Of Machines and Magic - Indefinite Hiatus · 6:50pm Jan 28th, 2020
Hello.
As of today, my story Of Machines and Magic, a rewrite of the older Midnight Shadow, is on hiatus. There is no set date for this hiatus to end. To give the short version of my reasoning for this choice: I feel like I'm not skilled enough as a writer to do the original concept justice, therefore I will focus on smaller projects until I feel I am ready to return to it.
The rest of this blog post details, more specifically, why I feel this way and what my plans are for the future.
When I first published Midnight Shadow, I had very little prior experience wien it comes to writing. I did, however, have an easy time creating story concepts. That was what originally drove me to try writing fanfiction. Midnight Shadow was the first concept I decided to write into a story, and one that I created at roughly the same time I created my Fimfiction account. What I had at the beginning was a very vague idea of what I had planned for the story; a jet-black pony who had a talent for mechanical engineering, and the path his talent led him down. Beyond that, I didn't have much else, and I didn't really plan anything; I just went in and started writing.
This, I feel, was a very big mistake, due mostly to the fact that the direction I wanted to take the story was constantly shifting. At first, I had intended it to be a more slice-of-life style story, focusing mainly on Shadow's engineering work and his interactions with the main characters of the show. Each chapter would add something new; for example, a new character, or a new project for Shadow to work on, or something in that nature. There would be an overarching story, but it wouldn't be the main focus of the majority of the chapters, instead being built up gradually along the way.
My vision for the story started changing around chapter 4, "The Psychology of Flux Poisoning." At that point, I started to allude to there being a larger story occurring around Midnight Shadow, and it was the next chapter, "Inside," which fully shifted the story towards an overarching, adventure-ish story, accompanied by a drastic tone shift.
Before chapter 5, the story was mostly light-hearted, with a few slightly darker elements that wouldn't be likely to make their way into the show. After chapter 5, the story became a lot darker, which in hindsight probably wasn't necessary. The biggest change, however, was the loss of the slice-of-life chapter style. To clarify, I don't think an adventure-ish style is a bad thing, but to switch styles once the story had fully begun was not a good choice on my part. It was after this point where I began to lose some of the enthusiasm I had for the story early on, and as I got further I realized I didn't have the skills I needed to write the grand adventure I wanted to write while also maintaining quality.
That being said, I'm not sue whether or not continuing with the slice-of-life style would've ended up with the same result, or whether the finished story would have been any higher quality. The underlying issue wasn't the specific styles themselves, but rather my lack of experience and my tendency to neglect planning future events in the story. Once I got to chapter 13, the indecision around where to take the story next finally prevented me from writing any further, and I cancelled the story and announced a rewrite.
While working on the rewrite, I still couldn't decide exactly where I wanted the story to go. That, combined with the gradual eroding of my motivation over the course of the original story, led to a period of inactivity regarding the story that lasted far longer than it should've. Now, I'm still finding it hard to decide where to take it next. After giving it some thought, I decided it would probably be best if I put this project on hold for a while, and worked on other, smaller projects to build up my skill set and improve my motivation. I didn't want to outright cancel the story, as I still believe the base concept holds a lot of potential. Therefore, the story is on an indefinite hiatus. I will resume work on the story when I have decided where to take it next, and when I feel like I'm good enough at writing to finish the story properly.
In the meantime, I will focus more attention on smaller stories. My hope is that I can practice writing while also creating stories that are worthwhile for others to read. I will probably hold off on publishing these stories until I feel that every chapter is finished, at which point I will publish them simultaneously. That being said, I would ask that anyone reading them provide some sort of criticism or feedback, which I can use to improve my writing in the future.
Thank you for reading what I've written so far.
