helping out with the eggs and baby dragons? You can tweak this however you'd like if you like this idea. I know it's very rough around the edges and will need some polishing, but I think it's a more or less valid question. Course it's you decision in the end. Good luck!