The Great Ambition · 8:12am Mar 28th, 2014
(tl;dr: Babylon 5 is awesome. Go watch it.)
If you are interviewed in regards to a story you have written, the interviewer is likely to ask what your goals and ambitions were for the story when you started writing it. What were you hoping for? What did you expect?
art by Icekatze
In my own interviews, this question generally gets the same answer, slightly reformatted:
I was hoping to get up to a dozen readers… if I did a really good job, maybe up to two dozen!
I hoped to get some of my Fallout fandom friends to give My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic a try… or at least understand what I saw in the show.
Beyond these things, the story was mostly a challenge for myself. A challenge to combine the two worlds in a way that really worked and felt right, and a challenge to actually (finally) write a complete story.
What nobody asks, and what may be a more interesting question, is “What were your goals and ambitions for the story after you’d gotten a ways into it?” And, in follow-up, how those ambitions evolved from the original ones.
After all, when you begin a story, you likely begin with either very humble goals, as I did, or you start with extremely ambitious goals. But as you get into the story -- once you get over the rough patch that beginnings often are and get a real feel for the story and how it’s going to go (not to mention how the audience may react to it) -- it seems likely that goals would mature or evolve. This may mean they come down to earth, becoming more realistic. This may mean your desires for the story gain depth, and you want tell more and to accomplish more with it. There may even be radical paradigm shift.
Have you experienced this? Have you ever started a story with a set of goals in mind, only to have them evolve partway into the work?
Beyond my commonly stated goals, I think my greatest ambition for Fallout: Equestria slowly became to write the Babyon 5 of pony fanfiction.
I’ve made no secret that Babylon 5 was a great inspiration to me, and informed a lot of my storycrafting. To this day, I consider Babylon 5 to be the best television series that I have had the privilege to see.
Moreover, Babylon 5 was ground-breaking. At the time, the reigning paradigm in television was the status quo. Television episodes were expected to be episodic – the prevailing thought amongst networks was that episodes should be able to be aired in any order, and that they would lose audience and profits if new viewers couldn’t jump into the show at any given episode without needing the context from the episodes immediately prior. Characters, likewise, were expected to remain largely static. An episode should end with a return to the status quo.
Babylon 5 broke the mold and gave television its first pre-planned, multi-season story. This would be a progressive story with a dynamic world and characters who changed and developed over time, with with mini-arcs (character and otherwise) that would weave into the main narrative, often in unexpected ways. The five-year story plan allowed for the planting of Chehkov’s Guns and the use of other storytelling devices not normally affordable to a show. And the end product was not merely an epic story, but epic on a scale that could make The Lord of the Rings envious.
When J. Michael Straczynski pitched Babylon 5, he demanded that if the network wanted his show, they had to commit to five whole seasons before it even began airing and they could know if they had a hit on their hands. And when negotiations were finished, he got most of what he asked for. The first season was still predominately episodic to allow new viewers to be pulled in if the show became popular and generated good word-of-mouth without risking putting them off before a fan-base could be built. Additionally, only four seasons were fully committed to, requiring a restructuring of the planned fifth season so that season four ended on an episode that could also serve as a series finale.
Babylon 5 showed that such an ambitious project could be a roaring success. Almost immediately, other shows attempted to mimic Babylon 5’s storytelling in attempts to bolster their own ratings (the most well-known example being Deep Space Nine with its Changling War multi-season arc). Babylon 5 paved the way for other shows to try massive, innovative stories, such as Lost.
And, in retrospect, I believe that’s what I started trying to do, at least in some small degree, once I realized that I not only had readers, but a lot of readers. Not only was I trying to create a story that was an epic in Babylon 5 style with, with character arcs and interweaving subplots and a grand pre-designed structure… but I was trying to create a story that changed what we thought we could do with a My Little Pony story. Not a story that would be the best, but rather the story that got us to say “Hey, look what we can do!”
art by Spikeshi
How about you? What do you hope for with your writing? How did your own goals change from when you first began?
[img] http://up-ship.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/b5_finger.png[/img]
Extra space there.
And yes, I know the feeling of crafting. It's a wonderful experience.
When I first began, I sucked. I was taking ideas from several different genres, primarily action, and stitched them together into a Frankenstein's monster of a story. However my first aborted story taught me something great and wonderful.
I know none of these people face to face, but I can't help but smile in glee when I write a chapter of story or one-shot and see people smile and their own imagination run wild. To me, that's the greatest pleasure of a writer. It's not the fame, it's taking an idea and crafting a new one, only to see readers inspired to create their own. It's a beautiful machine of creativity at its finest.
hi hi
I know you've probably answered this before, but how far into Fallout Equestria were you before you realized you had a lot of readers?
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For my own story, my motives were personal. I had a discussion with someone in the Google Docs chat bar for Fallout Equestria, and I was told that happiness and the wasteland were, essentially, mutually exclusive. Having lived through some rather harsh times in my own life, I wanted to show that it is possible to find beauty even in the darkness. Even if it was just for myself.
Time stretched on, and I found myself with a still unfinished story that refused to allow me to forget about it. In the end it took a year to finish one -admittedly large- chapter. With so many different ideas vying for my time, I wrapped it up as well as I could and put the notes I wrote for the three other chapters away.
I need to watch Babylon 5. I've wanted to for a while and now I think I should really start watching it.
Regarding my own writing: when I started out, I wanted to escape depression and anxiety by creating stories that would allow necessary escapism both to myself and my readers. I did not experience a sudden spur of popularity. I just found myself, over the years, with hundreds of people reading my stuff.
I do not, however, have any goals or ambitions. I still don't. I just write. A lot. I never have a plan for my stories. I just... write. For the sake of writing, I guess.
I never take my works seriosuly enough. I probably ought to. I envy you your skill and your ability to plan, but I don't feel that I can. I probably ought to have paid more attention to the little fanbase that I have.
Still, it's good to know your goals and ambitions evolved throughout the story. It's always nice to read your posts. ^_^
I really just wanted to finish one work of fiction I started, and your example insired me to do so, I want to show, that you can take another take in the story of the wasteland; one, that could end in a dark, but still happy way, yet still not placing the said character as a savior, but rather the villain.
I wanted to explore the possibility of a character that is broken by the wasteland, but learns how to thrive by it's standards and still keeps her morals to a degree. Something like a particular soldier, that can be the most kind person in the world, but when it comes to his job, he excells at it.
Plus, It's just fun to write and read awesome stories! How simple is that!
Heh, Kkat, you bring a lot of nostalgia with you. When I started writing fiction two years ago, I just wanted to see if I could learn how to write something other than technical documents. As the first year went by, I started wanting some readers, perhaps ten or twenty. Moreover, I desired to pen something long enough to merit the definition of 'novel.'
Now that that has been done, I've found out that I'm being published. I'm not really sure what I should expect next, and rather am just working to see it through. But one thing hasn't changed-I'm still trying to learn to write better fiction. It's one of those things that there should always be room to improve at. And on that note, while I could gush for a while, I'd like to thank you for your story. In more than one way it has been a source of joy an inspiration, and I imagine it will continue to be.
It's both humbling and inspiring to know that your roots are not too far removed from my own. Take care and farewell.
-Sage
Oh dear Luna yes.
Kkat, I must know.
Nothing implied but how old are you?
Your vocabulary and structure of your writing in FoE seems too beyond what someone of my age (22) is capable of,
Kkat. Before you invited the entire brony community to write stories set in your wonderfully dark and edgy universe, did you ever consider writing a sequel, or a prequel? I'd love to see the latter, personally.
>>Alcatraz Tsk Tsk tsk... Never ask a lady about her age.
I did only skim though this as it's 4:30 in the morning here and I need sleep, but I just wanted to say this, Kkat: Your FoE was to me what Babylon 5 was to you, essentially. It's what inspires my work still, and will continue to do so for a long time (hence why I still plan to have a printed version of the poster you posted at the end made at some point to hang on my wall). I currently have one major project on the back-burner that I hope will accomplish what you were able to do in FoE – create a world that people enjoy reading about and that is open-ended and dynamic enough to sustain a plethora of side-stories to the main one I plan to write. It might be a different genre, but the same sort of writing ordeals will hopefully come across. Thank you so much for being the inspiration you have been for me!
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I believe Kkat said she was around for the Gen 1 MLPs
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I never even knew she was a... she....
I would answer it the same way I answer all questions I'm asked: Fucked if I know.
On a side note, never seen Babylon 5, is it any good?
Oh Kkat, piquing my interest in things before my generation
I'm a fairly new writer who writes short, one-thousand word stories. My ambition, as a fourteen year old writer, is to increase my story content's size in terms of quality and length. In terms of the change of my goals... well, let's just say that the future brings many surprises
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Honestly... I haven't the slightest fucking clue as to what my goals are with my stories... Both were written in a roughly similar manner, five parts sleep deprivation(roughly equates to one hundred and seventy-two hours without sleep, give or take an hour.) two parts coca cola caffeine high, four parts chocolate sugar high while binge gaming. So I guess I'd have to fall back on I just wanted to make something that maybe some small groups of people might enjoy.
Well, I really have little to say beyond, good post, and yes B5 was freaking amazing!
Given the average size of a FOE side fic, I'd say you definitely inspired something, and most of it great.
But well, I don't write, other hen rather large, overly in depth comments/analysis of stories. And mostly just write those because oddly enough it seems people, including the author's, like them and find them helpful so. yay
I always try to avoid doing things that others have done before and put a bit of a twist on classic ideas. Examples:
You read tons of stories about Spitfire being Scootaloo's mom? Why not make Shining Armor the father! (Scootaloo's Parents Are...)
Read tons of HIE's including ones where the main character is a kind of "warrior" killed in battle? Make it so that when they go to Equestria they are Celestia and Luna before Equestria was even created! (A New Beginning)
I have a few other ideas for twists, but I'd rather not share them at the moment.
Truly one of the best ambitions, Kkat.
Oh Lord, Babylon 5... I used to watch it in a scifi-channel few years back and I absolutely loved it.
As for goals... well, when I first joined this site, I began to write just for fun. I had nothing better to do back then, and writing in English did also help me when it came to studying the said language. I never did strive to become a well-known writer. To me fic-writing was just an outlet to pour my creativity in, and see what would happen.
Did I truly have a goal? Now that I look back, I have no clue; maybe it was a search for a recognition or just to have fun or perhaps combination of both. Answer's unclear even to me.
As time passed, I became friends with many users and, to this date, count many of them as such. Unfortunately as time passed, I slowly began to lose interest in writing and... well, just ended up dropping it; why work on something that you simply don't have passion for anymore?
Yet this change also opened another door to me; I took up drawing instead, and nowadays I've had the luck to become part of a fan-animation studio. Stable-Tec Studious, to be precise.
So while the route has changed, I do think my goals are same as before; I have no clue why I am doing anything but as long as I am enjoying doing it, I might as well strive on to become perfect in it.
Oh man. It has been so long since I have watched B5...unfortunately a friend of mine "borrowed" my season 3-5 DVD collection several years ago and that was that.
Such a criminally underrated series. I haven't seen it on TV for years, both of its spin-offs were never giving a chance to shine (especially the Legend of the Ranger) and we never did get the second volume of The Lost Tales.
My first story was done with no goals in mind other than getting out the idea that had assembled itself in my mind. If other people liked it, great! If not, then I still made sure my idea would be committed to a more reliable medium than memory.
As the story went on and its popularity proved to be greater than zero, my goals didn't change much. I just wanted to ensure that I'd have something else to write about come the end of the tale, so I started seeding a few more plot hooks and hints at a greater world beyond Ditzy Doo saving the day.
After that, I started to get more ambitious, but "get this idea out of my head" has always been a central motivation.
my goals for writing are simple; don't get hated by more than 8 people, if so take the story down unless the likes out weigh the dislikes, another is just make an enjoyable story.
and I must say Kkat you made an amazing story eceding my thoughts of the fandom, and it was more than enjoyable
My goals?
To improve my writing skills mostly.
I hope to one day be on the same level as Wanderer D or Alex Warlorn or even Ri2.
If I can ever get good enough to pull off a 50+ chapter story that is has over 2 million words,like Ri2 has,then I know I'll have reached my pinnacle.
As far as ambitions go...I don't really have any,I don't care for getting my stories up on the Daily or in the featured box or even listed on TV tropes as examples...I write for fun and practice,the only thing I could relate to an ambition is to get better at writing,enough so to equal some of my biggest inspirations for writing fanfics.
I mainly just wanna learn how to write better.
If I can't even enjoy what I've written, who will?
Normally I read your blog posts simply for food for thought, but these questions are something I try to force myself to answer. I don't know if many people are cognizant of why they truly do things, and I know I've yet to come close.
For my own writing, I hope that one day I can read it over and be proud of it. This isn't to say I don't enjoy what I write, but rather that I've never be satisfied with what I've done. I'd like to know that somewhere along the line, I've written something that I've put every ounce of physical, mental and creative effort I could've fit into it. When I finish the final sentence, I want to sit back and think, "Wow, I did all that?"
Will that ever happen? I don't know. Part of me also wishes it doesn't, so I don't grow complacent and stagnate. Only time will tell.
When I first started writing, I wrote because I wanted to escape. I wanted to fashion some world, where in the process of building it, I forced myself to imagine the not-me thoughts and reactions that would occur. My goal was to make myself happier.
Now, I write because it offers a canvas for my own thoughts and reactions. Instead of living through something else, I'm weaving in bits of my own life throughout something that people enjoy. It's an outlet, it's meditation, it's a means of introspection and discovering my own values and ideals.
Of course, that isn't the sole motivator. I write because I love to daydream, because I throw in my "what if's" all over the page and see how they turn out. I write to tamper with the infinite and the unknown and see what I come up with. I write because I've slowly discovered it brings other people joy. I write because the sky is blue, because it rains sideways on Wednesday, and, yes, because ponies. I write because it's what I love to do.
I guess you say my goal hasn't change much, but perhaps has been refined. It is still to be happy. Not overjoyed or brimming with delight, but content, constant and steady.
(I write Fallout Equestria: Brotherhood)
I know you don't probably read my story KKat, but that's okay. (You being there helps with my moral a whole bunch. More so than you probably think.) If you have looked at it (or any of my blogs) you'll see that I am on chapter 28 of my story. Plus one side-story. When I started my story I had just the same mindset as you. To me, I wanted to just sit down and finish a story. I didn't care if people hated it, or even if one loyal follower loved it to pieces. I just wanted to finish it. Heck I was surprised when I got to 50 favorites. That's impressive.
Some people though saw my story's potential, and the heart I had put into it thus far. A user named Shadowflash honestly thought what I was doing needed promotion, so he did so. Ever since that point I have over 100 followers (almost 120) and 94 likes. Most of the feedback I get is generally very positive, and I've even had a little fan-art here and there too.
My goals though... They have changed, only if a little bit. While the base of them remain, a few new ones have manifested themselves. For instance, I want to reach 150 favorites by the time my story ends. Maybe have a little over 100 likes too. They're not huge goals, but they're goals nonetheless.
What I hope for my writing is an interesting question. You see when I first started out I had no help. No support. No friends on FiMfiction. Not only this, but I was a noob -- as it were -- when it came to writing. I didn't mind it, and I can defiantly see the improvement over the course of the years writing my story. As well as the very successful Human's Guide to Life in Equestria. One reviewer named, Thatvexguy, started to provide reviews for my work(Brotherhood). In one of his reviews he stated:
"Its a distinct pleasure to see someone's writing style become honed over the course of chapters, as I've seen here with Brotherhood. Both descriptions and overall flow of words have improved a lot from early chapters to what we have now, and I look forward to seeing more as you go on with this."
Outside of the fandom I write a lot. I've composed multiple short stories, and various other literary works that have won awards. I even plan to enter another major contest this year. Without your story Kkat -- I would have never found out that I loved, or even was good at writing. This has lead me to try writing a full story outside of the fandom. Hopefully I can publish it, and make something off of that work. (I plan to start that as soon as Brotherhood is done. Most likely that'll happen at the beginning of this summer.) And who knows, maybe after that I'll do more stories outside of the fandom. Maybe even more. Right now I'm taking a creative writing class, and a script writing class to further expand my skills.
I'm hopeful for the future. I have as you say, great ambitions. And I hope to follow through with them to the end.
Thank you Kkat. I have faith again. You have thought of a possible large scale fic that isn't about zombies. Thank you. Thank you. I am now ready to move on with this world of fan-fiction.
When I write, I try to build a world people can get immersed in. I can be kind of niche at times, and I need to work on my characters. I also write to perfect my chosen art. My eventual goal is to become a published author, and to make enough money to be comfortable. I don't necessarily care about fame or fortune.
Most of all, I write because I enjoy it. I do not do things I don't enjoy for long. This is my longest-running hobby and it will be a lifelong obsession.
As for individual stories, I usually have them pretty clear-cut up to about five chapters, and then let the story write itself. Sometimes, it's as I planned. Most of the time, it's different and exciting. I had no idea that the SilverMac implication I had built into Lament would inspire someone to suggest a full-blown story about it when I asked for advice about my first shipping pair. It's turned into the start of a rollicking techpunk adventure romance
I loved Babylon 5!
G'Kar & Londo where the best.
Kkat, have you ever read Rising Stars? It's a comic book series written by Straczynski back in the late nineties early turn of the century. Take my word for it, it's amazing. You should check it out.
Adshshgjdh that Pip poster. And you certainly accomplished your goals, I think. Though FoE currently remains my favorite pony story of all. lol
As for myself... I've only made the one story, and I started it nearly a year ago and got the first 20k words out and felt great about it, but I was unsatisfied and kept editing it until I only got the will to try every few months. And now, 6 months after my last try, I've successfully rebooted it, and am feeling much more confident about it. I may actually keep up some consistent updates.
My goals for it... Hm. In the beginning, when it was all concept and I had a new friend helping me out and giving me someone to bounce ideas off of, my goals were to, well, create a story of my own that people could enjoy and get these ideas out of my head, and less so to make it better than the main story of the continuity in which I have it set. But as time has carried on... I still aim both to please myself and any readers, but now I feel almost as if I owe it to the characters to depict their story, and do so at least relatively well. I have all these ideas, and may even make a series of sequels out of them, I have various ideas for oneshot sidestories...
Now that, with this rewrite (really, it's more that I finally tore down the first draft and refined everything, changing some pieces of the plot on the way), I feel that I've shown myself I can do it, and now am hoping to create a series of stories that lots of people can enjoy and in which I can explore and develop the characters and their relationships and see where they go in life. Not sure if there's particularly much different with my goals otherwise.
Though right now I should just focus on getting out some more chapters. If I ever make a saga out of it or anything, I have to finish this one, first, and that'll take a long time. lol
Is Babylon 5 a complete story? Perhaps I'm getting it confused with Firefly in my head. I suppose I'll have to add it to the list of things to watch.
What are my goals? To get ideas to stop bugging me to write them. To make my inner writer not feel neglected. And maybe to show the occasional person an idea that they never would have thought of, but that they like. In the long term, I aspire to write a story more than one chapter long, and/or a story of at least 10,000 words.
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I know that feel, way too much ideas inside my head.
And If at last one of them get to be well know i would be very happy.
Great to see another B5 lover. I was practically raised on this series.
FoE 2 Maybe?
I jest. It would be amazing, though.
For me, I like to make people laugh.
My goals for writing is simple, I just like to write and share my ideas to the world. I think if someone is writing for just followers then you are kinda of writing for the wrong reason. I think people show for fun and jus because you want to. Not for the other reason I said before.
I write because my life is better when I write.
I won't lie, I like that readers like my work and I like that they tell me I made them feel things sometimes, but the long and short is that the periods of my life with no writing are some of the darkest and the periods of my life with writing are far more tolerable.
Sleep doesn't come to me easily, but story ideas do. I don't get a lot of REM sleep, probably just enough to keep me (ha ha) sane. I think sometimes that, somehow, I glean a lot of the major psychological benefits of dreaming from the work I do with writing, because a prevailing theory is that dreaming is part of how the mind makes sense of the totality of life.
I get more of that from writing than from the dreams I routinely have where I'm trapped in a mall that somehow has nightclubs next to a Gymboree and a sex toy shop that also sells fine cheeses.
I hope to accomplish a lot with my FO: E side story. Mainly introducing a region of Equestria that I feel isn't explored all that well. That area being Southern Equestria.
I hope to actually finish a story first. I have this horrible habbit of sharpening my writing skills to a fine point at what I think is quite a fast pace. Tragic, isn't it? The drawback of getting better is the stuff that I've left behind. I look back at my previous stories and think "Christ, what a mess!" And because I love them too much and can't stand to see them in horrible shape, I rewrite them from the ground up. The first ever story that I posted is on its third rewrite now. I sometimes wish I could just let it go and move on to something fresh, but I just keep on going back until I decide to rewrite it again. It's not a good thing, but it's not a bad thing either. I just have to stick with this third iteration and try resist rewriting it again.
i am starting to write fanfic in part to sharpen skills for a proffessional writing career.
however i really love the series, and fandom, and i want to also contribute as much as i can. still piecing things together though and trying to make ambitions realistic.
strange how you hope for only twenty four watchers exploded into this, isn't it?
I can't say I've seen any of Babylon 5, but I saw one episode of Lost and I thought it was shit and no I don't mean that in a good way. Innovative storytelling does not intrinsically mean good storytelling.
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I liked FoE, although it definitely was true that I liked Fallout so it really couldn't go too wrong. Of course I didn't read it until long after it was published and heard about it on here before it was on here...
I've only played Fallout 3 for any significant length, it's hard to get into 1 or 2, but they pulled off something really interesting. It feels a little too plausible of a reality at times and aside from very linear storytelling it plays out in an enjoyable/appreciable fashion even if the outcomes suck sometimes (the whole vault just kinda undergoes an internal war just because you left).
It was interesting to see this for ponies and it manages to tug a lot of strings in the feeling department. That's probably because we all have the image of the nice, smooth running peaceful Equestria of canon in our heads and so FoE has something that actual Fallout games don't where we can easily picture how the past really was and the present and feel for the suffering of the ponies, particularly those doomed to never have lived carefree, comfortable, mostly painless in the Equestria of old and also those unfortunate enough to have "survived" the last day and know both the past of pleasant memory and the horror of the reality they've lived in ever since.
In retrospect it'd be interesting to read a proper story about Equestria prior to the war, given that it's constantly hinted at in FoE fics. I wonder if there's on on here already...
P.S. How you can have a stories and have 0 stories at the same time?
Babylon 5 is a program that I also have a lot of respect for because of the doors it opened. It's not my favorite show or a key inspiration for my story (those would both be The Wire and Breaking Bad), but those shows might never have happened if Babylon 5 didn't help break new ground in TV.
1961331 Fun facts:
SE Hinton wrote most of The Outsiders when she was 16.
Carson McCullers finished The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter when she was 23.
Stephen Crane wrote The Red
Badge of Courage when he was 23.
A few days ago I found some of the best writing I've seen lately in an old National Geographic:
Jesse Oak Taylor-Ide wrote that when he was 17.
I fascinate over stories mostly because they relate to the human experience. They start small (typically) with a central idea in mind because that is what it starts as: an idea. They seem solid at first, almost flawless in the beginning when given an awesome preachment.
But as the story begins to run its course - as the characters begin to evolve - so does the writer. What starts out as a small ambitious goal slowly develops into an invested, emotional project centered solely on the writer. In short, as the story, plot, and characters begin to evolve, so does the writer.
It is a fascinating partnership, a way to safely converse with yourself and seek interception.
Thanks for this post.
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I can see the resemblance...but FoE provides more hope and emotional value than Gatsby did. Gatsby always seemed more satirical to me. (Then again, FoE outnumbers Gatsby in ages so....)
I have this rather epic story idea cooking in my head, but I haven't the slightest clue on where to begin with it... What's even more annoying, is that whenever I try to get an idea for a one-shot ( so I can at least fucking write something, instead of doing jack-shit, and to hone my writing skill) the epic idea always butts in and demands my attention.
Now why don't I just move forward with the epic idea you ask? well is because I fear screwing up with it, I fear that I'll tie myself in a mess of contrived plotness,or that my skill will increase over time and the later chapters will be superior to the former ones, thus causing quality inconsistencies.
)
(ridiculous right? I can just go back and edit the damn thing
Bringing these issues to light may help me get past them, and actually write something,..
What do I want to accomplish with my writing? I want to create epic stories, epic worlds that bring tears to gods, I want to breathe life into something, hone my writing to an edge so fine, that it can render souls, incur tears and draw blood. I want to create something that has motives beyond petty envy for other site users.
Intrinsic motivation.
I feel somewhat relived writing this...
well here goes... *places cursor over add comment button*
so damn close... one click...
one... click...
it's so tantalizingly close, but why won't I click it?
How about I click it?
wait no wha-
Crap, I wouldn't normally write this post but it's actually a great question.
I don't think I would be anywhere in my writing without Lost:
Now with Lost it in so many ways wasn't the dense questioning plots, or dense crafted ensembles, Chekov's guns, or flashbacks (I hate flashbacks) that inspired me. It was how Lost was so dependent on how it referenced other works. For instance the redshirt Locke ties to a tree before Boone references Star Trek. The reference isn't there to be cute, it's as valuable as a Chekov's Gun. To understand the idea of the Redshirt is to further understand Boone's character and his plotline. Locke himself has his entire character spelled out when he is understood as a personification of philosopher John Locke's ideas of Liberty. Eventually the writers even started getting especially self aware with this. The title of the episode "Some Like It Hoth" serves as a blatant hint that the episode is going to play well with knowledge of either Some Like It Hot or The Empire Strikes Back (It's the latter). To further explain it all there's Jorge Luis Borges Theme of the Traitor and the Hero wherein the narrator proposes a story wherein specific events are orchestrated by characters in intentional reference to a previously written work of fiction only to have the events be unraveled by a journalist knowledgeable to the original piece of literature (It's a Borges story, it's densely layered). With Lost the educated viewer was the journalist unraveled what lied before them with their supplemental knowledge. I would love to write work that puts the reader in that position.
I totally diverged from the original question didn't I. Darn it Kkat you always inspire me to write something long and spontaneous.
Ultimately, my largest hope is to write something as engaging as practically possible, something of the sort of grand scale and emotional intrigue and such as Fallout: Equestria. Superficially, I'd like more readers, more comments, more watchers and more exposure (being in a different time zone makes it a little awkward), but ultimately, I just want to write something that captures another person's imagination as much as Fallout: Equestria captured mine.
But ultimately, I'd just like to finish something without rushing it.
Well, I'm nowhere in writing.
I haven't ever seriously written a story. But I want to.
And if the first things I ever write are MLP fics, then so be it.
But there are a few goals I'd like to achieve when I write, and they're far humbler than most.
1: I want to see if I can write well. Just wanna find out.
2: I want to see if I can make decent characters. Because I don't think I can, but want to be able to.
3: I'd like to fuse realism and creativity in my tales. The idea of "make the best with what you've got" is ALWAYS popular with readers when taken to the extreme. Detectives who figured out everything from seemingly no clues; scientists who make something amazing out of almost nothing - everyone loves that branch of characters and that flavour of ingenuity. And MLP has so much potential for that kind of stuff that's never used. I want to use that.
Basically, I want to better myself in writing and character development while being realistic and very creative about it. Should be fun.
AIP§