Backstory: One of Us · 7:30pm May 19th, 2021
One of Us was the fifth story written in The Quicksilver Chronicles series, but the third published due to where it sets in the chronology. It's genesis was a what-if question (which I can't repeat since it's a spoiler). I asked what if something unexpected happened? How would Quicksilver and Misty react? What would they then do about it? In what ways would the resolution change their lives? It was an interesting ride.
The cover art for this story is probably the most epic of any in the series. This artist does a great job at creating a realistic looking background and context for the main characters. In addition, they have an amazing gift of being able to capture action as if it was an actual photograph. From the spider web in the corner, to the scratches from where the couch was moved to block the door, it's full of wonderful details. And their interpretation of the changelings is rather chilling.
The last topic to cover is that of story editing. Previously I discussed how I lost the last chapter in High Water Mark (https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/943033/deleted-scene-high-water-mark). It was replaced with a short epilogue. Here again, the last chapter, shall we say, didn't make the cut. The story still needed the resolution, I just needed to get there a different way. The result was a total rewrite of the last chapter, which also stretched into some significant changes in the end of the previous chapter. Other than a few bits of key dialog, pretty much nothing survived the rewrite. On the plus side, the results are better, and I had fun writing it.
This leads me to a point I wanted to emphasize. Any author really needs to have their stories reviewed by one or more pre-readers and an editor. But if you do that, you need to have a thick skin. You can't take the comments personally (even if they DO sound personal), and you need to objectively understand what they are saying about the story. If you can't take the (hopefully constructive) criticism, the story won't get any better.
I'm not saying it's easy. I get a little defensive sometimes. But I know we all have the same goal: to make the story better. So I suck it up, and do my best to fix whatever problems there are. Each problem I fix makes the story just a little better.
Next week, I start to publish a new story that turns out to be the first story in a spin-off series. It's gonna be fun.
