) so I had to wait until it passed. Thankfully, it has, and my next one-shot story is planned to be out on either Friday or the weekend."Caught and Punished" will soon set personal records · 4:24am May 16th, 2020
After publishing chapter 16 a few hours ago, Caught and Punished is just over 66,000 words. Including the prologue, it's at 17 chapters and counting.
My longest story, A Giant Adventure to Equestria is, barring any possible rewrites of chapter 3 and maybe 5, 66,700 words and it's tied with When Dating a Sunset... with the most chapters: 18. Chapter 17 of Caught and Punished will break the word count record by pushing that word count over 70,000 when it's out.
Then chapter 18 will break my 18-chapter record of most chapters in a story. Remember: including the prologue, chapter 18 will the the 19th chapter of the story.
And just to put it out there, the updated projected-length of the story, since I have a better idea now that I'm further into the story than when I did the now-outdated estimate. It is overall progressing more slowly than I envisioned even a few weeks ago, let alone 3 or 4 months ago.
Former estimated chapter count: 22-27 chapters. If I had to pick a single number, I'd say 24 chapters.
Estimated word count: 80,000-105,000
Current estimated chapter count: 26-30 chapters, if I highball, it could go as far as 36 chapters.
Estimated word count: 105,000-130,000, if I highball, it could be as high as 160,000 words.
Wow. I did not expect this story to get even close to the 100k word mark when I re-started it, let along possibly far surpassing it. What did I get myself into...?
But anyway, since chapter 16 got delayed due to having a much tougher time getting it right, I will give a big teaser here. I will show the first 650 or so words of chapter 17. At the time of this blog, it's entering the second draft stage, so what's below is how it at the moment looks, but it is still undergoing editing. I will have it marked in spoiler tags if you don't want to see it. There will also be something new which is chapter 17 will be narrated by Starlight instead of Sam as an experiment.
How can this be happening? Why is this happening?!
Spike, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and Applejack were taken by changelings! At least Sam and I reached Twilight in time and asked her for help and even Lyra’s and a changeling named Thorax were with us.
To be honest, even though he said he was our side, I still felt a little uneasy with Thorax, but out of all ponies, I didn’t have the right to judge. Besides, we needed all the help we could get anyway, especially if they would need me to try to help. Twilight and I were leading the way, lighting the cave with our horns, so at least that’s something I didn’t make a mistake with. I bet Rarity could have loved the sight of the red, blue, green, and other colored gems surrounding us that were half-buried in the cave’s walls.
It took all I had to keep from shaking. Both from fear of being caught and fear of screwing things up like I always do. I know I have great magic and Sam wants me to trust myself, but I couldn’t even show my friends I care for them with my magic without messing things up with it. How could I use it to save their lives? If this goes wrong because of me, I’ll never forgive myself!
But as we kept traveling through the caves, I looked up at Sam and he gave me a reassuring smile. I don’t know how he does it, but he always knows how to make me feel better and that I can do anything. If he really believed I could do this, then I’d be strong. For him. For Princess Twilight. For all my friends.
“Whew, it’s colder in this cave than I thought. I almost forgot we’re here to mount a rescue,” Sam said, rubbing his hands. He makes moving his, uh, fingers at the same time look so easy. I would probably get them tangled up if I had hands instead of hooves. I wonder if that’s something humans have to worry about if they’re not careful?
“Speaking of that rescue mission, what’s the plan?” Thorax asked.
Twilight lowered her head to think. I tried to come up with something, but all I could think of was to just not do something to ruin things for us. Twilight soon lifted her head to Thorax and asked, “Thorax, our friends will all be in the inner part of the cave, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. Then once we got to the inner part of the cave, I’ll teleport them and us out.”
“Oh, that sounds easy enough. In fact, can’t you do that now?” Sam asked.
Twilight frowned. Sam said that I kinda look like Twilight, so do I look like that when I frown? “I wish I could, but teleportation doesn’t work that easily. For me to teleport something, I have to be able to see it with my eyes, or at least know its exact spot and be near it. I can’t just teleport anything from anywhere.”
“Oh, well, that sucks. Guess that means fighting these changelings will be inevitable, huh?”
“Yes, but that’s why I wanted Starlight to come. By myself, I don’t like my chances, but with Starlight with me, the two of us should be able to manage something.”
I hope so. No, I can’t keep thinking that I’ll blow it, I thought, shaking my head to get out of those thoughts. Besides, thinking that my friends might be scared or in pain...made me angry; my magic is partly linked to my emotions, so I’m stronger than usual when I’m angry. Not only that, Twilight said she didn’t, but I trained myself in a few spells in ways that could be useful for fighting even a big group of changelings, but maybe not a whole swarm no matter how angry I might get.
Before anyone asks, this was not my idea. My original plan was to have approximately ten chapters and reach the end, which Pink has agreed to keep
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Yep, this is on me. Once I got to at think chapter 9 or so, with what I had planned, that was when I started to see that I would have to either hyper-rush this story, or let the word and chapter number blow up.
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I read the teaser, and I can't wait for the full chapter. By the way, in the teaser, when Starlight thinks about how Rarity will like the different color gems, you say 'blue' twice.
I like that the number has blown up. Way more content!
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Thanks for catching that. That'll be one less thing to have to worry about when I reach the proofreading stage.
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You're welcome!