The Night's Stars Chapter 46 Preview/Teaser (And Update) · 7:27pm Oct 7th, 2021
The tentative release date for The Night’s Stars chapter 46, “Aftermath 2” is in one week, on 10/14/21, at ~5 P.M. E.S.T.
Yes, the title is wonderfully original. I’ve had a long time to come up with a good title and I have not.
It has been a few months since I’ve posted a chapter. I think the following chapter is edited as well, so my tentative plan will be to publish it sometime in the near future. After that, I’m mulling over the idea of finishing drafting the entire story before doing an editing sweep of the drafted chapters and then publishing them. I’ve not made a decision yet (and if I do make a decision I might change it later) because I’m not sure I’ll be able to motivate myself to keep with that plan.
Prereader’s still MIA. Not sure what I’ll do about this. On the other hand, I have a rough idea of what my current plans are for the foreseeable future for the story, and then comes the hard part... Rereading and editing what I have drafted will be a slog that I am not prepared for. Anyway, I miss the days when I thought this would be a short story because now, after making the mistake of counting it out, I have something like 26-27 drafted chapters which, when added up to the currently published count, clock in at just shy of 845,000 words long. Maybe this is why I’m struggling so much. And given how I’ve been writing this story, I will be surprised if it doesn’t pass the 1,000,000 mark. Should I be proud of my dedication? I have no idea. I feel disappointed with that more than anything since it suggests I completely screwed up the pacing and so on. Welp, at the very least I can say this is probably a unique story. I have to admit that I think my quality has dropped.
I had a bit of fun on Monday drafting a chapter that I had to put between two previously drafted chapters. The fun came in three parts! One, they’re doing something that I’m not gonna spoil! Two, because of how disorganized I am, I have a total of about 150 chapters because I’ve refused to delete the alternate drafts of scenes. And three, the chapters I wedged it between were drafted a year ago or something.
Without further delay, presented below are a series of excerpts from Aftermath 2.
"I should not have teleported away," Nightmare blurted out. "I should not have just left you."
When the door clicked closed after her departure, Nightmare groaned. "I do not like her."
"So it's a punishment, then," Applejack said flatly.
She winced and looked at the wall behind Applejack. "Partially." Applejack sighed and she looked back at her. "But! It's also an opportunity.” She smiled.
Fewer excerpts than usual, I think. I couldn’t find good ones.
Questions, comments? Post below.
I think you're too hard on yourself. I, for one, haven't noticed any decrease in quality. And yes, it is exceptionally long. There was some waffling around in the earlier chapters, but not only is this behind you, but I also like to think that it has an upside: Most stories of this type don't really leave themselves the room to show characters truly struggling with a new idea or perspective, oscillating between acceptance and relapse. This, in turn, makes it really easy for said stories to feel a bit fake—a character as old and set in her role as NMM shouldn't be able to turn her life and whole perspective on herself, her country and every single being around her around in just 20,000 words or so. You simply evaded the potential pitfall of unbelievably fast character development by taking your time.
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A friend of mine who I rambled to about this said that I’ve always been too hard on myself. Maybe you’re all right but it’s still hard. I don’t exactly like certain things which have developed recently, because it’s taken a tone I don’t want (or like), but it seems like it’s needed, and also, similarly to what you said, Nightmare Moon has a lot of baggage. Getting through all of that is challenging. A good thing is that I think I can start getting out of this part over the coming chapters I’ll be drafting, but then comes more complications which will be a challenge to work out.
...And on the other hand, I’m not sure if it’s long enough to truly show a developing relationship that’s genuine. Even with as long as it’s taking, it still feels rushed.