#especially since I really like the plot and sideplot I thought out for the sequel | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

amewinterswriting · 10 months

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🦋 tell us about your current wip

🍄 name a song that represents your mc

My current blurb for Magic's Servant is:

A dark rural fantasy set in modern day Wales, featuring Talli, a teenager who is in way over her head. There's also a talking cat with a secret, shadowy manipulative demons, and immortal figures from Arthurian mythology locked into a vicious stalemate over the centuries.

On a more personal note, the way I approached writing this is a list of my least favorite ways to write anything ever, and as such, this has been a thorn in my side for years. I started off with the idea of a mysterious magic cat and an abandoned church. To explore who the cat was and why he lived in an abandoned church, I pantsed a whole film script over the course of a month (Script Frenzy, NaNoWriMo's forgotten and abandoned sister), which gave me a vague outline of a story, introduced a lot of main elements and scenes but also introduced a lot of loose plot threads, characters and sideplots that didn't really go anywhere. Worse, I really didn't feel like there was anything interesting or notable about my MC (which as we all know is utterly unforgivable in writing).

So over the course of the next few years, I wrote a lot of backstory, sidestory, continuation of the story and notes. I also rewrote some key scenes of the script. Some of which was in first person prose, some of which was also in script format and some of which was in third person. If this already sounds like a mess...well, it was. Which is why I procrastinated on doing anything else with it for years. (To be entirely fair, I still thought about it a lot, and thought about the themes I wanted to explore and other characters in that world and more directions I could take the plot in. But I procrastinated actually getting all my various drafts together into one readable manuscript in a single tense and narrative.) I also developed a lot as a writer, practicing longform fiction on entirely different work and finding a more coherent voice.

The main reason I'm actually working on it now is my wife. I realised while talking with her about it that there were interesting things about the story that I don't want just relegated to a hard drive somewhere, and I want it in a form that other real human people can read. Or as she said: you need to write the thing. So I spent an absolute age on Scrivener importing all the documents I had, even the scripts and notes and scenes I had three different versions of. Then I plotted out a coherent outline - where would it make sense for backstory to be placed between chapters? What backstory would make more impact just implied instead of outright text? What order do things need to happen in? Can I actually fit this subplot in this book or is this going to be better as a sequel? Scrivener was especially useful for the notecard feature - you can write up a quick sentence or two describing the chapter and move it around within the project, so I could play around with placement and get a feel for the flow of the plot. I also love the notes I can make for each chapter - since it can get complicated very quickly. I use them to make a note of what knowledge each character has by the end of a scene - especially because in the earlier drafts, characters (and thus, the reader) learnt far too much, far too quickly, so this refining draft has been about slowing down the rate of information and introducing more emotion. That means I need to know what characters know what information at an glance, since it's usually a lot less than I think it is!

Of course, the most important thing is that I now actually like my main character. I think this is something only time could fix - when I first wrote the first draft, I was an insecure teenager who felt like I wasn't notable or interesting, and I was writing a teenager in a similar situation. With time, I've grown and had life experiences and can also treasure the abnormal that seemed so normal to me at the time. In many ways, this is a collaboration with my teenage self and a love letter to myself.

Which neatly leads to the song that represents Talli, the MC. I have a few, but the one I've settled on is One Day by Kodaline. I think it sums up the experience of undergoing big changes that can seem overwhelming, the awkward self-consciousness of teenage years and not necessarily having the right help and support available to you. As the song asks: "how are you still holding on?" and that feels like a large part of Talli's struggle throughout the plot; barely holding on while powerful beings try to use her for their own convenience.

#ame talks #writing #ask games #writblr #magic's servant

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illusion-reality-steve · 3 years

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Reaction to RQ!Reverse episodes (Librarian, Nightmare’s Return, Sandwich Boi’s brief moment of glory, Chaos vs Ultra)

First of all.........wow.

...I have many negative feelings about these episodes.

Ok. These episodes.

It’s all RUINED, Can I fix it? Can Chaos Steve be STOPPED? I’ll find out IMPORTANT tips on how to STOP the DARKNESS 1 reason NIGHTMARE STEVE is still ALIVE This is how Nightmare Steve TRICKED me! Mysterious Figure CONFRONTS Nightmare Steve TRAPPING Chaos Steve and STEALING his power! I created ULTRA STEVE, and you won’t believe this but... WOW...Ultra Steve did THIS to Chaos Steve Why would Dark Steve BEG Rainbow Steve for THIS? This Steve actually RETURNED!! NO WAY! The ONLY way to defeat the ULTIMATE Steve in Minecraft How to make a PORTAL to the VOID! Reverse Steve finally LOST IT

14 episodes. 14 episodes total after the Faceless arc to finally deal with Reverse Steve.

Compared to how long the arcs in the Steve Saga are, 14 episodes seems like a short, clean amount of plot advancement.

But while I was bingewatching these episodes, it didn’t feel like 14 episodes of story to me. It felt like....chaos.

The plot in these episodes is really jarring to me because it was doing WAY too much in a SMALL amount of time. And most of the plot was the heroes reacting, rather than being proactive. And I...didn’t like it.

Let me explain:

So, the Steve Saga did a “Villain of the Week” format. Where one (1) villain is introduced and dealt with, and then the next villain is introduced. It was repetitive, but easy to follow.

Examples from the Steve Saga: Dark was a threat. Dealt with. Shadow was a threat. Dealt with. Nightmare was a HUGE threat and Shadow and Dark were added, but it worked because we know who Dark and Shadow are. Dealt with. Then Reverse, then Positive/Negative/Infinity, then Plague, then Faceless, and so on.

Rainbow Quest doesn’t follow that formula. It’s connecting all of its villains into one arc, where one villain is naturally the consequence of another villain.

Rainbow Quest Season 1 mainly set up the villains, the main plot, and a sequel hook. This is unlike the Steve Saga because while the villains just spawned into the story line, Rainbow Quest is showing us the rise of the villains. We know Nightmare’s origins, Dark’s origins, and Reverse’s origins, and they were all spaced out and connected to the main plot (getting the crystals) well.

We had Nightmare as an antagonist, or an obstacle in the main plot (finding the 7 crystals while saving Steves from doom), and his actions created Dark Steve. That worked. And since Rainbow Red was established early in the series and had little cameos before his transformation to Reverse Steve, that helped set up the sequel hook for Season 2. That also worked. imo, the format RQ Season 1 uses is a lot better than TSS’s formula; it’s less repetitive so it feels fresher to long-time viewers, and it connects to the overarching plot well.

But Rainbow Quest S2 didn’t follow the format S1 used.

While Season 1 has a good balance between main plot (finding the crystals) and subplots (setting up villains and future story), Season 2 had WAY too much and an unbalanced amount of subplots. S2′s subplots TOOK OVER the main plot.

What even is the main plot of S2? Well, based on the first episode where we heard Rainbow’s voice, I think the audience was expecting the main plot to be Rainbow Steve saving Steves and adjusting to becoming the new hero and keeping his identity secret to boost morale, while Reverse (later Chaos) will be the main villain.

We were supposed to see Rainbow and Sabre go from color to color to help everyone defend against the Darkness and restore hope.

But then that got hijacked by Reverse, who drained all of Rainbow’s powers and forced him to be saved by the Orange Steves, outing him as being Main Orange reincarnated as the hero.

Rainbow and Sabre haven’t even saved anyone yet at this point. They just went to the Yellow Steves to receive Light’s training and the Orange Steves to see that they’re doing well.

The beginning of the season made a huge deal of keeping Rainbow’s true identity a secret. It was going to be part of his character development about responsibility, bravery, and being someone else. But S2 just did a speedrun of that character arc because he was immediately outed, and the Orange Steves were ok with the truth. So why was there so much stress on Rainbow’s secret when it wasn’t going to impact the plot anyways??

Anyways, then they did their side quest of helping Ghost Steve (which was a valid thing to do), which led to the Faceless sideplot. And immediately after Faceless’ defeat (with hints of Void’s debut), Reverse and Dark just came in and destroyed everything. Not even a moment to breathe. They just caught Rainbow and Sabre off guard. This makes these two look easily distracted. They should had done better to prepare for Reverse and Dark (especially since they asked Leader to help increase defenses in the Rainbow Hub).

Like, there’s a difference between struggling with your new responsibilities as a hero and being just completely uncapable, and it felt like Sabre and Rainbow were the latter.

And finally, for once, Sabre did something proactive and found Light Steve, bringing him to the library to get help. But they got side tracked and decided to go investigate Nightmare’s “death”. But was that even relevant to rescuing Rainbow?

And then they went to the Void (proactive), but they were just pushed around, given a villain monologue by Nightmare until Galaxy saved them (reactive, deus ex machima)

Basically.....S2 sacrificed its main plot of having Orange adjust to being Rainbow in favor of all of these subplots that were made to set up the third season (which will probably be about Void Steve), and I dislike this approach. It makes S2 feel chaotic and unfocused. It felt like the heroes accomplished nothing. It seemed like things were handed to them too easily (help from Ghost Steve, the Orange Steves, and Galaxy), or they were completely unprepared and not suitable to be heroes (not even getting a chance to save Steves and fight villains until later).

And worst of all, this arc just made the heroes look reactive, bending to the will of the villains. We didn’t get a good story of Rainbow learning how to adjust to his new life as the hero. We didn’t get a story of Rainbow learning how to be brave. Instead, we got a story of villains always having the upperhand and the heroes looking silly trying to stop them last minute. And a bunch of events/subplots that weren’t even connected well together.

It’s just really hectic.

And it’s a shame. Because the content IS good. But the way the season was structured and what it chose to focus on...just ruined the story.

So....yeah.

I really disliked the Reverse Steve arc. The Void and Galaxy arc better make up for it, so I can forgive its setup for ruining the Reverse Steve arc.

Disclaimer: I’m aware that the Void Steve arc isn’t the third season, but another part of the second season. Keep in mind that these reaction posts are just my initial reactions and opinions and me explaining them. Rn I’m behind on Rainbow Quest and trying to record my genuine first reactions as I binge-watch this stuff. Overall, these posts aren’t meant to be about facts or theorizing what the future episodes will be about, but me just discussing my thoughts on these episodes as they are (and people are of course welcomed to join the discussion regardless of their opinions). Just wanna clarify in case anyone is confused XD

#reaction #rainbow quest #rainbow quest spoilers #negative #analysis

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