The Rain Recedes · 3:52pm Jan 28th, 2018
Well, it's been nearly six months since the last update, but I'm considering shutting down "Tales of the Rainmaker". Someone pointed out a lot of flaws in the story that are too well engrained to fix. Part of me wants to continue, because I want to tell her story, but at the same time, that reviewer was right.
Chief among his complaints was that it's very unclear and inconsistent what Rainstream's age is. It's said that she's a filly too young to be able to fly, which is why she's at flight camp, but around the age she appears to be in the first chapter at flight school is about the age of the CMC season 1, and Diamond Tiara mentions that Scootaloo should have been flying ages ago, so we know that Rainstream should also have been flying a while ago if her age is correct. But then it gets even further muddied up by the fact that I made her old enough to be subject to hormones, and be interested in colts and stallions, which would suggest she's in her mid to late teens. I even wrote flight school like high school, and I mention it's been four years when she graduates. So... yeah, her age is totally inconsistent, and seems to fluctuate to fit the story.
Then there's her depth of character. There's just not much to her in what I wrote. She flips very violently and erratically between bold and adventurous to cripplingly shy and is honestly just a hot mess. Too many things are too inconsistent for me to continue writing this without solidifying the bad habits that have already started forming. If I'm to continue this at all, I would have to modify a lot, and that's more work than I'm willing to put in right now. Plus her whole thing with Rain just gets boring after a while. I think I went too far on the whole slice of life shtick, which made it very repetitive, and uninteresting after a while.
To top it off, the view count on this story is very low, and responses are pretty much nonexistent. I originally meant this for a particular friend, and he loved what I made, but now it revolves way too much around List. I would turn this into an ask blog if I had any skill at drawing or digital art, but I don't. Unless I can get some sort of reader response back and forth with the characters, this story is basically dead in the water. Maybe I could fix it if I tried, but I want to move on to bigger and better projects. It's been a fun experiment, but it's time to put this story on the shelf.
whatever you decide, you decide dude. Just keep it up and do what your able to do. Better to not pressure yourself and just give yourself leeway into having more free time for ya self! :P
Honestly, I want to throw my efforts into cleaning up The Secret of Ponyville (and finally starting the Luna-blasted Ponyville Campaign) and also beginning the first installment of my original novel series The Fox and The Flame.
If you know what's wrong with this one then you also know how you can fix it. On the other hand, if you go on to bigger and better projects without fixing what you don't like about this one, then you're at risk of getting bigger and not-at-all-better. Stopping a project in the middle can easily develop into a habit.
Also, judging from the like ratio, it's not as bad as you think it is.