After further Rumination! (not remuneration) · 10:42pm Apr 25th, 2018
So I have come to a decision...
Tell 'em, AJ!
The story must go on, and will not be deterred! That being said, changes forthcoming:
I took everyone's input into consideration, both from the previous blog, from 32 respondents to a poll on the Tillie-TMB deviant art page, and from a conversation with Goldenwing over at the group The School for New Writers.
To put your fears at ease, none of what you have read will be removed from The Amulet of Shade's storyline. All will remain as it was in my "Amuletverse." Twilight and company have yet to play a huge role in the story, so they aren't being given a lesser role.
That being said, being the new author that I am, I introduced them too early. My hopes in having them in the story (at this point) was to link familiar characters to my audience, try my hand at writing their characters (Pinkie was a blast) and fill the reader in on their lives for when this story takes place: 12 years after Luna's return. However, they are acting in a completely separate plot line, not part of the plot of the story (YET).
To quote from one response of my previous blog post:
And seeing the daily lives of these characters is the perfect way to do that. We get to see their lives in the calm before the storm. We get to see Twilight worrying about Spike's growth. We get to see The Princesses private lives, how they enjoy pranking each other, we get to see how lovely their relationship is when the distrust and hatred that blinded them decades ago is lifted
. (by hiphop4eva
This was my plan all along, to contrast the innocent fun of Ponyville with some darker happenings (that continue to get darker) over in Manehattan, and then bring those two together. But I haven't moved the plot ahead enough to make that contrast even matter. As it stands, characters in Ponyville have essentially NOTHING to do with what is going on in Manehattan.
Yes, I was wanting to portray the calm before the storm. Exactly that. Way to be in my head, hiphop4eva. But I can still do that: there is much more story to tell in Ponyville, as the Main Six hear about weird goings on over in Manehattan.
Because of this lack of connection (at present) I am ending up telling two stories that have nothing to do with each other. Therefore... I will take all the Ponyville stuff (Spike and Twi, Rarity and Rainbow, and AJ and Pinkie - later chapters, don't worry) and will publish it as a sidestory for The Amulet of Shades. I have an excellent stopping point in mind, such that the Ponyville story will succeed as a stand-alone if one were to never read the main body of The Amulet of Shades, and readers of the main body will have a light hearted and hilarious side story to read while they wait for the next chapter of Amulet of Shades to come out. Win/win, and all that.
The only logistical difficulty I am presented with is the amount of time spent with Spike and Twi in chapter one. I will have to remove most of that, and place it as the beginning of the side story. That image at the top of this blog may be what I use as cover art (or an adaptation of it), and I will either call this story Pinkie's Apiecalypse or I will call it Twilight's Tale and Pinkie's Apiecalypse. (heh. too much?)
So I beg your patience as I rework a little, to allow the plot to move ahead to the good stuff, while you will miss no content on our Ponyville favorites as they have some great slice of life moments over there.
Before I pull the trigger on this decision I would still like to give you guys an opportunity to weigh in. You can probably see why I am deciding to go to the side story idea: There are THREE ARCS in Ponyville which start separately and then come crashing together: I listed them above. Spike and Twi is one, Rares and Rainbow is the second, and Pinkie with AJ is the third. That may also clinch it as to why it was SO DARN DISTRACTING from the main plot. Any comments you leave are appreciated.
Totes for you for keeping the going. The most important thing to do for any story is finishing it.
4847403
Absolutely agree. And there is a bit more written than what is published, to be sure. I think I will launch my sidestory to clear the air as it were, before I then put out a more focused and plot-driven chapter four (which I am very excited for)
So, you'll be putting it as a side story? I can get behind it. More cover arts will be nice too. It's a little risky, since that means that their perspectives and events arent necessary, I wouldn't know if that was or wasn't the case until I've read everything either way (i'm really looking forward to that).
It feels like you wanted to tell the stories together though, separating them into two standalones when they were originally one increases the risk of making a potential plot mistake down the line. I guess I'd suggest writing them as one, then splitting them up when you publish. Don't focus on one then go back in time and focus on the other.
Just my suggestion at least, really though, I can't wait for more!
4847541
I'm going to have to be really careful to not drop any plot holes or anything. But all of those characters (Main Six, Spike, Princesses) become increasingly relevant as the plot goes forward. The side story will come to a stop at the end of a hilarious pie fight. Then, as the characters pop up in the regular story, they will make references back to "that nutty day" which aren't crucial, but if one wants to shed more light on it while reading Amulet, they can check out the "little" side story vignette, which now that I have partitioned it out, will be four chapters long and approximately 25 K words of SoL...
4847562
Yeah, I personally think I'd keep them in one story. It just seems rather risky to split them up. Unless, you keep the other story as the perspective of the M6/etc. while the main story focuses on the perspective of the Lead. I think splitting it up like this is the wrong move. I'd either keep it all together or all separate. But, again, that's just me. Either way, i'll be reading.
Frankly I'm going to read this story and the side-story nonetheless so it's all fine by me. In a way I can understand why you would want to split them though, some people come here to read more about the actual plot-line and don't really want to spend time reading the arcs that aren't exactly related to it. You know my personal opinions on those arcs already, so you know why they are very important to me. That's why I am glad that instead of outright cancelling those arcs you decided to just put them in a side-story.
And I didn't know my thoughts on this topic would be so... influential, but I am glad to hear that they were
So far your story is already very good in my opinion, you clearly know what you are doing, and you are trying to do your best. And your efforts do bear fruit, so continue like this and I'm sure you will have a very good story in your hands. (Hooves?) Now go and write moar. 