Afterward

May 21, 2013

“This idiot again?”

    And once more, here we are.

    I’d like to thank you, the reader, for sticking with me for this journey. It’s been a long and winding road, for sure, but we made it! This one has taken a long time, almost a year and a half, since I started writing. Easily twice the time it took me to write book one, so it’s a bit of a shock to have finally reached the end of it. I started posting the chapters of book two over a year ago (at the time of this writing), so I’m flattered that so many of you stuck with me for the entire duration. Thank you, both for your faith in me as a writer, and for the constant feedback that helps me improve.

    I want to thank to two people who accompanied me for this ENTIRE journey: my editors, Corwyn and The Mechanic. Corwyn acted as my technical editor, finding as many little oversights, misspellings, and grammatical errors as possible. Yes, as some responders to my stories have noted, some things slipped through the cracks, but trust me when I say it would have been far FAR worse had it not been for Corwyn. As for The Mechanic… I have nothing but gratitude for him. He helped me massage and tweak and work over this story from beginning to end. He helped me with dialog, he helped me with ideas, and occasionally he had to smack me upside the head to realize that some things just wouldn’t work. Some of the most wonderful twists and turns in this story were thanks to his feedback, and he helped me work out the dialog in many places (most notably the final farewell for Sunset Sparkle/Ultrapony). So a huge thanks to these two. Were it not for them, A New Breed wouldn’t have been half the story it was.

    I’d also like to thank my mother. Even though I am long past the stage of living at home (hell, I’m about to turn 40!) she has been supportive of not just my fascination with these little colorful ponies, but encouraging my exploration of the written medium. She has supported me in every creative medium I have ever attempted, even when she doesn’t “understand” it, and her continued support has always been extremely helpful and encouraging. I’d also like to thank my father, who unexpectedly read my story and provided me with rather interesting and detailed feedback. It still amuses me he knew nothing about the show, and yet was able to believe the world as I spun it in my story. I found that to be one of the single biggest compliments of my work. I can only thank both my parents for not being “normal”, and encouraging me to break the mold and forge my own path through life, for good or for ill.

    Of course I MUST thank Lauren Faust, “Sibsy”, Daniel Ingram, and all those from DHX and Hasbro who worked on this silly little show. Thank you for making a jaded forty year old ex-navy man fall in love with these candy colored little ponies, you deserve nothing but thanks and love.

    Now book two here was a big shift from the rather straight forward story I told in the first book. My outline for this one is a huge, convoluted thing with all sorts of back references and arrows pointing every which way. I practically needed a flowchart to follow some of my own ideas! Not surprisingly, a lot of things changed in the process of going from the beginning to the end, some of them necessitated by the show itself. I know more than one reader suggested that I separate myself from the show that inspired me, but I struggled to keep the canon intact for the entire duration. Unfortunately, as astute readers no doubt already guessed, Season 3 blew that idea out of the water. My story cannot go back and encompass “Princess Twilight”, no matter how hard I try. It can’t happen. So, as of Season 3, I have to split myself off from the source material. As you may have guessed, the Season Finale simply cannot work with my tale. I have too many references and moments of regret that Twilight Sparkle was not given an Apotheosis… which is exactly what happened in said finale. In addition, I have to ignore the episode of the Magic Duel, Trixie’s return and subsequent reformation. While one of the better episodes, it goes directly against the canon of the little universe I have defined, where Trixie went and essentially poured herself into the study of magic, always intent on humiliating and overcoming her “rival”, and only when Twilight had passed did she realize the futility of it and become the “Great and Apologetic Trixie”. Beyond that, however, I tried to keep all of the canon intact. I will TRY to keep the canon intact from future seasons, but I highly doubt I’ll be able to, simply because of “Princess Twilight”. No, I’m not going to opine about the decision from the show, this little bit of writing isn’t about that, but it does make a hard dividing line that cannot be crossed from the show to my fiction.

    That said, there were many changes from my original plans to this story as it came out. Some of the ones I think you’d find amusing/interesting ones are:

Originally Mare-Do-Well was going to be Celestia in disguise

Clockwork Key’s downward spiral was originally going to be much more prolonged, and include a period where she went rogue from the team. MDW was going to be the impetus that brought her back into the fold….

Clockwork and Galaxi weren’t going to actually hook up until Book 3

The entire “dead foal” scene for Bunsen Burner nearly caused one of my editors to revolt. Children/foals being killed was one of his big “do not cross” lines. Fortunately he really liked how the scene came out in the end, and offered a bevy of ideas to enhance it.

Qaugga, not Relic, was originally planned to be the element bearer. He was also considered for the element Junkyard earned.

Alto’s original code name was to be “Skytalon”. I ditched that when I realized the whole code name thing was falling apart this book… it worked better in book 1.

Originally the animated suit from Clockwork’s psychotic break was going to play a larger and longer role in Clockwork’s decline.

Celestia having PTSD surprised even me when I first wrote it, it was not pre-planned.

Originally there was going to be a seventh member of Kaos’ team, a disgruntled imp named “Screech”. I removed him early on, but he was going to be a psychic to counter Galaxi.

Honey originally had no name, and was intended to be completely ungrateful for Clockwork’s timely save. The Mechanic convinced me she would be a perfect ear to bend, and Honey was born, with Indigo (her daughter) shortly thereafter.

    There were many other things that changed as I went, of course, but as much of that was simply due to better ideas surfacing as, as well as the characters deciding to speak up and insist on going one way when I had originally planned on a different route. I’ve always heard that’s a sign of a good story, when the characters start telling it to you what they’re doing … and the mares (and a few times the stallions) certainly had a lot to say about their directions in the story. There were times I felt like I was taking dictation more than I was writing original fiction. Yes, I know full well how crazy that sounds...

    And so, we are at the end of Book Two. Book Three will be along in due time, but I need some time to recharge the creative batteries. I’ve been at this book for over a year now (close to a year and a half) and I need a break from writing before I burn out completely. But the girls WILL be back for the next book, which promises to be the conclusion. I never originally intended it to be a trilogy, but it looks like that’s where we’re going, doesn’t it? Celestia knows, I don’t think I’d have the energy for a book four.

    So once more, thank you for sticking with me for this long strange trip, and watch this space, the ponies will return… in due time.

    - Polecat

    PS – Once again I apologize to those who were fooled by my “April Fool’s Day” joke. The story “42” is not dead, but it is in hibernation. I cannot see coming back to it until the completion of New Breed. I do thank Kkat for pointing people my direction when I posted it, and I hope he/she can laugh at (or at least understand) the nature of the joke as I intended it. I do appreciate those readers who stuck around afterwards and supported this fiction.