Random Ramblings CLXXXVIII · 10:30pm May 26th, 2017
IN WHICH I CONSIDER SAGAS AND STORIES
I apologize for my recent absence. I know both my loyal readers look forward to these near-daily word-barfs from me. I was busy at the beginning of this week, then I was sick yesterday, then today I just had to get out to keep from going stir crazy. I'll let y'all know that I have been working on writing stories for you, though nothing is close to complete yet. The final part of a saga has always been the hardest for me to write, even when I know how nearly everything is supposed to go. That word, "saga". It's an interesting one, and one I'd like to talk about in a bit more detail below the jump, if you would be so kind as to follow me.
Before I get into the meat of this blogpost that I actually wrote two nights ago, I need to get something off my chest: Despite my best efforts to improve myself, I'm still not very good at accepting criticism. Now I'm not as thin-skinned as, say, the "President" of the United States (a.k.a. Orangeglow in Equestria and the deceased Orangeglow in the EQG-verse), but I'm no paragon of virtue. I'm a pretty big stickler for grammar myself, but I'm also a Southerner, so sometimes my native hick speech (seriously, my accent is kind of like how the Apples are supposed to sound) creeps into my writing. And because of my own obsession over each word I write, I tend to look at minor mistakes I make -- especially long after the fact -- as nitpicking and can get testy about it (I'll own up to major mistakes; I've pointed some of them out here in these blogposts).
The Recovery Arc was originally intended as an Alternate Universe story, but readers convinced me to drop the AU tag because the setup didn't deviate enough from canon, even with a couple of noticeable changes. I've made my bed and I shall lay in it. I am NOT going to go back and edit over a dozen stories to change a few words. Screw it. May as well fix it even if only a few people care, because the inconsistencies annoy me. ANYWAY…
Of late, I have been referring to my Sunset's Recovery Arc as a "saga". Personally, I think it's a fitting appellation, considering what was originally a single bizarre one-shot ballooned into a series of twelve stories of varying lengths, all of which can be read alone but, if read in order, build up a somewhat deeper world and are clearly leading to something.
As I work on the final two stories in the arc – simultaneously, because I am insane – I am reminded of a question someone asked me a few weeks ago, which was this: Why are you doing a whole bunch of one-shots? Why not just do one big story? I answered the reader in the comments, but I don't think I did my explanation justice because I dislike super-long comments. So allow me to further explain my reasoning…
(1) I Never Expected Most of the Recovery Stories to Exist - Seriously. When I wrote Highs & Lows in March 2015, I was afraid of how it would be received, so I sat on it for eight months; there's no way I could have known it would become my most popular story. But because of how well it was received, I figured I'd write its antecedent, Lows & Highs, sort of like how the first two Burritoverse stories are actually the same story from different points of view. Two sides of the same coin. Once I finished L&H, I realized I had created a character arc that deserved to be taken further, but I wasn't sure how much, so I just kept writing one-shots until Reconciliations, where I planned to end it… but it was pointed out to me by Posh and others that I still had a ways to go… and readers were enjoying it and wanting it to continue. So I kept going, filling in gaps here and there, until I finally found the real ending.
(2) The Arc Does Not Have A Consistent Voice - What I'm saying here is a technical but simple observation: The POV character changes with each story. Even though the arc is about Sunset, less than half the stories are told from her point of view. Most stories are her being observed through the eyes of others, usually Rarity. Placing every entry into one big story would make things incredibly jarring as perspective switches with each chapter. Tying into Point 1: If I had planned a saga from the beginning, I might have been able to pull such a thing off, but I didn't, so I'm not going to bother.
(3) The Arc Does Not Have A Consistent Tone - This is pretty self-explanatory. While every entry but one (Burrito) is at least a little depressing, some entries are Dark (Faded Sun, L&H), while others have Comic undertones (H&L, SSSQ), and one has shades of Romance (RarRev). The drastically shifting tone would look really bad if it was all one big story. Besides, I specifically write each story so it can stand on its own.
(4) Not Every Story Is A One-Shot - The majority of Recovery stories are one-shots, but some key ones are not. Reconciliations is a four-chapter story with prologue and epilogue (and bonus chapter I wrote at readers' request). Spider Queen got an epilogue because I wasn't 100% satisfied with how I ended it. Readers seemed to agree its epilogue was a very smart move on my part. The final entry, Recovery, will be "A Finale In Two Chapters". Having multi-chapter stories amidst a bunch of one-shots makes it that much harder to smush it all together into a single big story.
Well, that's all the news from Lake Woebegone, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.
Peace out.
