Critical Mass Sequel Update #4 · 9:47pm May 7th, 2018
Well, I think it's been a little over a month now since I last had a dedicated update for Radiant (sequel to Critical Mass), so I suppose I'll go ahead and make one before I leave for class tonight.
First, this semester is almost over. This is good.
But more importantly, Chapter 2 is almost finished. I know, this is horrible, it is taking an atrociously long period of time to complete this chapter. And I'm back to feeling nervous and anxious about this. For whatever reason, I am incredibly worried that I'll screw up, and it's... nerve-wracking, demotivating, and paralyzing. Emphasis on paralyzing.
I'm making progress, but it's slow going. I have concerns about Chapter 2, namely, Luna and Rainbow's interaction, and then Twilight talking to Rainbow about certain things... I'm not sure if I'm writing Luna well, also I feel like the scene with Luna and Rainbow talking was incredibly bland. I need more experience with writing Luna. Also, I don't really have a lot to go off of here. But, hey, they both shared the Element of Loyalty, so there's future bonding material right there! And then the scene with Twilight and Rainbow talking, at least as of right now without rereading it and or talking to my prereader about it, it just... doesn't feel right. It kind of feels too sudden, and I'm not sure I have Twilight written correctly for this scene... nor Rainbow's reaction to it.
I feel at a loss, and a bit inadequate for this story for some reason.
Additionally, I cannot help but feel that my characters in this series are just bland. When I read them, they come across almost as just copy pasted from other characters- what real difference is there between Luna, Celestia, Rainbow, and Cadance? What about the rest of the main 4? What of Starlight and Spike? None of them really appear that much in this story and I just remembered something involving Starlight from Chapter 2 which I completely forgot about. But my prior concern still stands, they all seem so similar with not a lot to set them off, or maybe that's just because I'm the author- but I feel like I've struggled to differentiate Luna and Celestia for a while. I don't think I have a very good grasp on writing either of them.
In other news, you may remember my original idea/estimate/plan of 3 chapters at 15k words each? Right now my projections are turning into 4 chapters at I have no clue how many words each. The first chapter is around 15k, the second (maybe incomplete and definitely not properly edited) chapter is at 11.8k (I may add another scene with Luna and Rainbow talking, or have Luna link Twilight and Rainbow's dream so all three of them can talk). Actually that last part gives me kind of a good idea which is also kind of bittersweet.
Ah, what else... Believe it or not, I'm giving thought to what'll happen after Radiant. If you've paid attention (and if you haven't don't worry), then you'll know (or now be finding out) that the next story in this series following Radiant, assuming I get around to writing it, kind of needs a year to pass during its storyline. And so I have absolutely no idea how to do that unless I weave in another story along with what I consider the primary story, or have it as a series of looks into certain days or events (the latter idea of which is kind of unappealing). So I kind of have to tell two stories at once for it to work, or scrap the idea and turn it into two one-shots or something, but that's not appealing because this story wouldn't really work for that.
...Anyway, I feel like I'm rambling with that last paragraph. Right now I'm mulling over the idea of possibly bringing Sombra back or having the events of the Movie happen in the story following Radiant, but it's still too early for me to know what I'll do, and of course, Radiant isn't done yet. Also, I don't know that I really like the idea of having the events of the movie happen, although that could be interesting to see how Tempest and Twilight would interact. Also it would be problematic because Celestia and Luna wouldn't be incompetent. Or at least Luna wouldn't be incompetent.
I question why I share some of these details here, but I also know that I really want to talk about this series and my plans for it and stuff...
And unfortunately, I still have no idea when I'll release this story. I still haven't even written the descriptions for it. And this brings me to another point: I might actually write this story faster if I went ahead and published chapter 1 and then published chapter 2 when I finish it. I am not used to writing a story in its entirety and then publishing it afterward (either as individual chapters or dumping the whole story). And so far, my... four-ish? attempts to write a story completely before publishing it have gone exceedingly bad. I wrote Reaction at a rate of about 2 weeks in between chapters for the most part, while I was writing two to three other stories, too, I think.
What you could do is have a sort of 'bridging' one-shot or story to briefly cover the year between Radiant and it's sequel. (Or a fluff-shot, romantic fluff is always good)EDIT: I appear to have misread the sentence referring to the time shifts in Radiants sequel, apologies if my earlier statement is confusing.
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It's alright, I still appreciate the suggestion and the comment. I suppose that could kind of work, maybe, and I wouldn't be opposed to fluff.