Magisight: Chapter 22, aka the chapter that went to hell and back · 11:06pm Oct 7th, 2019
Good evening! Apologies for not getting this up on Saturday. I'm both lazy, forgetful, and knee deep in a fresh playthrough of both Pokemon Blue and BOTW. Two very different titles, huh?
Anyway, chapter 22 is out, so go read it if you haven't! It's a bit shorter than usual, which had me concerned somewhat, but I feel like I was able to strengthen it with a lot of incredibly strong and dense lore. Not too dense that it's overbearing, but enough to leave you guys satisfied (I hope!). One of the reasons this chapter was so short is the original draft for it was terrible. Like, easily the worst I've written. In the original draft, Twilight and the gang met up with Rainbow Dash in her locker room to discuss things. Twilight did a little bit of overthinking as is typical of her, so nothing too out of the ordinary. What came after, is Twilight used a mass teleport of her and everyone else back to their respective homes after the Wonderbolts show. The intent was to keep showing off her enhanced unicorn capabilities, but I don't think that's strictly necessary to keep bringing up; it should only be brought up when it will further the story along. The problem is, it came off as kind of terribly written and even a little "mean" of Twilight. She basically shot everyone back home and talked to them with a scrying spell (such a spell was also part of Hopeseed's arc, in the deleted "scavenger hunt" draft) to see if they were okay, but it all felt very impersonal.
This whole thing took up two pages. I always had it highlighted in my notes, and was never sure what to do with it. What ended up happening was a complete re-write of the chapter, as usual, but I replaced this "mass teleport" with a simple train ride home. Her friends are important, but not the ultimate focus, so I instead put the focus back on Twilight and her mulling over the evening's events. No one has seen this original draft, and I plan to keep it that way forever.
One of the reasons I originally went with this strange teleport spell was to save time. As in, in-universe time. I was really overthinking things like "Well, the Wonderbolts show ends at night, and the train ride is probably a few hours, so Flutters is worried about her animals and Rarity needs her beauty sleep and and and" and eventually I decided it wasn't important. They take a train ride home, and nobody is going to think that deeply about the schedule of the supporting characters. I hope.
The walk-and-talk with Starlight and Spike was present in the original draft, but instead mostly took place in the castle. This little talk was a bit longer, and while it wasn't a bad scene, (it actually had some randomly okay Starlight characterization) it didn't really go anywhere, so it ended up being shortened.
So, now I have an already short chapter that had been sliced roughly in half with a re-write. All of that research Twilight does just before bed? It came from the next chapter. Okay, not entirely. I looked ahead 2-3 chapters to see what the overall flow of events were and did some finangling around, and took one or two key plot ideas and made them appear a little earlier. In the original draft, Twilight mostly did a little bit of self reflection, and then went to bed. The cliffhanger with the snow never happened, the chapter ended with her sleeping. Instead, Chapter 23 would basically cold open (heh) with a blizzard. I figured a cliffhanger would have been a much stronger ending, and after re-writing the whole thing, I think the chapter came out much stronger.
I always dreaded this chapter because it felt so... weird in the draft, and I basically kept ignoring it until I was on chapter 21. Honestly, nothing really happened in chapter 22's draft. That was the biggest problem; nothing substantial happened that moved the story forward. It was basically filler, and something I always strive to do is have something important happen in every single chapter that pushes the action forward. I think the chapter's saving grace is Twilight's studying near the end, just before she goes to bed. Adding that was what saved it, and I think it turned out pretty okay. What do you guys think? Was it too short? How was the lore and research at the end? Why is the mental image of Twilight dragging a giant comforter around to stay warm the most precious thing in the world?
May the stars shine until the end of your journey!
-PK
Personally, I can't wait to see what you have in store for the next chapter. Btw, how far are you in Pokémon Blue?
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Oh, it's gonna be a doozy, let me tell you!
As for Pokemon Blue, I just finished Pokemon Tower. My team is level 30-31 with Ivysaur, Pikachu, Nidoking, Kadabra, Vulpix, and Gyarados. You can't get much more standard and OP than that lol