More than three words about Three Words · 2:47pm Sep 24th, 2015
Please pardon the rambling. If you wish to read rambling about a story, click below. Also, if you haven't read the story... unmarked spoilers below.
Or click the link -> Three Words to read the story first.
This story came out of nowhere. Pretty much literally. I wrote Like Silver Glass, a story about Rainbow's facing consequences for the WinterNuke that somehow didn't obliterate Ponyville, and stared at it. Then I looked at the title of the Writeoff and thought: what if Distant Shores were a pony?
A couple things about her name. Her mother certainly didn't give her that name because she knew her daughter would grow distant. More like it was the passing down of a sailor's name from a long ago generation, a farsighted sailmaster or captain, or even a lookout whose eyes were always looking for... distant shores, or yearning for them.
Which brings me to think about the nature of pony names. This came up, briefly, in the editing of the story. PresentPerfect noted that there was a ton of symbolism in her name right off the bat.
This is true. And it also made me think about how ponies view their names throughout their lives. Perhaps, for some of those more literally named, like Cheerilee, perhaps her name has meant several things throughout her life. She is cheery, but perhaps she was not always so, and her name became a mockery. Perhaps a promise, or a suggestion that she be cheerful, or bring cheer.
What's in a name? In Distant Shores, I saw her first as a dreamer. In her youth, she dreamt of a happy life, and at first, it seemed like she had reached that distant shore in her dreams. Later, that happiness became a distant shore only glimpsed. Later, still, it became a distant shore she might never see again. Finally, the distant shore became something she actively fought to get to, to the point of extending herself beyond the confines of mortality to reach for it.
Did she know she reached it? I would like to believe so. I would like to believe that reaching her daughter, and knowing that she was happy made her spirit rest, so that she wouldn't have a need to haunt her daughter, to fulfill that last dream.
The idea for the story also flowed out of Like Silver Glass, too. I said in my commentary on the creation of the story that Distant Shores felt like a sad tag. It could also be a happy one. Looking forward to something.
Sapphire is... she is a product of her upbringing, but she is also a pony for whom friendship is still magic. She had precious little of it in her youth, but moving away, she gained a lot of friends, and her life became more magical. I originally intended for her to be borderline unlikeable, but still compelling. A fine line, but one that had to be touched on for the first person perspective to work. Writing a terrible person from a first person perspective is difficult, so I tried to make her seem less terrible and more misguided. Not sure how well I succeeded there.
What I did try to do was make her see that her mother had tried to protect her from getting hurt, because she knew how much Sapphire liked to dance. Her mother, too, was flawed. Everyone flawed, misguided in small ways, misconceptions and whatnot. There was a very real lack of an ability to communicate, too. Or, at least, I tried to hint that there was without showing it. That's hard to do with direct showing of the confrontations because I find I have a tendency to try to find the reasonable route for the conversation to take. I had to make myself follow the course of conversations and arguments, and wait for the conversation to find a turning point where one started to realize...
Well, that's kinda a different topic on conflict and conflict resolution. Namely, "When can a conflict be resolved?" Sometimes, that turns out to be, "This conflict can't be resolved as it is. The characters are too set in their ways to make a resolution believable." And a rewrite is in order. Hence the somewhat toned-down conflict between Sapphire and her mother. Sapphire had nothing but hate for her mother in the original, writeoff version, so it was necessary to change that to show her capable of love, namely Showstopper. Also, that she had tried to patch things up. Not that she tried hard, but that she cared enough to try in the first place.
Too, it was important to show that she considered the self that loved her mother to be a different pony in her dreams, and separated herself from that past by ignoring her. But the reality was that she did love her mother, and no matter how much she tried to deny it.
This is probably one of the most stringent conflicts I've attempted to write.
I think I know why, in part, it failed to catch attention. One is that the story is about a side-character that doesn't have a large fan base. Since this is for a fandom, despite the fact that I feel like it's a compelling story, I have to wonder how many people are actually interested in reading about a minor side-character. Not many, despite the inclusion of one of the most popular princesses out there. Another factor is the Slice of Life / Sad tags - which aren't exactly the most popular tags out there, and with Ponies back in full swing, I think more readers are tending towards "I want to feel happy right now" stories like comedies, romances, fluffy slice of life and the like.
Anywho... I've been writing for almost an hour. Just letting the words come out so I can let go of this story and move on.
Next up on my plate:
Lyra x Muffins (Or Derpy... not sure which I'm going to go with yet). This one is about a quarter done. It was originally LyraBon before episode 100 happened and gave me a different idea to make that work. This is more of a sweet romance between two mares who grew up together (not sisters) and moved to Ponyville together. They're best friends, but not best friends if you get my drift. Lyra is a mare who wants romance, and constantly strives for it, but she tries too hard. Derpy is the mare who's there to pick up the pieces... until a foalhood crush comes to light after a particularly devastating attempt at a date.
Continuing to work on outlining and plotting for the multiple perspective sequel to Last Vacation. This will be a multiple-arc story, with each of the perspective characters getting their time to shine, or fall.
Cleaning up and expanding the subplots in Like Silver Glass I didn't have the space to work on in the story. Introducing an OC pony named Teathistle, too, a nurse at the rest home. Thanks to some advice from Bad Horse on the nature of rest homes, Teathistle is a resident nurse, not a duty nurse for a constant care wing - that's going away. She's also Thundercrash's granddaughter or grandniece. I'm not sure yet, but she's related to him in some way.
Working on bringing a mystery story for Filly Twilight to star in to completion. No more than that. Just a mystery, and a slice of life with a bit of comedy here and there, but not enough to justify the comedy tag, as it's not a focus of the story.
Haha oops how long has this been complete I forgot to review it @_@
3416414
Couple days now. I decided to just post the last two chapters same day. Ironically, I think the choice to not dump 14k words all at once hurt more than it helped.
3416447
Well, at least I have amended my error. :B
3416576
A very nice amendment
I'm glad you enjoyed it so much.
... and I just can't get over that clopfic premise... wat...
3416583
wait wut
3417658
From your fic rec blog... I'm still confuzzled.
3418782
Oh, okay. That's why you confused me. XD
Oddly, Rainbow Dash had sex with a cloud in one of my fics. <.< So it's not unheard of!