The World of Doug Graves · 5:53pm Oct 2nd, 2018
So, I had this all written out, planned to post when I finish Book Seven, but I figured, hey, why not post it now. A bit of a rambling rant, and I hope you can forgive the frequent tangents.
Well, this has been quite the ride. When I started, I had this idea, bouncing around in my mind, about 'what would happen if I landed in Equestria'. Self insert nonsense, I get that. And, to get that idea out of my head, I started writing. It slowly morphed and got bigger, and bigger, until I decided my goal. Thus, when I posted the first book on this project, I knew that I would be writing more than 400k words about ponies. But I had no idea as to what that really meant.
I mean, this is probably more words that I've written than the rest of my school career combined. Granted, I didn't go to college to be a technical writer or computer programmer or anything that might actually need to write anything for their career, but nonetheless. It's a lot of words. And I forced myself to keep to a schedule, publishing 2-3k words a day, with a goal of 60k words per book. It shows, in a few of the chapters that seem a little more rushed, but I made it. I think.
The real problem, though, was that I had only 'storyboarded' the first three years, or so, when I started this. So, I had a lot of references I wanted to make to the show. Basically any time they had a flashback, that I could reasonably fit in a chapter, it happens. Cheese Sandwich gets his cutie mark? Boom, there in book two, Arri-versary. Some, like that one, are hidden, embedded with little to no fanfare. Others have an entire chapter or story arc dedicated to them (hello, diamond dogs). Celestia working with Cadance was one of the arcs I planned from the start, and I at least knew to spread the incremental improvements over the years instead of figuring it all out right at the start.
This means that a lot of book four, five, and six had issues when I was writing, mostly of how take these unrelated plot areas and spin them together. I feel like I did an... adequate job at doing so, but sometimes it feels a little forced. But, that's seven years of Slice of Life, right? Bound to be some ups and downs.
Speaking of ups and downs, there are two areas that I know I should have handled better, both relating to conflict. But I'll get to those in a second.
My writing style has probably changed the most of anything, and I hope for the better. I started writing how I read, which is I tend to skim over the long, flowery descriptions that other (read: better) authors use to really set the stage, to let the audience know what is happening around the action. Well, I like getting to the point. In earlier chapters I would use the minimum amount of description possible, which is why a lot of book one reads like a play. All dialogue. Picking a chapter at random, and it's two thirds dialogue, with most of the non-dialogue parts exposition at the beginning. Does this make for an interesting book? Well, if the dialogue is there, and I'll leave that up to the individual to decide if it works for them. Maybe I should read the entire thing aloud and post it online. Way better than that mechanical voice Fimfiction uses, right? Pee Oni indeed.
But now, I'm actively trying to add in descriptions, how the characters are feeling and not just the rote facial expressions and actions. It's a losing battle a lot of the time, and I find I have to go in afterwards to add them in; it doesn't feel as natural to me. The third person, constantly shifting perspective makes it difficult too, when I'll occasionally add what a character is thinking, and then not add what's going through a different character's mind when the story would really benefit from it. With the self-imposed deadline, a few of the later chapters tend to feel more rushed. I'd like to claim real life got in the way, but I write a lot at work so there you go.
So, in addition to writing how I read, I also wrote what I wanted to read. In other words, I like to read about characters doing well, be it villains or heroes. I like watching world record speed runs of video games, I like watching the Olympics. I don't care for 'Let's Play' videos of incompetent people with an interesting personality playing a game for the first time. I want to see Princess Celestia at her best, scouring creatures of darkness from the land with the radiant power of the sun. I don't want to see Princess Celestia foalnapped from her castle in Canterlot by a plot device that has no business being there.
I also don't care for drama. At all. I hate when my wife watches TV shows where the conflict could be resolved by a character taking five seconds to tell the other person how they are feeling, and/or the other person accepting those feelings as valid. Thus, when I wrote my first book, very little conflict happens, or the conflict that does is immediately defused by characters being, how shall I say, competent in how to handle conflict (i.e. talk about it immediately before it can fester). Did I know this? Yes! Did I think it was crippling? Well, sort of, but at the time I was unwilling to have any sort of conflict between characters that might have hurt the chances of things happening the way I wanted it to. Not destroyed, not delayed; even just a small chance of something being less likely was unacceptable. Kind of like playing through a game of X-COM, but instead of save-scumming so that no one ever dies, you do it so no one gets hit. In a game all about dealing with the loss of characters / missions / countries. Yeah, it destroys a lot of the tension. Yeah.
More on the self insert / harem aspect, I knew I was falling into a lot of the common tropes, but for a lot of those reasons the books came out as more wish fulfillment and less 'be careful what you wish for'. I also didn't want to have the characters introduced to each other by one of them being hurt and the other coming to the rescue, as I felt that was too contrived. I know, right?
One of the things that I would try to handle better in the future. I also wanted to jump into what I saw as the meat of the story, how Doug's presence would affect them and their relationship. I also didn't want the first 60k words to literally be the first day of him getting there and learning about everything and starting a relationship, specifically a budding romance instead of the more contrived 'oops we're married'. I wanted to spread the learning out, by having Applejack being a taskmaster focused to the extreme on working around the farm, but I didn't do a great job of conveying just how busy they would be.
But, I only got 'sort of not really' comfortable with writing conflicts, personality and otherwise, around book four. I was fine with putting the characters up against a difficult situation (in the first book, unexpected pregnancy) that they could handle and work through, but I was less comfortable writing the more minor personality differences. At this point I had either the daunting task of rewriting the first 200k words to make the start considerably more believable (I still really like the comment to the extent of 'just suspend your disbelief for the intro, and everything else is great'), to slow things down (which helps with the pacing through the later books, as I expand more on each individual problem and thus have more to talk about in later chapters) and change how the characters initially are. Or, the choice I chose, continue slogging through and writing more conflict into the characters, as is natural when two people spend a lot of time together. Maybe Applejack and Rarity got along really well, until they had to actually spend time together and Applejack realizes what an uptight fashionista the unicorn is, while Rarity figures out exactly what Applejack thinks about her. There might even be some episodes in canon where this happens.
Which is another problem. I used the characters at the start of the show, or maybe the second season, as a template for how the characters in my story act. I don't know about you, but my personality has changed in the last seven years; maybe not a lot, but there are definite areas that I am better at, if just because I've learned more about psychology and how to handle disputes; and other areas that I have found out weaknesses and acknowledged that I have them but cannot really fix them. So, I start with the characters the same as they are in the show. But, that means that, when I try to have my Alternate Beginnings end in such a way that everything is the same as the show, well, you get a lot of problems as far as how much you can have a character 'grow', especially because I do not want the character learning the same lesson twice.
Oh, if you haven't read all the books, and maybe if you have, a little bit of a spoiler in the last sentence. Sorry.
Did I enjoy it? Overall, yes; even individually, yes. Will I keep going? Probably.
I love comments, and hearing reactions to the things I've written, even if it is just an 'omg why Chrysalis grr', or any questions in general. I might not respond to every reaction, but if you think it was particularly well done or poorly executed, let me know!
That is always the problem when you do something that changes how the characters where before we met them. I really think you shouldn't worry about how they where at the beginning of the show and show them as they have grown over the series. I wonder how they would react if after dealing with Nightmare Moon they find out what happened before she showed up at the town hall?
That was one massive cliffhanger you left us with. I think many of us cannot wait till book 7 matches up with where you left us to see the outcome.
hey dude, do you read other people's fics? just curious mostly
4947112
I do, a mix here and there. Generally fanfics with humans, and less grim-dark type stuff. Xenophilia is likely my favorite, and the ones that spawned from it.
4947138
ah, cool, I ask because I've done some fics, and a couple have me in them (Self-Insert, and things like that) and also my character's name is..............................Doug (my real name)
i hope u continue the story soon
Hmmm... I read the entire series and quite liked it.
I am not sure I would entirely dismiss a lesson being learned only once. Perfection is not really a thing and sometimes people do repeat themselves (usually) without realizing it.
So if something comes up again in a slightly different way I usually don't mind. Especially if it is merged well into the plot.
For instance. I thought there would be more from Spoiled Rich but you segue that into Diamond Tiara being the beta weakest friend of the CMC?
Then keep that going through the books meaningfully to the characters instead of oh look that happened.
Awesome.
Biggest weirdness from your story for me? The future changeling subplot. Thought it would be the diamond dogs? Nah. I think that will work out now matter what. But the changeling stuff?
Not totally a bad idea just felt too far afield. Then again I could be wrong and you find a way to bring that in to the story. Deviation from source material is not so much a problem for me. Heck. I read a story involving the changelings winning from their perspective in the future. That was actually kindof cute even though it had a horrible beginning and background.
I think the author of that story doesn't want to go forward because the good changeling sonly won out due to evil from the past and the evil being hidden from them in the future... Too bad.
Actually scratch that last paragraph before last. I think your changleing section stuck out to me because there was more or less nothing else mentioned about it again. I kindof want to think Amethyst is a changeling though...
Maybe I might like it alot more if it came up again as relevant.
The rest. Actually hasn't been bad.
I even got "goosebumps" or more just drawn in during the Luna horror dream involving the foals. Despite the fact some reacted like it was just a more section (ick). Good work on that and even the explanation of it while simple for resolution was pretty engrossing and made the future of the story promising looking.
I wasn't even mad about your it was a trick bit...
Eh. TL;DR I would say keep writing when some of your creative juices were charged up a bit. If you want some more critiques or just conversation I am available.
4963070
The changeling part was definitely cooked up from a, 'this is far too clean a battle', even with it being a children's show, etc. Then, when it happens again in 'To Where and Back Again'? It's almost like Queen Chrysalis gets her chance at round two, as specified in the negotiations. Why else would absolutely nothing have been done against them? They all, just, went *poof*? Uh huh, sure. And I know that all the powerhouses have to be sidelined to give the 'ole S+T+D a shot, but come on. This way it makes sense! heh
Re: Luna part. The 'dream' is that she used a silence spell to simulate murdering them. Still happened, and Celestia gives an explanation as to 'why' she put an 'innocent' (he's right next to Celestia chatting with her! Hardly innocent from NMM perspective) through all that a few chapters later, about it being a way Nightmare Moon gets her devoted.
I appreciate all the comments, regardless!
4963077
Hmmm... I am going to have to think on the changeling part. Although your motivation does make sense. Just felt like it was mentioned and then never tapped again. Hard to do I know but you do that well with the other portions of your story... I think I get why though
As for the Luna part yeah. I got it lol. Hence the trick I mentioned. Which is why I was a bit surprised so many seemed to think you had flipped to simply horror for no reason.
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I think I introduced too many concepts / characters to really focus on one, using the 'prologue', if you will, to sharpen my writing skills. Also something that will get developed more as the series gets to 'canon'.
Ah, yeah, I read the "more" in your previous comment as 'mere' instead of 'gore'. It is an extreme shift in tone, if you aren't expecting it, that's for sure, and the first couple of comments are from before the spoiler text spoiling that it might not be exactly what it seems.