Hey, remember the Don’t Read in the Closet Event? What was it this year? Love Is An Open Road? Honestly I’m not reading the stories yet, but you may also recall that I personally submitted a story request! And while the author who chose it was one that I was merely lukewarm about last year, I was excited when I saw that it was up already, so I figured I’d take a break from The Mapmakers and give it a go.

But between my Expectations, and the fact that I already knew I didn’t love the author, there was pretty much no way that I was going to like this story.

And I don’t.

It’s not bad, per se, it’s just…not really good. I’m still lukewarm on the author’s style (there was a comment somewhere about last year’s story being very unusual for her, so I hoped, but no), and I am having a really hard time adjusting to the fact that I agonized over making my “dear author” letter so that it should inspire hilarity and shenanigans, with a minimum of angsting, but the author apparently missed all of that and wrote a dull story of a whiny prince with brothers whom he doesn’t seem to like much, a council with too much control, and serious concerns over the king’s continued health.

It’s so different from what I wanted that I have to pretend that it wasn’t my suggestion that inspired it in the first place, but then, it’s so mediocre that if I’m not reading it because it’s “my” story, then I would not, in fact, be reading it.

So I stopped about half-way.

And of course, now I feel like an utter asshole, because here is someone who took a gift of inspiration, and made something that they were entirely free to make with it (and which I’m sure will acquire its own fans), and yet I’m bitching about it on my blog (which, yes, mostly no one reads) because it wasn’t exactly what I expected them to do with it. And also does not align with the idea I had in my head for the story. Not even a little.

I suppose I could have not fleshed out tidbits of it in my head already, thereby limiting my expectations, but I doubt I could have made the initial ‘letter’ if I hadn’t at least a minimal concept of what I wanted it to look like. I don’t know that I’ve ever thought of a story idea, and not immediately shuffled together at least two chapters worth of stuff for it. I never write that shit down, but it exists in my head.

And I spent a long time looking for a picture of a prince who was not overtly a knight or a mage (picture says ‘scholar’ to me), but I guess I needn’t have bothered, since the prince is a mage. Next time I’m going with the first picture that’s at all genre-related and then throwing words at the screen. Maybe I’ll use the predictive-text suggestions, even. Then I won’t be attached to the resulting inspiration letter, and my Expectations may be more in line with reality.

But I still feel bad for hacking on the story, so I’m not going to link it.