This is just me being silly because it's hot (for England) and I don't have much else to write about. Yes, I am still going to watch that Jenny Nicholson video, but I've been kind of distracted by real-world events in this country lately. So, in the time-honoured fashion of journalists who've run out of ideas, I'm going to ask my readers to do my work for me and ask if they have anything they'd care to confess.
I have something, which I'm not proud of and which will eventually be fixed, but:
I've never read The Enchanted Library. Not one single solitary chapter.
This is the story by Monochromatic that basically everyone says is absolutely brilliant. The trouble is that it's 337,000 words long, and an Alternate Universe fic, and the first in a series that still isn't even close to finished seven years after it started. None of those things tend to heighten my motivation.¹ But even so, people rave about it so much that I really should have seen what all the fuss was about. I haven't, though.
¹ See also the Austraeoh saga, though I probably won't ever return to that as it didn't grab me enough
So, once you've all picked your jaws up off the floor, and/or finished throwing things at me, do any of you fine people have any ponyficcy shames that you'd like to confess? Keep 'em at least moderately SFW, if you would...
Confessions? Oh boy… Well, I too have not yet read The Enchanted Library, as you well know. Scanning down my Read It Later list produces a fair few notable fics I haven't read yet that I should - outside of one spin-off by another author where the group plays Diplomacy, and its Mane 6 equivalent, I haven't read a single Lunaverse story.
ReplyDeleteNow, opinions elsewhere have convinced me that most old classics aren't worth my time. This is obvious in the case of something like Background Pony, and for other technically great stories like Past Sins and Fallout Equestria, its a combination of the subject matter not being quite me speed combined with the length. Also, while I don't have a base objection to stories largely improvised as they're being written and updated, it's my experience that the seams shows and hurt the end result more often than not.
But, you know, I came along in 2018, and given Fimfiction alone has nearly 150K stories, and many more that were deleted or removed over time, of course there's going to be tons of worthwhile classics I haven't read. I'll definitely do what I can going forward, but weekly review obligations make getting in even short novels under the 70K mark quite a challenge, let alone anything past the 100K mark. I certainly wouldn't have read stuff like The Silver Standard if I were coming to it now rather then in 2020!
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Do I have other Ponyfic confessions beyond stuff I haven't read? Maybe from the writing side rather than the reading side? Well, my pre-Pony fanfic writings, going back to 2009-2016, is a shambles dominated by poor re-contextualisations of canon material and other stories that riffed on movies/professional fiction: there's maybe 2 or 3 stories composing less then 40K that isn't outright garbage (though there were others I finished but didn't publish that would raise that up by 2 stories and 25-odd K).
But that's not the shameful bit, everyghost's gotta start somewhere. Then, and now, I have a tendency to be so caught up in having a story fully laid and planned out in my head, and being fully satisfied with it, that I've published relatively little. Even now, all 4 of my published Ponyfics are contest entries or Jinglemas gifts, and they're fully to credit for willing them into existence. Only a bit, mind, I still pass on most contests, even those I want to write a story for (still regretting doing something for that Cartoon Crossover contest back in March).
Perhaps the worst part of that is thus: is I've been working on a novel-length Ponyfic of my own, a rip-roaring Twilight/Mane 7 adventure yarn in the Season 2 era of the show (standalone outside of requiring Unicorn Twilight, mind). My The Celestia Code, my Twilight Sparkle of the Royal Guard, my [insert classic Ponyfic adventure story of your choice], if you will. Born out of my desire for a good FiM movie, though fully optimised in length and content for a fandom audience, of course.
You want to know when I started working on it? November 2020. And it's still not even in a readable state to a newbie. Evidently my decision to write the whole thing in screenplay format, using that to iterate the drafts before transferring it to novel prose, is partly to blame (look, my self-taught background is in script writing, it's what I know, and this easily the best thing I've ever written currently), but only partly. Been hovering at the 70% done mark for months now. Perhaps it's a good thing I wasn't doing this ten years ago when Season 2 was current - I'd have missed the canon timing in a flash!
So that's my confession: I'm too caught up in perfection to pull the trigger on my fiction writing without outside forces forcing me to do so. Kind of a thing in most walks of life for me, honestly. You could just as easily read that as me being lazy, and well, I wouldn't deny that. Even if most folks probably see themselves that way.
As you clearly surmised, your comment about not having read The Enchanted Library was indeed part of the motivation for my putting up this post!
DeleteI certainly wouldn't have read stuff like The Silver Standard if I were coming to it now rather then in 2020!
That one's also on my list. It's nearly as long as TEL at 296k words, though, so at some point I may just need to say, "Sorry, no Ponyfic Roundups for the next month while I prepare a Spotlight for this."
And there's another ponyfic-related confession from me, actually. I'm too inclined to take the easy way out and put up four reviews of shortfics every week than to move stuff around and change my publishing schedule in order to let me read longer stories more often.
The desire to constantly put out content is strong. <.< I'm currently in the midst of a less-than-100k story but also being distracted by Youtube, so it's taking forever.
DeleteHonestly, (IMHO, of course) the first chapter of Background Pony is well worth the read, and can stand alone as a short. If you want to know what the rest of it is like, just imagine it going on in pretty much the same way forever.
DeleteBTW, if encouragement helps, I'd love to read your adventure story someday!
DeleteI've never read The Enchanted Library. Not one single solitary chapter.
ReplyDeleteMe neither. That's true for a lot of 'classics', really. I don't know why, but the more people stress to me how absolutely great something is and it's the best thing ever and I absolutely must read it, my interest promptly goes in the opposite direction.
Ooh, an anonymous confession! That's actually probably more in the spirit of this than the named ones from Mike and me. I have mixed feelings on what you say. Yes, sometimes that does happen to me -- but on the other hand, back in early 2012 a whole bunch of people were insisting that Friendship is Magic was great, and I'm quite glad I didn't let that one put me off!
DeleteI haven't read it or most of the best-known stories in the fandom. I just don't have the time to tackle something that long. I've probably read fewer than 10 stories over 100k in length, and even then only because I was editing them. I don't think I've read anything longer than 20k just because I wanted to.
ReplyDeleteLack of time is also the single biggest reason why I've read so few long fics. Though in truth, another significant reason is that... well, put it like this. If you took me to a library to look at a certain book, I'd probably end up looking at all kinds of completely unrelated but interesting-looking books before I got around to doing what I was actually there for.
DeleteIt's also a question of opportunity cost. If I read this huge story, that means I lose time I could have spent editing that story, or reading these other 10 short stories, or spending a month writing one of my own, etc.
DeleteThe problem, for me, is that I enjoy good stories more than anything else. Being able to tell a good story in only a few thousand words is a real challenge, and so many short pieces just don't. They set a tone, evoke an emotion, fixfic something, tell a joke, etc., but there's not much in the way of narrative. So, given parity in quality, I would much rather read one long fic than ten short ones.
Delete@Logan- Lack of time is a concern for me, too. That's why I put all the fics I want to read on a kindle that I carry with me everywhere I go. I've read many of the fandom classics standing in line, waiting in an office, at lunch, and in bed before sleep.
I usually read on my phone, since I always have it with me. The screen is a bit small, but it's surprisingly comfortable. Not much use in bright sun, though -- an e-reader would be a good idea for that.
DeleteShocking ponyfic confession? Hmn... well, I read Austreough (sp?), and it left me totally cold, despite how many people seem to adore it. I have zero desire to go on with the series, even supposing it ever finishes.
ReplyDeleteOh wait! Here's a shocker! I've read and enjoyed several of the Conversion Bureau stories by Chatoyance. The premise behind the AU is pretty hinky, but Chatoyance's plots and characters are engaging, and there's something about her prose and tone that I like a lot. I think she may have written the best Optimalverse story ever.
I've given up on that series too. I didn't hate it, but it didn't capture my attention anywhere near enough to motivate me to read several million words.
DeleteCB stories! Ooh, that's a good one. I've never got around to actually reading one, but I don't have any self-imposed ban on them, so maybe one day...
A word of advice: don't start with the original CB story, it's poorly written and unfinished. It's the concept that really caught on. I know there are lots of other shared 'verses out there, but I don't know of any that had such inauspicious progenitors.
Delete