The Monster Will Return - Soon (after much editing) · 3:09am Mar 15th, 2018
In ten days, the next season of My Little Pony - Fiendship is Magic returns. Oh, Friendship. Yeah. My little Monster story is going to update around then too with a new six-part arc in Letters From a Little Princess Monster. We’re in the final editing step now, making sure little things like character’s sex don’t change more than five or ten times in one chapter (Honest, I did that by accident) or the urlock in the last chapter doesn’t eat any of the pages. We’ve got monster, monsters, dragons, phoenixeses, villains, and a long-delayed brother-sister reunion.
Only first, the editing needs to be completed. As an example, observe below:
Here’s the original intro that I wrote for this arc as Monster goes to Canterlot:
As I climb up, ever upwards, thunder fills my mind to overflowing, the reverberating crash and smash and hammering that is left behind after the cleaving lightning. It shakes me to my hooves, carried to every part of my small body by the fluttering of my heart. I cannot speak for fear of releasing its divine fury, but concentrate with all my strength against it, the bite of lightning on my tongue and the whirl of a hurricane in my lungs. The smallest flaw in my defenses and I shall be spun away into the sky, a fleck of paper helpless against the might of the mountain. This is the place where I was born from skyfire and fear, warped and twisted into near destruction due to my weakness. I must be strong, more powerful than the light and the darkness, stronger than the granite, adamantite against the forces that would tear me asunder. This shall be the least of my tests, for I have grown far beyond the small and the weak, although I still carry with me the gaping flaws which undid me before, and which have only grown over the years. Hear me, Canterlot! You have not defeated Twilight Sparkle, only set my hooves upon a different path to your summit. Throw me down, dash me against your stones, and I shall only rise up stronger until you too shall yield to my assault. I no longer fear, for you are a mere stone, and I—
Pretty good, huh? Well, I know I’m not that good. There are others far better than I. As an example who I found by reading a lot of Skywriter’s works, Murcushio, who writes like Swan Lake dances. I sent the above to Murcushio to ask politely for advice, and got this wonderful improvement back (spot the differences):
If you don't mind, I'm going to take a whack at cleaning this up a little bit, make a few changes here and there. I hope you'll forgive the presumption; this is kinda how I work.
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As I climb, ever upwards, thunder fills my mind, the reverberating crash and smash that is left after the lightning-stroke. It shakes me to my hooves, carried to every small part of me by the hammering of my heart. I cannot speak for fear of releasing its divine fury, but concentrate with all my strength against it, the bite of lightning on my tongue and the whirl of a hurricane on my breath. The smallest flaw in my defenses and I shall be spun away into the sky, a leaf on the wind helpless against the might of the mountain.
This is the place where I was born, from sky-fire and fear, warped and twisted into near destruction by my weakness. I must be stronger than its granite, more powerful than its light and darkness, adamant against the forces that would tear me asunder. This shall be the least of my tests, for I have grown far beyond the small and weak thing I was, though I still carry the gaping flaws which undid me, flensed ever-wider by the passing of years.
Hear me, Canterlot! You have not defeated Twilight Sparkle, only set my hooves upon a different path to your summit. Throw me down, dash me against your stones, and I shall only rise up, stronger than before, until you yield to my assault. I no longer fear you, for you are a mere stone, and I—
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Let me explain my process here, and some of my reasoning.
"climb up, ever upwards" seems redundant and impedes flow. (I'm going to use that word a lot. Word flow and narrative flow are two of my big things.) And using "up" and "upwards" so close together is an awkward construction. "Climb up, ever higher" could have worked, but I felt like simplifying to "As I climb, ever upwards" was more elegant.
I removed "hammering" and kept "crash and smash" because it does the same thing and preserves some pleasing alliteration; I removed "behind" because keeping "fills my mind" and "behind" close together was hinting at a rhyming scheme that the passage itself wasn't fulfilling. I replaced "the cleaving lightning" with "lightning-stroke" because I feel the latter construction is more evocative of the swift, hard passage of lightning than the former one; "lightning-stroke" rolls off the tongue in a way that feels closer to the sharp, snappy phenomenon it is describing.
I believe "carried to every small part of me" is more effective than "carried to every part of my small body" because it preserves the inherent trippiness of the passage we're in, but that's a pure aesthetic choice on my part that I can't justify well.
I replaced "fluttering" with "hammering" because fluttering denotes hesitancy, inconstancy, maybe even weakness, and I think in this context you want to lean on the violence; Twilight's body and soul are bowing, but not breaking, at both the metaphorical and literal fury before her. Her heart isn't fluttering; it's hammering, driving her forward and onwards. Also after removing hammering I felt like it should be used again.
Basically I just tightened that whole thing up because I feel like you were going for something swift with a hard kick in the end, and extraneous words and constructions were getting in the way of that.
I replaced "in my lungs" with "on my breath" to get some symmetry going with "on my tongue." I was actually tempted to simplify it down even further, maybe cut it all the way to "lightning in my mouth and a hurricane in my chest," or "bolt of lighting in my mouth and hurricane winds on my breath," or something like that, in order to improve flow, but ultimately I feel like the verbs are doing some real good work there and should remain. I could go either way, tho; I'm big into economy of language when it comes to extended metaphors like this.
I replaced "fleck of paper" with "leaf on the wind" because so far you'd been using an extended series of nature metaphors and similes, and suddenly we've got paper, an artificial product, all up in there. It doesn't have to be a leaf, but the image of a leaf whirling away into the sky on the wind is going to be familiar and vivid to most people.
Another possibility there could be a metaphor of the mountain hammering her to the ground instead of spinning her off into the sky. That might conflict with the fact that you use that metaphor later on, but it also might complement it nicely. Again, I could go either way.
I put in a couple paragraph breaks because this was a big block'o text and while that sometimes works (I myself dumped a big block'o text onto Skywriter) in this specific context I feel the imagery and narrative you're trying to make work here are improved with a couple of paragraph breaks, especially when you're moving from one subject to another one. It also helps to emphasize what you've just done, letting the reader process what's happening to Twilight on one front before moving on to what's happening to Twilight on ANOTHER front.
There's a comma after born and before sky-fire because I think it makes the sentence flow better, and I put a dash into sky-fire for purely aesthetic reasons; I think the word works better with it there. Again, I can't give reasoning for that, I just do.
I replaced "due to my" with "by my" because it's more personal, it evokes something being inflicted on Twilight rather than something that just happened to her (passive voice is to be avoided in this sort of situation, I think) and also because I think it improves the entire narrative flow of the sentence. I have removed and changed many words here and there with shorter constructions or synonyms for similar reasons; I find it more elegant and effective.
In that vein, I just completely eliminated "I must be strong." That sentiment is adequately conveyed both by the context of the passage and by her "I must be stronger than the granite" line; you absolutely don't need both. Because Twilight is speaking here in the context of Canterlot having metaphorically birthed her in violence and terror, I replaced "the" with the possessive "its" in the context of her talking about granite, light and darkness, etc.
Plain old "adamant" flows much, much better than "adamantite." I have no specific objection to adamantite not being a word, but you don't gotta get fancy there. "Adamant" works better.
"Grown beyond the small and the weak" seemed very awkward and ill-constructed to me, so I went with "the small and weak thing I once was," which I think better.
The entire back half of that sentence was kind of a mess; repeating use of me, repeating use of which, a lot of verbal circumlocutions I think were dragging the transition down. I cleaned it up, eliminated some words I think were overly long or unnecessary. I thought a more violent metaphor for Twilight's self-perception of her internal damage was called for, hence "flensed ever-wider by the passing of years." Really hammers home the point.
Another paragraph break, for the same reasons as before.
The last bit I only cleaned up a bit to improve flow; added a comma, moved a few words around and suchly.
... I hope I'm not being too down on you here, Georg. The passage was far from bad. It absolutely plays! But, well, you passed it to me for opinion, and when I pre-read this is sort of what I do. The concept is solid, the execution is completely worthy, the two-step at the end where you transition back into a more normal narrative works perfectly, I had nothing to add there.
I just feel like this was a bit rough and needed the edges smoothed over a bit, and I like to delude myself I'm good at that.
Now, that’s humility. And skill. I just had a few minor changes to match my style:
...yeah, I wanted to match hammering and heart (the two words like each other) but was stalled by my previous use of hammer...good... Leaf is good. I had a debate with my editor on that one. I wanted paper, he wanted (checks) purple dust, leaf does work much more organically for a pony who has been in the forest for so long...paragraph breaks, good (I tend to massive lumps)...flensed might be a little high reading level for Monster, but she does have a dictionary and a thesaurus... Ok, years is not a good fit there, since (at the point of writing) she's only 3-4 months into her recovery, but 'time' would work quite well.... Adamant was the word I was groping for, but I blame the X-men for my vocab... :)... Bravo!
Whew.
Exactly what I was hoping for, and far better than I expected. (Translation: I am sooo stealing that :)
Leaf is good. I had a debate with my editor on that one. I wanted paper, he wanted (checks) purple dust, leaf does work much more organically for a pony who has been in the forest for so long
It doesn't necessarily have to be leaf, but it should be something naturalistic to fit in with the themes you're evoking, and leaves being driven before the wind is an image we're all familiar with.
Ok, two things I'm changing.
using 'overflowing' in the first line (which I seem to have been inconsistent in using in various versions)
using 'time' instead of 'years' because I'm finding that specifying years yanks the reader out of a warm fuzzy bubble.
We’ll see you soon, as Monster goes to Canterlot, and for a change, it’s not her who stands a chance of turning it into lava by trying to cook a simple egg. Or two.
“That’s all I can do, Twilight.” The greenish light of her fire spell flickered like a poor candle and the shimmering eggs appeared behind the fading glow. “I can’t get it any brighter. My magic won’t push any more.”
“I did,” said Trixie out of impulse, “when I was trying to save your friend. I thought I was too weak, but you and all of your friends stood by my side and supported me when I was at my worst. If I could do it then, you can do it now.”
“I’ll… try.” The light coming from the eggs brightened as the voices of Sweetie Belle’s friends shouted encouragement from behind the table, then brightened more when Trixie put a hoof on her back.
“I believe in you.” It was supposed to be a lie, but Trixie found herself actually believing for a moment, and the moment was not over as she continued, “We believe. All of your friends are here to help. You were the one who found the dragon egg, Sweetie. The life of that little dragon is depending on you, just like Spike needed Twilight’s magic to hatch him.”
“It… hurts,” moaned Sweetie, which made Trixie quickly check out her magical aura for any signs of instability. The glare of green magic was rock-solid, even as Sweetie Belle braced her hind legs and pressed her horn even harder against the spell. Trixie could feel the heat leaching through Twilight’s shield, and to her shock, the glass in the window had begun to bow and stretch like taffy.
“That’s—” started Trixie in shock, only to have Sweetie Belle give out an anguished cry and shove more magic into her spell than Trixie had ever dreamed a little filly could control. The light was too bright to look at now, but streaming rivlets of molten sunstones were running down the window sill and the drapes caught fire in one rapid whoosh of flames that left only ashes swept up to the ceiling in the heat.
“Sweetie!” she commanded. “You need to—”
Very intriguing concept!
Wait, #Tempest Shadow" What????
Hmm, you wouldn't think that would be the one thing I would get out of this.
Dragonhatchers begin their training by burning juice and melting toast. Then it starts getting difficult.
4817365 Sweetie Belle gathered in Ponyville with the rest of the refugees, under the warm protective wing of Princess Celestia, and watched the smear of molten lava drip down the side of the distant mountain where the city of Canterlot once stood.
"Well, at least I hatched my dragon egg," she said. "Does this mean I'm admitted to your school? Once it gets rebuilt somewhere, that is."
I can.
“Every part of my small body” implies that she is holding self-loathing for her physical form. The reader then has to carry around the mental baggage of checking for corroborating evidence in the next few paragraphs/pages/chapters to determine if that is what the author was trying to communicate. As a result, the reader is only paying 90% attention to the story past this point until that thought fades into the background processes.
*sees gif*
I FEEL THE WARP OVERTAKING ME. IT IS A GOOD PAIN!
Georg is damned kind.
I'm not a very disciplined writer. I don't have the focus and the drive to produce works of length on my own recognizance.
I'm one hell of an editor and pre-reader, tho. This is a skill I have, and I'm pleased he involved me in his work.
4822566 See all the modest people I have to work with. Not one raving egomaniac in the bunch, like a herd of fuzzy bunnies.
I love 'em all.