The Last Nightguard - Shifting Gears - When your story changes in the middle · 2:53am May 4th, 2022
Yes, that’s a problem. If you write two different stories with glue in the middle, the people who like the first part will stop at the second part, and the people who would like the second part won’t even start. I’m not Max with his Being a Better Writer series, but I’m going to toss out some examples and maybe this will help us both.
As a discovery writer (or pantser), I tend to write without an outline, or at most I only make a very sketchy note about where the story starts and ends. As an example, I started The Traveling Tutor on a disastrous encounter with Spike and a planned Train Station Goodbye. Buggy and the Beast started with Beet Salad finding the crippled changeling and ended when she left him. (plus a chapter) The Last Nightguard is running a little different. It starts with a dramatic confrontation, where Ebon Tide is freed from the moon where he had been trapped:
It was a pegasus, although it took a second look to be certain because there were almost no feathers on his greyish bare wings, and those were the healthiest portions of him visible. Corroded metal from ancient armor flaked away in puffs as the creature moved, the enchantments long gone to dust and the remaining steel turning to powder at the slightest movement. The heavyset frame of a guard from ages past was almost obliterated by obvious starvation, with protruding ribs, impossibly thin legs, and gaunt lips drawn back from exposed blackened teeth, with several of them falling out of its mouth to the ground even as she watched in horror.
But still, it moved and breathed. Worse, Celestia knew who it was, and the knowledge froze her in place like a thunderbolt from the sky had smashed into her horn.
“Celly?” Luna’s voice was quavering and barely audible from where she huddled up under Celestia’s wing. “What is it? Don’t let it hurt me!”
The noise attracted the gaunt spectre’s attention, and it glared past Celestia with red eyes, bringing its full attention to the cringing form of her terrified sister. “Traitor!” it hissed, staggering up as far as it could on those stick-like legs, like some sort of starved corpse animated by raw hate and bile. “Die!”
Then it collapsed into a pile of loose feathers and drifting grey hairs, looking more dead than alive except for the slight movement of its skeletal ribs.
And it progresses to Luna turning Eb into one of her creations, then ever so slowly:
Light was Dark and Day was Night. Ebon Tide had no problems at all sleeping in the rays of sunlight that filled Luna’s bedroom, but now that Night had fallen, something deep in his heart drove him to wakefulness. With a quiet yawn, he moved the covering warm wing to one side, caught in the beautiful haze of memory. There were many, many evenings when Calla would entice him to remain in their bed rather than see him vanishing into the darkness on the way to his job. It had become a wonderful habit, broken forever when a fever had taken her far before her time, and now the feathers—
Eb’s eyes opened wide, taking in the sharp images of Luna’s unfinished bedroom and in particular the warm dark wing spread out over the edge of the bed and coincidentally himself. There was little doubt to the ownership of said wing due to the locale and size, but Eb held himself perfectly immobile while his mind tried its best to catch up with reality.
Before he could do much more than blink several times, Luna poked her nose over the edge of the bed and looked down at him, her deep teal eyes sparkling with mischief. “Ah, that is where that horrid noise is coming from. Did you know you snored?”
“The pot calling names unto the kettle,” responded Eb instinctually. “Twice I awoke to the music of the night, undamped by doorway or distance. The Guards posted to your room had always claimed you had a Royal Canterlot Snore, but we did not ever experience it at such close range until this eve.”
Nightguard is not a romance. It’s a drama. That doesn’t mean it can’t have semi-romantic spots in it, but it does mean I have to be alert for the plot wandering in that direction irrevocably. After all, the ending (which I’m not spoiling) is drama-heavy, so shifting gears twice in the story is going to throw everybody for a loop. It’s going to be hard enough to maintain stress levels through the whole thing so the reader is constantly repeating “Now what?”
In particular, I need to find a good spot to use this conversation with Twilight before the end.
“Child…” Ebon turned away from that eager expression. “Sometimes the past needs to die,” he managed after a time. “Let the present build their own myths around it. They don’t want to see the blood and the mud, the backstabbing and cheating and lying. They want to see the statues, the days of honor, the speeches. Banners and trumpets. Hacking your lungs out from a disease or having your leg chopped off because of gangrene is the reality of my time. We were at war with… Oh, four or five different races at the time, some of whom I’ve seen wandering around the courtyard under my room, so at least the war is over now. Let it stay over, keep the bodies buried where they belong. Put down your shovel, young one. You do not know what you are going to dig up.” He rolled over and turned his face to the wall, ignoring every word the eager young unicorn said until she finally gave up and left.
Looks like I didn't read the first chunk of this before. Looks like I will be reading the whole thing once its out. Nice.
Looking forward to this one. I know how it feels when you have a great scene that refuses to slot into the timeline neatly. Here's hoping you find a solution.
Challenge accepted
5655260 It's not really a challenge, or a rule, it's just something that happens when reading. For example, in Larry Correia and Larry Diamond's Writer Dojo, they have a segment called Bad Writer Advice. One bit in there is some 'advice' that roughly says the primary character in a story should change dramatically during the story so they become their polar opposite at the end of the story. This is dumb. (you can imagine me saying that in Larry's Bad Writer Voice) A reader starts a story because they like the characters, so reversing the character's personality mid-stream gives you a character the reader will *not* like. Same for Nightguard. Readers are starting the story in media res, (and I've waffled about putting the second chapter first, which you will understand when it comes out), so the Drama lovers get hooked right off. Don't want to let them spit out the hook during mushy stuff, so I can reel them in to the last page.
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I can't find the story that this pertains too
5655498 I have to admit, I've listened to their entire Writer Dojo series during my commute (2 per day) so I haven't taken notes. I'd encourage you to listen through the whole set too, and you'll know it when you hear it. They're awesome.
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I meant in regards to the story, "The Last nightguard"; it seems interesting but I can't find it. I'll take a look at the Dojo when I have the time though
5655511 Oh, I don't have it fully written yet. I've been teasing little bits, influenced deeply by Ageis Shield's The Return of Princess Nightmare Moon.
I don't like to release a story until I'm all the way done. That's not to say I keep everything until it's done being written and edited, but for stories that are not continuing projects, that gets me the best result. For example, Buggy and the Beast didn't have the last chapter done for nearly a month after the rest was written. I knew what I wanted, but I had phrasing issues. Child of Nightmares and Everfree had a plot twist at the end that I had to backtrack and fix before publication (which would have been a pain to fix if I already had the chapters posted). Then Twilight Sparkle Makes a Coltfriend... Literally I probably would have gotten murdered in my sleep if I didn't have that last chapter ready to roll the next day after...
Good luck with the writing!