Update on Our Eminence. · 3:50am Nov 27th, 2012
Hey, folks.
Some of you are probably starting to get a little bit antsy concerning the next update of Our Eminence. Given my standard update schedule and how I'm something akin to two weeks behind it, I don't blame you.
The fourth chapter gave me a lot of trouble, and the review of it didn't go over well with my pre-reader, and the long and short of it is I took a long, solid look at what I had so far and I didn't really care for what I had. I won't be completely scrapping it, and I WILL still continue to work on it, but it's going to take some pretty serious revisions. the focus is going to shift to feature Meadowlark and Nightingale as more proper main characters, but the overall course of events is going to be largely the same. You'll want to give the first few chapter a re-read, but it's still essentially the same story.
The revisions started this evening, and I predict the writing process will take about a week or two. Editing and reviewing, harder to say. I predict overall the revisions should be done in under a month's time, though.
sorry to keep you waiting with this, but it's all for the sake of making the story better. In the meantime though, I'll have a shorty going up sometime soon, and possibly another not too long after.
Thanks for your patience! I hope you all come to like the end result of it!
Good Luck
Nothing wrong with a little bit of a wait, eh? No use rushing something if it isn't done.
Good things come to those who wait! Good luck with your revisions.
Hynnn, I like the story as is. We slowly get to know them because they START as animals. And then as we get closer we get to learn more about their personalities. I wouldn't fix what isn't broken, but if you think you can make it even better I say go for it.
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I do agree, to an extent. That's still going to be the path I'm following, but I'm going to... refine it. Their personalities are still going to develop over time, but the story as it stands is too much Erin's story, and that wasn't what I wanted. It simply felt wrong to wait to chapter 4 or 5 to start to actually focus on our protagonists instead of the supporting character, so that's most of what I'm fixing.
Still, I'm glad that you enjoyed the first iteration of the story, even if it's not quite what I intended it to be.
I think what I'd like to say is perfectly encapsulated by another user's open letter. You may read it here: http://www.fimfiction.net/blog/83724
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I understand, and believe it or not do sympathize with your annoyance. I can wholly understand being a bit peeved at an author suddenly deciding to start in a new direction with something you've been enjoying. That said, however, I'd ask you to bear in mind that Our Eminence is a work in progress. I would never edit, or delete a story I've finished - and believe me, there's more than one story in my catalogue on this site that I'd lose no sleep over deleting from the site, my computer, and my memory. But those things are finished; they are whole and complete. Our Eminence is constantly being updated, edited, reworked and thought over. Yes, you could call it a serial novelization, and in truth it's written a bit as such, but to my mind until the final period is published it will never be 'done'. I'm constantly working on it, and as an author I also have the right to enjoy what I'm working on. The simple fact of the matter is that if I wanted to make this into the story I wanted to tell I would have work and grunt and struggle to pull the story away from a mistake that I made early on. That is, without a change in tone so abrupt that it would give you physical whiplash from the double take you would do. Until then I'm not going to enjoy working on it, and at that point I'm honestly made to wonder why I'm working on it to begin with. To please my audience? Perhaps, but if I don't enjoy what I work on then it won't come out as well as it could.
I could say that I'm really only giving a change of perspective to show us the characters who were supposed to be the protagonists from the start. I could say that I'm a very short way into the story, so it's not a heavy change. I could even say that one way or another the old direction would slowly blend into this new direction anyways, but all of that would ultimately be missing the point. You're welcome to unwatch, unfavourite, thumb-down, whatever you feel is appropriate, and I'm sorry that you feel that way, but the issue is not that 'I could do better'(Although I don't doubt I could; that's also not the point). The issue is that I feel that the story isn't what I want it to be, nor the one I want to tell. I'm considering leaving the original chapters up in a 'alternate beginning', and the reader can decide which they want to have as 'their' beginning, but I still feel that it's my right to edit the story as I see fit, at least until such time as it's finished.
Well, was fun while it lasted.
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Now now, it's not over just yet.
All of the revisions are done, as is the editing pass on them. They'll likely go up sometime this week or early next week - I had planned on holding off posting until I was finished something, but I'm not feeling the motivation for it right now, so I'm going to shelve that project and return hence.