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Bender Alpha


"I love deadlines! I like the whooshing noise they make as they fly by." -Douglas Adams

More Blog Posts13

  • 167 weeks
    Feeling a bit CD Projekt Red right now.

    I'm not entirely sure what I should say right now. I suppose the first thing would be to apologize. I commented on Frey'd recently that I would try to post yesterday, and the weekend's already over. I wish I wasn't like this. I wish I could sit down and write for five minutes without the feeling of overwhelming dread washing over me. I wish I could just write everything I want to write without

    Read More

    6 comments · 786 views
  • 285 weeks
    Name Changed

    For reasons...

    2 comments · 635 views
  • 313 weeks
    Rewrite Cancelled!!!

    That's right. After months of hemming and hawing, I have decided I don't actually want to do a rewrite. As such, I can return to work on chapter 14. I will leave the status as on hiatus, as I'm unsure how long the new chapter will take, but the time it would have taken has been drastically reduced.

    4 comments · 631 views
  • 322 weeks
    Good news, everyone!

    Chapter 3 of Who Told You This Was A Good Idea?! drops February 1st. Get hype!

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    8 comments · 539 views
  • 325 weeks
    Ugh... What am I to do?

    So, I've been going back over The Unraveled Thread recently, and I'm a bit dissatisfied with what I've found. It's just kind of... I dunno, incoherent, I guess? The tone and pacing seems to be all over the place, and Sam's character doesn't seem very consistent. I just get the feeling that it's a mess. So my question to you is this: should I go back and try to rework and rewrite everything so

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    6 comments · 397 views
Dec
29th
2017

Ugh... What am I to do? · 8:22pm Dec 29th, 2017

So, I've been going back over The Unraveled Thread recently, and I'm a bit dissatisfied with what I've found. It's just kind of... I dunno, incoherent, I guess? The tone and pacing seems to be all over the place, and Sam's character doesn't seem very consistent. I just get the feeling that it's a mess. So my question to you is this: should I go back and try to rework and rewrite everything so that it's more consistent, or should I just soldier on and continue the story?

I'd really appreciate the feedback.

I'll be putting TUT on hiatus for now, until I can figure out what I should do.

Report Bender Alpha · 397 views · Story: The Unraveled Thread ·
Comments ( 6 )

Personally, if you as the author aren’t satisfied with it anymore, and it’s not finished, rewrite it.

A rewrite will make for a better story, with a more coherent feeling.

If you already feel the story isn’t that coherent, writing on will usually make it worse. Which would result in a good plot of a story to dig it’s own grave.

On the one hand, I love the story and want to see where you're going with things. But on the other, the focus does seem to be drifting a bit, ever since you introduced the additional plot elements such as the void cultists and the interdimensional police force thing. There's just too many plot threads happening simultaneously, and it's seriously screwing with the pacing, among other things.

If you do decide to reorganize, I'd suggest going with an arc structure. You can still do all the things you planned on, but it'd just flow better if you kept the story focused on one or two things at a time. Keep things focused on Sam and Equestria for a bit longer this time around, and wait to add those additional elements until things have already been well established on that front. Once Sam finally manages to build some semblance of a stable life in his new world/reality, that's when you can safely throw something else into the mix to threaten that stability--Just make sure that you don't throw it all at once this time.

What matters more to you? That this story is well-written, or that it is finished?

These options aren't mutually exclusive, ultimately, but for the near future they may as well be. You've been writing this story for two and a half years. How long will it take to rewrite, up to the current point? A year? Two? What if, at the end of that, you look back and it's still not good enough?

I'm not trying to be harsh here. These are serious questions. I had to kill my own fic in 2014 because I'd already rewritten it twice and it wasn't getting any better. I went in without a good idea for what it was going to be. The time I spent on that wasn't wasted, certainly not, but the story itself was utter shit and there was really no way I could improve it. I've since taken my best ideas from that experience and scattered them among ~5 story ideas where they will be better served, if I ever get to them. You didn't propose it, but cancelling is totally an option.

This isn't a solid rule or anything, but nowadays I plan to finish anything I start. This means making damn sure it's an idea I can get behind, as well as dedicating an appropriate amount of time to it, regularly. My current project isn't perfect, but it's mine, and I think when I'm done I'll be as glad that I finished it as I am that I cancelled Entropy.

PS: Though I wanted to include one, I don't actually have any anecdotes of successfully rewriting a large project after already making significant progress on it, though the current project miiight count? I certainly hadn't put a hundred thousand words into it though, or published anything before it was ready. Again, not to be harsh. That's just a tall order.

4762253

You've been writing this story for two and a half years. How long will it take to rewrite, up to the current point? A year? Two?

The good news is that he won't have to rewrite much of it at all--he just needs to restructure what's already there by taking out the aforementioned elements, until he can reintroduce them at a more suitable point in the story.

That should cut down the majority of the time that would otherwise be needed for such an overhaul, shouldn't it?

4762437
That would certainly have an impact, but I can't guess as to how large, as I have no idea how long it would take Algoroth to rewrite his story in either case. That's partially why I asked - not because I wanted to know, or to turn this into a discussion, but to make it clear what we're talking about: Months of effort, at the current pace. Maybe more. (I shouldn't have started at "a year" in my original estimate, that was pessimistic)

4762024
4762090
Yeah, I think I understand now where I went wrong. There's just so much I want to do with this story, but I was impatient and tried to cover too many things at once. After some consideration, I've come up with a few ideas on how to better pace the first arc out.

4762253
I understand your concern, but I have too much investment and emotional attachment to this fic to let it go. I want to make it better, for myself if nothing else. I don't plan on entirely rewriting it. In fact, the first several chapters won't change much. I'll mostly be adding things in and shifting parts around, and taking a critical eye to the tone of my writing.

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