Oh man, I have to admit a small furtive piece of my brain was hoping you'd go "it's okay to do the fun bit, the official theme IS food, that gives you an excuse to pfaff around with the culture stuff without having to drop the Plot Anvil on their heads for one chapter!"
But that's why I asked -- if as a reader you'd rather see the plot keep moving, I'll try to put more emphasis on that with my edit-and-rewrite run.
Thanks for the vote! *ponders where to start cutting...*
XD I'm still trying to aim for a general middle-ground, it's just a question of which part of the plot is going to have more 'weight' to it. (I hope I can make this work! Because it would feel like cheating to cut the food-and-festival stuff entirely given the theme of the month, but it would also feel like cheating to push off the plot to later given the unanimous readers' requests for it, sooooo... *starts humming the circus high-wire theme*)
Honestly, it is hard to decide which I want more, The twins and Arion have had a gun to their heads for so long (and Faethan's been hoarding blame), I kind of want them to have a bit of unmitigated fluff. Still, theotherdribbler is right, you have a story to tell.
Granted, with SSBB being like it is, you pretty much have an unlimited amount of time and space to tell your story as long as you can tweak it to fit the current theme. Even so, you've set yourself up for a lot of plot point resolutions. We haven't even yet touched upon the larger questions, such as how they will escape (will they?), whether the Imperials will capture the king, and whether there's still a chance to drive them off.
Thanks for the vote! (Please forgive typos, cat is being very pushy about wanting my hands to pet him instead of the clicky box.) Yeah, I've meta-answered the last two, but not in-fic-answered, and that definitely takes space -- and the more 'units' I space the plot over, the more times I have to find new and hopefully-not-too-repetitive ways of 'reintroducing' the characters and situations for the first-time-reader phenomenon since SSBB wants everything to be able to stand alone without confusing people.
That said, I'm definitely going to work some kind of birthday-scene into the fic in order to make it fit the food theme; it's just a question of what's going to get the majority of the page space, so to speak...
I agree in that I would rather know what is going on than being given fillers about birthdays or everyday life. But if I may point this out, your story is looking less and less like a short story suitable for the purpose of SSBB and more and more like a novel. Maybe it would be better to have "slice of live" scenes for the SSBB and the plot on the side? It doubles the work for you but in the long run I wonder if it doesn't make it easier, especially since it's easier to find theme related anecdote than to continue complicated plot thread from one episode to the next (even more with SSBB's rules).
To finish, if I have to choose between being given fun stuff or plot, I'll always choose plot.
Oh man -- see, the thing is, you're saying you'd rather read plot, and so has everyone else, which to me says most people who are interested enough to comment would rather read plot. Which means that I ought to put the plot-driven parts in the place where the most people will see them -- which is definitely SSBB, on account of how there are hundreds of readers over there and about a dozen over here.
So the conclusion I'm coming to is that if I want to post in a pattern to please the most readers, I should put the plot parts where the most readers are (SSBB) and save the slice-of-life for the parts where people who are already into the series and are looking for 'bonus tracks' go (here).
I'd been trying to model my plotting on Shinko Hisada's Jaren and Kale series, which is definitely a series and definitely part of a single story arc and could probably be a novel too. Her fics are my favorites in the SSBB repertoire because I really like getting to know characters and finding out more about them and following them along. And she
( ... )
That's a good point -- she's taken a more normal fantasy world as the backdrop, where the politics and world-history don't matter quite so much beyond 'who's on the same side as our heroes,' and she doesn't have to reestablish exactly how not-physiologically-standardized the heroes are. In other words, she had the brains to design a story that was relatively easy to pick up in the middle!
I just really wanted to play with the differing sides of gender issues in medieval settings -- handing actual physical-equivalent power to women with the Goddess' Temples and the magic, handing the imbalances between untrusted-magical-women's-power and trusted-physical-men's-power to part of the cast and seeing how the difference in power types affected their perceptions of themselves, others' perceptions of them, and things like that. I wanted to set up a world that was parallel to our own, but with enough structural differences that women didn't always come out on the short side of the power equation, to see what effects that had
( ... )
You are way more devoted and hard working than I am. I'd have gone for easier without a second thought. I will make sure to look for your name first whenever SSBB comes out.
"So the conclusion I'm coming to is that if I want to post in a pattern to please the most readers, I should put the plot parts where the most readers are (SSBB) and save the slice-of-life for the parts where people who are already into the series and are looking for 'bonus tracks' go (here)."
That actually makes a lot of sense. I wonder why I didn't think of it sooner… maybe because I took for granted that everyone reading SSBB (now and in the future) would be hooked by now and desperate for any bit of story you would give us. I should learn to put myself in other people's shoes before I open my big mouth.
"I should learn to put myself in other people's shoes before I open my big mouth." -- no, no, seriously, I wanted to know what you think! That's why I'm asking! (sweatdrop) Not to mention that since feedback is the only payment we get for these things, I am quietly desperate for feedback...
I think maybe part of the difference might be that you're coming from a kinder assumption of interest than I am, too. You're assuming that a general SSBB audience is actually interested in this fic series! Whereas I'm starting from the kind of wary "I know that transsexuality and mpreg are both squick-inducing issues for a lot of people, I'm still amazed I haven't gotten flamed into the next decade yet" point of view. I'm assuming that some probably-significant proportion of SSBB's readership is going to see my name and tune out rather than tune in, and I'm beyond delighted that I even have a dozen people willing to come over here and watch what I do with this. So thank you both for reading and for talking to me about it!
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But that's why I asked -- if as a reader you'd rather see the plot keep moving, I'll try to put more emphasis on that with my edit-and-rewrite run.
Thanks for the vote! *ponders where to start cutting...*
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(The comment has been removed)
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Honestly, it is hard to decide which I want more, The twins and Arion have had a gun to their heads for so long (and Faethan's been hoarding blame), I kind of want them to have a bit of unmitigated fluff. Still, theotherdribbler is right, you have a story to tell.
Granted, with SSBB being like it is, you pretty much have an unlimited amount of time and space to tell your story as long as you can tweak it to fit the current theme. Even so, you've set yourself up for a lot of plot point resolutions. We haven't even yet touched upon the larger questions, such as how they will escape (will they?), whether the Imperials will capture the king, and whether there's still a chance to drive them off.
So, tl;dr to say, I would choose plot. :)
Reply
That said, I'm definitely going to work some kind of birthday-scene into the fic in order to make it fit the food theme; it's just a question of what's going to get the majority of the page space, so to speak...
Reply
To finish, if I have to choose between being given fun stuff or plot, I'll always choose plot.
Reply
So the conclusion I'm coming to is that if I want to post in a pattern to please the most readers, I should put the plot parts where the most readers are (SSBB) and save the slice-of-life for the parts where people who are already into the series and are looking for 'bonus tracks' go (here).
I'd been trying to model my plotting on Shinko Hisada's Jaren and Kale series, which is definitely a series and definitely part of a single story arc and could probably be a novel too. Her fics are my favorites in the SSBB repertoire because I really like getting to know characters and finding out more about them and following them along. And she ( ... )
Reply
(The comment has been removed)
I just really wanted to play with the differing sides of gender issues in medieval settings -- handing actual physical-equivalent power to women with the Goddess' Temples and the magic, handing the imbalances between untrusted-magical-women's-power and trusted-physical-men's-power to part of the cast and seeing how the difference in power types affected their perceptions of themselves, others' perceptions of them, and things like that. I wanted to set up a world that was parallel to our own, but with enough structural differences that women didn't always come out on the short side of the power equation, to see what effects that had ( ... )
Reply
"So the conclusion I'm coming to is that if I want to post in a pattern to please the most readers, I should put the plot parts where the most readers are (SSBB) and save the slice-of-life for the parts where people who are already into the series and are looking for 'bonus tracks' go (here)."
That actually makes a lot of sense. I wonder why I didn't think of it sooner… maybe because I took for granted that everyone reading SSBB (now and in the future) would be hooked by now and desperate for any bit of story you would give us. I should learn to put myself in other people's shoes before I open my big mouth.
Reply
I think maybe part of the difference might be that you're coming from a kinder assumption of interest than I am, too. You're assuming that a general SSBB audience is actually interested in this fic series! Whereas I'm starting from the kind of wary "I know that transsexuality and mpreg are both squick-inducing issues for a lot of people, I'm still amazed I haven't gotten flamed into the next decade yet" point of view. I'm assuming that some probably-significant proportion of SSBB's readership is going to see my name and tune out rather than tune in, and I'm beyond delighted that I even have a dozen people willing to come over here and watch what I do with this. So thank you both for reading and for talking to me about it!
Reply
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