Story update · 7:11am May 29th, 2018
This chapter is coming along well, though with how long it is after one day is kind of alarming. And no I won't do constant story update blogs anymore, less return and honestly writing these if I do it daily was like 'yeah I'm not dead' or 'little to no progress' and there was diminishing blog retention. Yes, I check my blog stats for some reason. But yeah more sporadic blogs. Cause while I like writing them, I could also spend this probably thirty minutes to sometimes an hour writing this and put that time into writing the chapter and fleshing stuff out.
It's reached 3k in a day. Last time that happened for the chapters was when I wrote those first 12000 words in three days. It won't be that hardcore but I feel like it might be shaping up for a long chapter.
At least there's some humor in here. Even I can't write a long story with drama and depression without some comedic bits and so there's some jokes so far. Need some humor in the story even if the humor is more ironic or situational humor.
But today I started with zero scenes and got to three completed scenes with a fourth partially completed. But that was good for one intense day of writing. That usually doesn't happen often so when it does it's really great. Even if one of the scenes is a talk between, of all ponies, Celestia and Luna. That's what the chapter starts with and I like it but it really only shows partially why in brief sentences why exactly there might be tensions between the two. Always feels weird to add in either of them without some kind of joke but it's played kind of straight. And like how a lot of the stuff I keep setting up takes a while since I usually don't like how cartoons show how 22 minutes is enough time for a lesson, that won't be resolved for a while. I mean I push the action right along, but it's not like a character's actions aren't going to be called out at least once in a while. And any spell has side effects so the aftermath of Starlight is going to be far more harsh than just 'you took over a town and then tried to rewrite history, you can be redeemed cause you had a sad enough backstory.' I love the possibilities of Starlight but the show kind of handwaved that under the rug. And that's coming from a person who's loved like every episode she's been in after that point.
I have at least one of the ending points of Starlight's story done in my head right now and the buildup to that moment will take probably what would be the rest of, or most of, what this story's season five would be. And it will be fun. But too far ahead. Will try to be quiet on this one but I plan for the two stories to meet up again by the end of the chapter and start what would be the actual season five opener in canon.
Sure I'm speeding the train ride along, but how truly interesting is a in minute detail, probably multi hour train ride. Not very much and that's coming from the person who would have to both come up with the descriptions and the writing/ editing of it.
I'll just keep doing what I've been doing and do the important bits or the fun bits. That has seemingly been working and the monthly releases haven't killed me yet and unless a future chapter turns into a 20-25k monster chapter, I won't have to worry about timing. I'd mention that though or if I decided to do something like that, but personally unless the story needs that chapter in full or if it just couldn't find a good enough stopping point, I'd just cut it in chunks since even after a while I see really long chapters as a bore myself and I read ridiculously fast. Probably 20k would be my max chapter limit or near it, cause if I didn't say what needed to be said that moment in that word count, there was something wrong or I got too into the story.
See you when I feel like I'm two thirds of the way through the chapter. No matter what the word count is. Though I'm in the Starlight and Moondancer Irondeer section and they seem to love to hear themselves talk. Plus I might need to flesh out the town cause the show has been using "Our Town" of Starlight's a lot when she appears later all reformed. It's going to naturally come back. Even if like the show it won't come back for a while.
I both love adventure stories and also realize that while the story hasn't been away from Ponyville for long, after this reimagining of the season 5 opening, like Ponyville for all it's crazyness I can easily come up with and mentioned- it sounds way more calm than Canterlot or Irondeer at the moment. And honestly I can see why the show likes switching from Slice of Life to attempts at plot heavy arcs cause all completely heavy, world defining plot against a really bad dude all the time sounds exhausting to write. Also my story tone that I usually do now and I can see hints all the way back to the beginning- I really liked mixing really weird ideas and action with comedy. Or horror. That comes up a lot.
