The Quest for the Legends

The Mark/Alan battle of chapter 37 is officially finished!

The chapter is now at twenty-one pages total, with that one battle taking up a full thirteen. My longest battles ever before that, the Gym battles of chapter 32, were some eight or nine pages each. So yeah, definitely my longest battle ever. That was excruciating.

On the plus side, it may also be my best traditional Pokémon battle ever, what with the variety of moves, the fact there are actually some non-damaging attacks used quite frequently (fancy that), and how the switching stirs things up and steers the battle nicely away from that boring old format where trainer X's Pokémon faints, he sends out something with a type advantage that wins, and the other trainer does the same, repeat for the rest of the battle.

So now… well, I'll just have to write a transition scene, and then it's Carl battle time. Since that's two simultaneous three-on-threes, it should not become that horribly long, although I highly suspect that all in all it will end up longer than chapter 32 (26 pages) and thus rob the title of longest chapter of this fic ever. Oh well. At least you'll be getting something somewhat worth all the time it took quantity-wise.

And happily, now I think I may very well manage to finish it before the new year, even though I was doubting it as late as just earlier today. Then I went on mega-writing-spree-of-doom and wrote some four pages of battle in one sitting (and yes, that is a lot on my scale, at least when it comes to battles - it's less than I was writing per day in the latter half of NaNoWriMo, yes, but that was philosophical pondering about the rules of Scyther society, not two Pokémon trainers battling). Unfortunately this means it's five AM right now (officially ruining my plans of going to bed early), so I think I'd better stop babbling on in this blog and go to sleep already.

At least, the most annoying part of the chapter is done, which demands some celebration. Cookies for all.

Congrats.

One question, though, if you hate writing battle scenes, then why is the majority of the fic battles?

…because it's not? o_O Seriously, where are you getting that from? Out of the thirty-seven chapters of the ILCOE, only twenty-four of them contain any battling at all, and on average the battles take up less than half of each chapter (in fact, in that number I counted a few chapters where the battling consists of a couple of paragraphs). Assuming that it's around half, less than a third of the fic so far consists of battles, and that's probably an overestimation. I routinely just say "They traveled through the forest and battled some wild Pokémon on the way" specifically so that I won't have to write it, and the number of random trainers they've encountered and battled in all 37 chapters can be counted on the fingers of one hand. I write long stretches where there are no battles at all or maybe a couple of short ones and the characters are just talking and developing the plot. Read just about any other trainer fic, and it will contain far more battling than mine does. Heck, I sometimes worry that action-loving readers get bored of my lack of battles.

Okay, so when I meant "majority" I didn't mean it literally. I didn't count how many battle scenes there were in the entire fic per chapter, like you did. What I meant was, to me, it seems that instead of the battle scenes fueling the plot, the plot fuels the battle scenes. All trainer fics are essentially battling, battling, battling, and the legendary capturing plot of the fic seems like an excuse for "let's include as many epic legendary battles as we can". I'm not saying that's what you thought as you wrote the fic, but it's what I'm thinking as I read the fic. There is a /lot/ of battling in the fic, at least for someone who hates writing battles.

The problem with the battles is that trainer fics tend to lend themselves to being as much about the battles as possible. You said that it was much easier to write Scyther's Story than it was TQFTL because SS was mostly philisophical musings, right? Well, you're an amazing writer, and I'd definitely like to see more from you, but the thing is, I don't particularly enjoy /reading/ battle scenes anyway. Maybe you should make the ILCOE be the last revision and then start something new? Maybe something not pokemon related?

I'm not trying to tell you what to do, and I'm probably waaaaay in the minority, but yeah, I'm the same way as a writer and a reader, this is just my suggestions. The fic is great, by the way. Keep up the good work.

One more question: About how many chapters are you going to make?

No matter how many battles I'll have to write for it, I love this fic, its characters and the underlying points to bits. If I didn't, I'd have given up on it already. And no matter how much I may complain about battles that I have to write, I'm more than willing to endure it for this story, and I really mean that.

I don't dislike battles per se - just the process of writing them. I keep putting in battles where I wouldn't technically have to - Mark and Alan's battle is completely unnecessary in itself if you go into that, but I really want to have it there for the characters' sakes, and as I said I'm very satisfied with it. What bothers me is how long it takes to get them down in words. Every time I write a battle, I look up the Pokémon that's been sent out in Veekun's Pokédex, see the moves it learns, figure out what the trainer would use, sit for a moment figuring out how the attack could be written out, find out what the other trainer/Pokémon would do to counter it, and then try to describe effectively what's going on, and this is repeated for every turn of the battle. It's a process that's a lot slower and a lot more manual than writing a non-battling scene, and because it's so slow it gets frustrating when the battle never seems to end. I often love the end result, and I know that they wouldn't be half as good if I were lazy and didn't take so much time writing them.

The battles need to be there and I want them to be there, and although putting in a battle purely for the sake of having a battle is something I do decidedly less of than perhaps most other trainer fics, there is plenty that can be accomplished in a battle for the plot and characters. And as it happens this is a story where battles can have a lot of importance to the plot and characters. I have nothing against such stories. It's not as if I look at every battle I write and wince simply because it's a battle. It's just the manual work that goes into getting the battles down on paper that gets me frustrated.

Oh, yeah, forgot your question. In the rough chapter plan I have right now, I've got everything that happens up to chapter 53 more or less down, but the story is nowhere near over at that point so odds are it will end up with at least 70 chapters in all.

Alright, that's awesome. Seems like you put a lot of effort into your writing, and it shows. Good luck with actually finishing the fic! :D

I believe the amount of battle scenes is not as important as the plot, the plot is the substance. The battles are needed in order to help advance the plot and fuel the intensity of the fic.
I am happy that you are incorporating advanced battle strategy into the fic, this shows the evolution in Mark's battle strategy, as well as Alan's. If this continues, you may include more abilities and the strategies linked to them (I hope).
Interesting, you seem to have this well planned out. I will keep close tabs on the total page count and be a faithful reader to the end. This epic fic will be my favorite by far! On a more serious note, I would like to know the fic's theme, I want to evaluate how well the fic gets the theme across.